04-15-2012, 04:13 AM | #121 |
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JKR has Tom Clancy disease. Tom Clancy disease is when you are so popular you think (and in fact you can, to the detriment of the book) blow off your editor, or pick a weak one.
Main telltale symptom: books proceed from breakthrough novel and sequel of normal page count. Further additions to the series and other new books get progressively longer, when a good editor would have cut out all the fat and kept the story tight and moving. I dropped out of both JKR and Clancy around book 4 or 5. Compare against the LOTR trilogy: a six-part work in three books, each of approximately equal length. |
04-15-2012, 04:48 AM | #122 |
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I always thought the perceived wisdom in publishing was that it was supposed to be children who suffered from having short attention spans, not adults? Yet ironically it seems that it's always mainly adults who complain about the length of modern children's books (even before they've read them, half the time).
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04-15-2012, 02:29 PM | #123 | |
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The question might be whether the asides, descriptive passages and inessential complications add to the aesthetic enjoyment of the book; whether the quality of the insight and style are sufficient to make them worth including. Celine used to brag about cutting careful descriptions and inaction out of his books. "They say, 'he knits a nice sentence.' Me, I say it's unreadable." |
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04-15-2012, 02:50 PM | #124 | |
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04-15-2012, 06:33 PM | #125 |
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I was at B&N today and noticed a new Arthur Conan Doyle book that is published for the first time... it was the first novel he ever wrote (at the age of 23) and was never finished. It was very thin and probably came in at only 100-150 pages. Guess how much the Nook version is... $14.50! For a book written 130 years ago, that was unfinished and can be read in a couple hours.
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04-16-2012, 02:48 AM | #126 | |
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First with Clancy, then with Rowling. I don't know the cause: maybe being able to insist on a longer "author's cut", or not having time to make it shorter (tighten the prose and story) due to th need to publish to stay on the best seller lists, etc. Something happened, to the detriment of the later books. Of course this is reading the books with some attention and observation, not just using them as time-passing fodder. I imagine the later ones work fine if that is one's reading preference. This is my preference at times as well - for example, I just read the Hunger Games trilogy. I thought highly enough of both authors' early works to be disappointed by the evolution. Perhaps that is my issue: I had high expectations based on the early works that, to me, the later books did not fulfull. |
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04-16-2012, 12:15 PM | #127 |
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So you will obviously be reading Ms. Rowling's new work when it comes out, to see if she has "corrected" any of the problems you found in the early stuff ?
Especially as it is a new..."genre" ... for her ? |
04-16-2012, 12:27 PM | #128 | |
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It's not a matter of "corrected". She's able now to produce what she wants, fairly free of restraints or money concerns. Obviously there is a huge demand for what she generates. From that view, nothing needs correcting. She does what she likes, and the money rolls in. She is / has a "franchise." It just leaves me uninterested; I thought, based on the first two Potter books, there was a good chance the original books would become classics, albiet minor ones; rather than short-term sensations. |
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04-17-2012, 12:47 PM | #129 | |
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One man's meat .....
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I know I'd have to at least consider a story by, say, James Lee Burke, even if it was (on the surface at least) apparently about small-town politics in Louisiana ....... |
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09-24-2012, 10:31 PM | #130 |
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I was interested in her new book until I checked out the prices As an Australian shopping on Amazon I will be paying $24.34 over $6 more than the the same book on US amazon meanwhile I can go down to my local Big W and get it in hardcover for $20 when will Aussie publishers get a clue!
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09-25-2012, 12:22 PM | #131 | |
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09-25-2012, 12:50 PM | #132 |
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of course it's aimed at adults. Her fanbase has grown (though not much).
Next you're telling me it's another fantasy novel too. |
09-25-2012, 12:53 PM | #133 | |
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perhaps some of his grandsons finished the novel akin to Chris Tolkien? |
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09-25-2012, 07:51 PM | #134 | |
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One writer who suffers from lengthenitis is Elizabeth George. Her Lynley books keep getting longer and longer and more exhausting. If you look at her amazon listing, her star ratings keep going down. Her editor needs to step in and read her the riot act. |
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09-27-2012, 02:33 AM | #135 |
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Amazing difference between Amazon and B&N price
The price of the book on Amazon is 8.55$ and B&N Nook version is 17.99$
Logic? |
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