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Old 11-16-2010, 08:00 PM   #33
SlowRain
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SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.SlowRain knows what is on the back of the AURYN.
 
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Location: a Canadian expat in Taiwan
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French and SeaBookGuy, I think both of you have sort of experienced what I'm getting at, however in a different way. By knowing how many pages there were in total, your experiences were ones of disappointment because you had expectations of the story being longer. Still, you had no idea the stories would end when they truly did. How would you have reacted to the novels if you hand't known in the first place they would be 700 and 1,200 pages long?

I don't expect this idea to gain wide acceptance, but I do think there's a great opportunity here and I encourage people to try it. Two people have used excellent words that I think describe the possibilities: restless and disorienting. I don't expect all people to enjoy it, but I really would like people to give it a serious couple of tries.

To give everyone an example from last night: I'm reading a novel that had a sea battle. Like elemenoP, I didn't read the blurb, so I had no idea what the story was about when I started reading. It has been going on for a while, and certainly the climax could come at any moment. I had no idea if last night's sea battle would be the end or not. It added an element of uncertainty. It turns out the battle was not the end and the adventure will go on. (I'm going to leave the title nameless because it may be a spoiler for the novel, and I obviously don't like spoilers.)

It's the idea of knowing as little about the novel as possible so as to achieve the maximum amount of suspense. As mentioned previously, not reading the blurb is one way, especially useful with authors we've come to trust or with recommendations from friends we've come to trust. Not having people tell you any spoilers or how it ends is another way (don't we all hate spoilers). Not knowing what page the the e-book will end on is yet another way to take out a very obvious gauge of what will or won't be happening in the next few pages.
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