Quote:
Originally Posted by ZodWallop
I think there's a difference between an author writing books that require a reader to have read previous books to understand various plot points and an author dropping winking references for fans into their work.
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I think there's a difference, too. But unfortunately, one reader's "winking reference" might often be another's "requirement." The problem lies in the fact that people use their own sense of "
you don't really need to read X before Y" when conversing with others. It's understandable to do so, but ultimately not all that helpful (or transferable) to another reader. A more helpful statement would be something like, "I read Y without reading X. And while I didn't feel I was missing out on anything relevant by doing so, both books
are part of a shared universe, so your mileage may vary."
I absolutely
love Easter Eggs, inside jokes, winking references, and all the subtle things that can occur with even the most tenuous of connections between an author's various books (when read in such an order that those things reveal themselves in a chronologically "correct" manner). I would be saddened to find out that I missed out on any of those things by not knowing that the books were loosely connected (or part of a shared universe) in the first place, and starting with the wrong (wrong for me) book.