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Old 07-17-2018, 05:07 AM   #36
gmw
cacoethes scribendi
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There are fix-ups and then there are fix-ups. As the Wikipedia article notes, some are obviously short-story "cycles" rather than novels, such as Asimov's I, Robot. Others - not mentioned in Wikipedia but relevant to my point - like Asimov's Foundation come together to form a natural and consistent chronology; it's still arguable whether it forms a distinct novel, as such, but at least everything fits together.

Dandelion Wine was obviously "fixed-up" to try and turn it into novel form - and for my tastes that was a mistake. I'd rather have read it as a collection of separate but related stories rather than being tantalised with links that don't hold up for a novel. That is: trying to pretend there is a novel where there isn't just gives the reader the wrong idea and sets them up for disappointment. Keep it as obviously distinct stories and the reader doesn't go looking for links that are not there.
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