Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
P.S. I promise not to lie about having read it or not, if you promise not to waste time trying to thwart the "not part of any series" rule through the usual semantic hooey.
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Sensing some of the usual semantic hooey brewing.
Here's my definition of stand-alone: The fictional characters and/or fictional setting/universe have not--at
this point in time--been reused in any other books. Books that stand alone today can have their stand-alone status revoked tomorrow if the author decides to revisit those characters/settings.
Everyone's free to have their own definitions of course, but for this exercise, that's what I envision for rule six.
Exclusion of a work based on that criteria should not be taken as any form of derision or condescension. I just prefer true "one-off" works the majority of the time.
Now, having said that... I've discovered that
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle was originally published in Japan in three separate books. It was later published as one book in the English translation. I'm feeling a little conflicted over that fact, but I've already started and taken a bit of a shine to it.