It seems to me that though publishers love series franchise,
they hate dependent books. Many people, and it's obvious from
this discussion, won't read a book until they've read all the
earlier related books and this can really slow sales. Of
course, once you've got one hot seller and people are
clamoring for the further adventures, everything's different.
Still, according to his agent, Ellroy's publisher was very
negative about LA CONFIDENTIAL when he turned it in at 800
pages. They said he had to cut out 20,000 words and that was
how he developed that staccato voice: he cut out most of the
conjunctions and adverbs. Of course when that sold well and
became a hit movie they were perfectly happy to let him go
off on the LA trilogy previously mentioned. None of those
have been bought by the movies yet, right?
The real difference between the early Perry Mason
stories and the later ones is technology. In the early books
Mason would enter crime scenes with "skeleton keys" which
apparently opened anyone's lock. Later his behavior, while
still fairly unethical, became a little more realistic. Mason
was a character who seemed to have no other life outside of
his law office. That's a sprawling series and I don't think
it matters at all where you start it.
Patrick King
--- On Sun, 6/22/08, Stephen Burridge <
stephen.burridge@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Stephen Burridge <
stephen.burridge@gmail.com> Subject: Re: RARA-AVIS:
Reading Series in Order? To:
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com Date: Sunday, June 22, 2008,
4:01 PM
I guess there are a couple of distinct issues here: (1) are
the author's books related in such a way that enjoyment of
later ones depends to some extent on familiarity with earlier
ones; and (2) what is the best way to become familiar with an
author's body of work. With respect to (2), I often opt for
reading an author's books in order of publication, once I've
decided I want to read a bunch or all of them. With respect
to (1) I'm more relaxed than some people. As long as a book
works as a self-contained unit, I don't mind if I'm missing
out on development of themes and characters introduced
earlier. If I'm interested enough, I can always go back and
fill in that aspect of things.
Stephen
On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 10:26 PM, Patrick King
<abrasax93@yahoo. com> wrote:
> --- On Sat, 6/21/08, Stephen Burridge
<stephen.burridge@ gmail.com<stephen.burridge%
40gmail.com> >
> wrote:
>
> I have been re-reading Hammett myself. So far I've
read the the Richard
> Laymon biography, followed by "The Maltese Falcon",
"The Glass Key" and
> "Red
> Harvest". It doesn't seem to me that the order
matters.
>
> ************ ********* ********* ********* *********
********* **
> Certainly with regard to Hammett's stories it
doesn't matter at all. But
> the evolving themes of wealthy dysfunctional
families, insane femme fatales,
> and corrupt professionals evolves distinctly from
RED HARVEST to THE THIN
> MAN. A similar series of themes exists in Chandler
especially regarding
> sisters. There are opposing sisters or at least
female doppelgangers in
> every Marlow adventure.
>
> Patrick King
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 22 Jun 2008 EDT