RARA-AVIS: Re: Reading Series in Order?

From: J.C. Hocking ( jchocking@yahoo.com)
Date: 22 Jun 2008


I will always read a series in order if it's at all possible. Actual chronological detail and progression isn't necessarily visible in the stories themselves, but you are usually getting a slightly updated approach by the author to his or her material. Sometimes this is negligible or non-existent, say in very prolonged series, but even then what the author brings to the books will evolve. Shell Scott's adventures might have almost no chronological connections from one to the next, but you can't tell me that 1950's Case of the Vanishing Beauty doesn't feel different than 1975's The Sure Thing.

I try not to be obsessive about it, but the only time I'll read a series out of chronological order is when I find that the early stories are so weak that I'm tempted to quit, and there are people I respect telling me the books get much better later.

John

      



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