Malkinius
Posts: 1584
Joined: 1/9/2004
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greetings ravn....
quote:
ORIGINAL: ravn
Greetings my Master, Masters, Mistresses, Free, and fellow kajirae,
As most know, this girl was not allowed in her previous collar to read the books (not entirely sure why, but this one never questioned, it was safer that way, lol). She is however, reading them at the wishes of her current Master and her own desire to read them. This girl is simply asking one thing- is there a way to read John Norman and not tear one's hair out from the repetition?
Be well,
In service,
ravn
I think the answer to your first question is that your former Master didn't want you to learn anything about what is actually in the books that he didn't tell you which usually means he wanted you to only have misinformation if any accurate information.
To clear up some misinformation. Norman wasn't paid by the word for the first few books or they wouldn't be the shortest books of the series. Yes, to some extent back then authors could be paid by the length of the books but often they were edited to fit the size the publisher wanted to publish and that usually meant being cut to size. All the professional authors I know who have novels published, until they get popular enough to get a contract that lets them out of it as Norman did, get told to cut X number of words, to fit the page count. (Publishing aside: All books have an even number of pages usually divisible by 8, 16, 32 or even 64 depending on the size of the press and how many pages per printed sheet on the press. Publishers don't like blank pages and will cut or pad a book to fit or in some cases put ads for other books in the back to fill out the page count.)
Norman did say the same things many times. This is very true. He reused the same general plot line in several books with different settings perhaps too many times tho that changes by the last half of the series. When you read the books out of order I have found it is worse than reading them in order. I recently finished all 26 in order and without the interruption of other books. Oddly enough, the very same writing I had been complaining about read better this way and I could see the plot progression through all the books. It really is all one big story line with several diversions along the way. I know the writing didn't change over the decades I have been reading the books. It still read smoother and the story line flowed even with the repetitions and the repetitions were not as noticeable.
So...my advice is read them once, preferably in order, for the story line and then read them again, definitely in order, for the information and content within the books that is not the superficial story. Just keep going and it will get easier. Even the slow part of Witness from about page 50 to 150/200 read faster this time and I had real problems getting through that section the first time I read the book. Just keep going. It is worth it.
be well....
Malkinius
_____________________________
A questioner by inclination...An Auctioneer for the fun of it
http://www.HouseMalkinius.com The goal is beauty.
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ahh! ::tears hair out:: - 
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