Don't Lie. You'd Read It.

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Buggrit. I hate it when I charge headlong into a book only to find out it’s the third in a series. Whatever happened to book covers that helpfully told you that the title you were holding was "Book 3 in the wildy awesome Sorcerizer's Sidekick series!" or whatever?

At least this book has a page listing the other books in the series. Is it just me, or is that tradition falling by the wayside?* How am I supposed to know if The Sorcerizer's Shadow comes before Dragonbloodsword of the Star Throne or after it? It's not like it tells you on the cover, for chrissake. I am reduced to making educated guesses by publication dates. And hell, without a page like that, I don't even know I'm missing Book Two, The Sorcerizer vs. Samson, The Silver-Masked Man.

Thank god for the internet, I guess. And thank god for libraries that actually have the first books in series. That makes it a little better.


*And for God's sake, knock it off with the red-thing-on-black-background, tormented teenager, and abstract book covers! I want a splash illustration with lots of shiny colors and so much activity it looks like the book is showing you all the scenes at once, dammit! DON'T TELL ME I MISSED IT BEFORE I COULD PUBLISH MY OWN BOOK, YOU BASTARDS.

Comments

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

Those are some of my pet peeves. What makes the reading the third one in first worst is that I find I tend to not like the earlier ones as well, because the writer's abilities have grown. If I'd read them in order, I would have been fine with the first ones!

Our library is notorious for not having all the books in a series, which drives me batshit. I ended up buying the middle volume of the original Kushial trilogy because they didn't have it, and I REFUSED to read the 3rd before the 2nd.

[baby-rissa-chan.livejournal.com]

That plus reading the third one first tends to give away a lot of the plot points for earlier books since they keep referring back to stuff that already happened.