I am thinking about the buying habits of readers, and trying to subdivide them into several categories, in relation to a single author's works
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Series: a story that plays out over multiple books, or that follows the same general cast through various adventures. Setting: all the books take place in the same world/universe Character: books that involve a particular character
These certainly overlap, but they don't always. To use Micah as an example:
A "series fan" might read say, the Dreamhealers books.
A "character fan" of Jahir and/or Vasiht'h fan would want to read the Dreamhealers books and the Princes' Game books, because they all have those two characters.
A "setting fan" would read all the Pelted books: Dreamhealers, Princes' Game, Earthrise, Alysha, etc.
Pratchett did this too. There are books about the guards, and books about Vimes, some of whichinclude the other guards but some don't, and books about the witches, and standalones. So the Discworld was a setting, not a series (by this definition) because it had a bunch of different series and standalones set in it.
David Eddings wrote the Belgariad, which was one series/story arc, and then a second series in the same world, with the same main characters, but starting a new story arc.
I'm trying to think where Bujold's Vorkosiverse fits there. Mostly it's Miles, but it's also Cordelia for 3 books, and Ivan for one, and Ellie Quinn and Ethan of Athos, and the Quaddies. I don't really feel that it's got the flavor of the Discworld in the sense of setting? Maybe because the non-Miles books aren't always standalone... Shards of Honor/Barrayar are a duology, and Falling Free is a standalone, but while Ivan's book could stand alone, it's... so thoroughly enmeshed in... in Milesatude?
*flails*
(No, no, the Mallorean was the same story arc! It explicitly said it was a reprise, because of that prophecy thing doing a certain amount of "actually, you have to keep doing this till you get it right." Or something like that. I mostly just remember Velvet suborning that other fellow's snake and keeping it in her bodice. And Belgarion realizing that just because the prophecy said "one son" didn't mean that a bunch of little (dryad) daughters wasn't an option. And flying being like swimming -- you don't think about the depth of the water when you're only using the surface, or something. ...and actually rather a lot of tidbits from both books. >_> Not so much the Belgareth/Polgara books, though, because those were getting a little....... ehhhh.)
The Barrayar setting books are much more intermeshed than the Discworld ones are. Incidents in one book have a lot more consequences in others than occur (or would be plausible) in Discworld
Yeah, that's probably why I feel Barrayar/Vorkosiverse is more interwoven than Discworld, so am not quite comfortable with it being "setting" over "Series."
I suppose there's probably a vague category of "it doesn't feel like X, and it's all tied together, so..." O:>
Andre Norton's Witch World is a better example of "setting." It's one of two series where I don't recommend reading in order -- Discworld being the other.
Oh, point, that. ...I don't think I've ever read the first Witch World books, but I am extremely fond of Year of the Unicorn despite the title's bait-and-switch. (SPOILER! THERE ARE NO UNICORNS IN THIS BOOK. If you are a pre-teen who is a unicorn fanatic, YOU WILL FIND NO UNICORNS. On the other hand, shapeshifters.)
This reminds me of how annoyed I was by Anne McCaffrey's short story collection Get Off the Unicorn (the title of which is perhaps the most epic copyedit fail ever, but there still weren't unicorns in it EITHER WAY.)
I would tend to call Barrayar as a "setting" more in this sense, and Discworld, frankly, as more like "a collection of settings, inside of another larger setting".
This is actually a pretty good example of a place where I'm more of a character fan than anything, I guess. Because I've read most (all?) of the Watch "Setting" books, and almost none of the other books in the series.
I guess for me, I'm pretty flexible with "setting". If an author has described enough of the universe that stories in other parts of it can even be imagined, it's a "setting". Heh.
Series: a story that plays out over multiple books, or that follows the same general cast through various adventures.
Setting: all the books take place in the same world/universe
Character: books that involve a particular character
These certainly overlap, but they don't always. To use Micah as an example:
A "series fan" might read say, the Dreamhealers books.
A "character fan" of Jahir and/or Vasiht'h fan would want to read the Dreamhealers books and the Princes' Game books, because they all have those two characters.
A "setting fan" would read all the Pelted books: Dreamhealers, Princes' Game, Earthrise, Alysha, etc.
Pratchett did this too. There are books about the guards, and books about Vimes, some of whichinclude the other guards but some don't, and books about the witches, and standalones. So the Discworld was a setting, not a series (by this definition) because it had a bunch of different series and standalones set in it.
David Eddings wrote the Belgariad, which was one series/story arc, and then a second series in the same world, with the same main characters, but starting a new story arc.
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*flails*
(No, no, the Mallorean was the same story arc! It explicitly said it was a reprise, because of that prophecy thing doing a certain amount of "actually, you have to keep doing this till you get it right." Or something like that. I mostly just remember Velvet suborning that other fellow's snake and keeping it in her bodice. And Belgarion realizing that just because the prophecy said "one son" didn't mean that a bunch of little (dryad) daughters wasn't an option. And flying being like swimming -- you don't think about the depth of the water when you're only using the surface, or something. ...and actually rather a lot of tidbits from both books. >_> Not so much the Belgareth/Polgara books, though, because those were getting a little....... ehhhh.)
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I suppose there's probably a vague category of "it doesn't feel like X, and it's all tied together, so..." O:>
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This is actually a pretty good example of a place where I'm more of a character fan than anything, I guess. Because I've read most (all?) of the Watch "Setting" books, and almost none of the other books in the series.
I guess for me, I'm pretty flexible with "setting". If an author has described enough of the universe that stories in other parts of it can even be imagined, it's a "setting". Heh.
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