Let's Play Ketchup!

[beautyizdead]

I am reading the 9th book in a book series but it drives me insane that they keep going over and over and over again and again about what happened in the last book, as well as the other books before that. Do I need to be reminded what happened?! It makes me crazy. I want to meet the person that picks up the 9th book in a series and reads from there

Comments

[unusualdemoness]

Ug, I hate when writers do that! Unfortunately a lot of authors writing series' do. Since there's usually about a year between books I guess they want to make sure you haven't forgotten anything.

[muse_books]

I think this is true.

I actually like this if I have had a gap.

However, I also think that a lot of people do pick up books mid-series and having some exposition re back story is probably something the publishers insist upon so that people don't feel lost.

[yael_heiman]

I like what Tad Williams did in Otherland. He rehashes the previous book BEFORE, rather than IN, the story.

[emploding]

What book/series is it?

[bigendermedian]

Yeah, that's pretty annoying. I like having a short (at most 10 pages, preferably more like 5) recap, or even a character glossary, but when authors try to mix recaps through the entire story, that's really irritating.

Is your icon the false Maria from Metropolis? It sure looks like her!

[tabular_rasa]

Ooh I dislike this as well. Seriously, if you're going to pick up a book in the middle of the series, it's your own fault if you don't know what's going on.

[helbling]

+1 to this. I say rehash only if the character's attitude towards past incidents have changed since we last saw them.

[l_o_lostshadows]

I hate that too.

I think the first series I really noticed it in was HP. When Harry first appears, he can't help but brood on the events of the last several books. *snore*

[tabular_rasa]

I think the first series I really noticed it in was HP.I noticed it strongly in HP, too; it was really bad in CoS and PoA-- and I remember being annoyed with PoA in particular since by then Harry Potter was this worldwide phenomenon and I thought (and still think) there was no excuse for not knowing which book came first and reading them in order. (And if you picked up one of the books post-2000 without already knowing Harry Potter was a wizard who attended a school for magic called Hogwarts, you probably had to be living in a cardboard box floating in the middle of the Indian Ocean, lol

[l_o_lostshadows]

By book three I'd entered automatic skim mode. Harry starts brooding, I skim 'til something new shows up.

Old comic books are bad about this too. Okay, it's only issue three, but is how exactly the Avengers formed really that important? The recap page was the best thing that ever happened to comics. :)

[youjik33]

He didn't brood nearly enough about Sirius. Nobody did. They sorta forgot about him so they could all turn into bad romance fanfiction.