Statute of Limitations
Feb. 15th, 2011 03:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysThis is one of those topics I know I've considered before but it does have a habit of repeating itself. Just how many times do you give a book a try before deciding that it is unreadable and shelve it uncompleted? In other words, how many times do you pick it up, struggle to read a few pages and then decide that there are better things to do?
I know I've become more inclined to ditch a book part way through as I have got older. But there are other factors at work. One of those factors is expectation. What if the book is by an author whose work you have read before and enjoyed a great deal. What if the new volume is set in the same world with the same characters as that previous good volume. Does that make a difference?
Just for the record, the author in question is P.C. Hodgell. I enjoyed her first book God Stalk to the extent that if I were the sort of person to create a top-ten list of favourite fantasy novels then it would be on it. There was a sequel which wasn't as good. Then her books became unavailable (i.e. not published). But Baen have picked her up and the book I have been failing to read is the fourth set in this universe. But it is so full of detail mostly surrounding the genealogical world building that things like plot or character have been shunted aside. The book lacks balance between the various elements.
I reckon that I could have taken twenty tries to get going and failed every time after a few pages. Too generous?
I know I've become more inclined to ditch a book part way through as I have got older. But there are other factors at work. One of those factors is expectation. What if the book is by an author whose work you have read before and enjoyed a great deal. What if the new volume is set in the same world with the same characters as that previous good volume. Does that make a difference?
Just for the record, the author in question is P.C. Hodgell. I enjoyed her first book God Stalk to the extent that if I were the sort of person to create a top-ten list of favourite fantasy novels then it would be on it. There was a sequel which wasn't as good. Then her books became unavailable (i.e. not published). But Baen have picked her up and the book I have been failing to read is the fourth set in this universe. But it is so full of detail mostly surrounding the genealogical world building that things like plot or character have been shunted aside. The book lacks balance between the various elements.
I reckon that I could have taken twenty tries to get going and failed every time after a few pages. Too generous?