New "old" way of distributing a novel

[Nerds_feather]

Sorry for the Scalzibomb lately, but I thought this was very interesting. Basically he's returning to the Old Man's War universe with a serialized novel made up of "episodes," which are self-contained stories that fit together into a narrative. Novels have been serialized before, and there are some very famous books that link short stories together into a narrative. But I think this is still an interesting approach that takes advantage of the ebook format, and may open up some new possibilities for authors and publishers working in SF/F. More thoughts and opinions here:

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2012/07/alert-new-book-in-old-mans-war-universe.html

How do you guys/girls feel about this?

 

[Vertigo]

Well I'm certainly not suggesting that Scalzi cannot do it but I did recently read the first book of the Mongoliad by Neal Stephenson et al.. This book was originally serialised and then later brought together and published as a series of books. Unfortunately the serialisation had resulted in a very specific style; each episode ended with a cliff-hanger which might be fine for a serialisation but really didn't work so well in a book. And there was no real ending (to the first book anyway); it just stopped with nothing finished off, no ends tied up, and in fact many story strands just getting started.

Maybe Scalzi's won't suffer the same fate if, as you suggest, each episode is stand alone. Also I think the Mongoliad suffered from having no less than seven authors.

Bottom line, apart from one or two aspects, I found the Mongoliad dreadful and that in turn makes me wary of similar projects.

 

[Nerds_feather]

That's an interesting point. Of course no reason why it has to be like that...given the right amount of planning. I'm thinking about the example of comic books, which sometimes get pilloried for the opposite reason: being written to be read in one go, but then cut up into serialized issues.

I've been curious about the mongoliad, but it'll have to wait. I'm currently reading (and enjoying) Abraham's The Dragon's Path and then have the first Witcher "novel" (really a collection of connected short stories) on queue.

 

[Vertigo]

Well I'm afraid I'm pretty scathing about the Mogoliad. It really did feel like there had been 7 authors; massively inconsistent in the writing. And as I say, I was horrified at the ending of the first book as everything, and I mean everything, was left hanging. I don't think there was a single plot line that was resolved at the end of that first book. And there were a lot that had literally only just started when the book ended. Frankly I was disgusted and consider it to have been pure wasted money. I may still give Stephenson a chance on his own as many people have said good things about him, but this has certainly soured my opinion.

The one and only thing that was any good was the descriptions of some of the fighting. And so it should be given the genesis of the Mongoliad. Stephenson decided he should know more about the real technicalities of medieval sword fighting (and other weapons as well) so he joined a medieval western martial arts club. Persuaded a few author friends to do the same and then they had the idea of creating the serialised Mongoliad. I think he may have only met some of the authors at the club. So, as one would, hope the fight descriptions were very detailed (possibly too much so) and (I trust) very accurate.

On agreggate though it was probably the most disappointing book I have read in the last 12 months.

 

[Brian G Turner]

How do you guys/girls feel about this?

I seem to recall Stephen King trying this out via eBook, releasing every chapter episodically. And then refused to continue after the first few.

 

[Vertigo]

Now that would be a major worry about reading serially. I'm reluctant to start a series until it is all written.

By the way I trust that should have been 'recall Stephen...'

 

[clovis-man]

Even in the "old days" it didn't always work that well. Frank Herbert's Dune was originally serialized in Analog magazine. Further, it was divided into two halves: the first three "episodes" were under the title, Dune World. It was published starting December 1963. The second half, entitled The Prophet of Dune, was broken into five segments starting in January of 1965. The breakdown of episodes and "halves" made no sense whatsoever. Those reading it were resigned to just waiting for all the pieces to be revealed so the complete story could be known. The only real purpose served was to bump up the sales of Analog and get the readership aware of the downsizing of the magazine into a smaller format.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Yeah it's not for everyone, but in this case I think they have a very clear plan and, as I understand it, it's nearly all written already.

Heard one chapter at the Redshirts reading, and have to say, it was great...and a lot better than Redshirts.