Continuity and Conformity

Now just take a look at those books there. 8 volumes by David Wingrove making up his Chung Kuo series. All those paperbacks are UK first editions, so you'd think they might all look somewhat similar. But no, someone from the publisher's marketing department decided to change the design twice during the initial publication of the series so I get a mixed looking shelf.

While that is slightly annoying to the pedants out there I'm more concerned about what goes between the covers than what's on them. Not in the case of this series actually (it just made a nice picture to illustrate the point) but of fantasy and science fiction series in general.

When watching a tv series you kind of expect things to alter between episodes as there are generally a whole raft of writers each tackling their own episodes. They all get written in parallel without the benefit of seeing what has come before so mistakes slip in. What bugs me though is when things change between books in a series with only one author.

I'm not just talking minor changes either - the odd spelling change to a character name I can forgive - but wholescale re-writing of history. I'm currently listening to Terry Brooks' Shanarra series and there are numerous examples where he changed the history of the four lands in writing the prequel - which was the eighth book to come out. Fandom has the name Retroactive Continuity for this and I'm not keen on the concept. If you've established a coherent world I do think you should stick with it no matter where in that world's timeline you are working. OK, so it may mean having to reign in some of the wilder imaginings but at then the author also has the challenge of keeping the suspension of disbelief going.

The only example I approve of is RetCon - the memory loss drug in Torchwood which at least makes a joke of the whole thing.

I'll talk about another pet hate of mine in fantasy literature another time (not one that stops me readingit though!)...

Wrote this and put in on the Llamasoft forum earlier today:

Sense Of Wonder.

So here I am at nearly 32, currently fed up with my job as it isn't challenging me at the moment (although that may change, I've been called to a meeting with my boss and his boss this afternoon about my work, hopefully they have some more stuff for me rather than just a bollocking for spending too much time on the internet). It's winter and grey and cold and yucky most of the time. The bills are going to come in from Christmas any day and make my wallet cry.

But, last night, with the help of one DVD I got back that sense of wonder and joy and everything seemed a lot better.

We were watching The Abyss, having finally got round to buying the special edition half price in Smiths sale.

Now, I've seen if before. We were interrupted by the phone and other breaks for natural functions to occur. I was also flipping through the booklet scene by scene to read what they'd added from the original version. And yet...

By the end of it I was sitting open mouthed with a big smile on my face. Fully in tune with the characters and what they were going through. Enjoying as if new every revelation or glimpse of the aliens.

It was truly wonderful.

And something I've not had since this time last year when I first watched The Fellowship of the Ring on the big screen and thought it looked exactly right.

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It got a good response which was nice. Especially as the meeting was kind of a stop surfing and start working/we see you are in a rut how can we help kind of combination. I have been down of late, as regular readers will know, and I have needed something like that. Hope it does the trick and also that the promised support materialises. Especially as the anticipation of the meeting was horrible, leading to me sitting out in a church yard for half an hour at lunchtime, some of it on the phone to Joan in tears with worry. God, I hate being me somedays.

All of which might mean fewer postings on here but I am going to try to keep up and get myself re-motivated. Hopefully some of the new things coming up will give me the challenges I need.

Off home now for more fretting and consolation I'm sure.