Do you revisit earlier books in a series when a new one is released?
I didn't realize it until yesterday, but the latest in Peter V. Brett's Demon Cycle, The Daylight War, comes out this Tuesday (came out earlier this week in audiobook format). I really enjoyed the first two books, but I haven't read them in a couple of years - the last one came out in 2010. Now I'm contemplating reading the first two again to delve back into that universe and refresh my memory.
Does anyone else reread earlier books of a series when a new one comes out? I know I reread The Name of the Wind before reading The Wise Man's Fear. I didn't bother rereading any of A Song of Ice and Fire when A Dance With Dragons came out, but that's because I felt the series got progressively worse. (Un)fortunately, I've never had to deal with a long series like Wheel of Time or Discworld.
@Sergio said:
(Un)fortunately, I've never had to deal with a long series like Wheel of Time or Discworld.
I'm working my way through A Song of Ice and Fire for the second time so that I can back up to speed for A Dance with Dragons.
However, it is completely unnecessary to read the Discworld books in any particular order. It may be true that there are some sub-series of the Discworld books (such as the Rincewind/Twoflower books, the Witches books, the City Watch books, and so on) that follow a sequential order, but Terry Pratchett made it a point that any single book could be read on its own. That's one of the things that's great about Discworld: it's really easy to jump around and never feel like you're cheating or fucking up.
I find it depends on the series. As noted, I gave up trying to go back over any portion of A Song of Fire and Ice. The series, even though a few books long, are just dense enough to discourage multiple read-throughs.
On the other hand, I've had a couple of runs through the first several books of the Dresden Files series. It's my guilty pleasure of quick, fun reading.
@artof_war said:
I plan to reread both The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear before The Doors of Stone comes out.Do your recommend any other fantasy series? I plan to read The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson soon.
Some of the recent ones that I've enjoyed are Joe Abercrombie's books, which include The First Law trilogy and three standalone books that take place in the same universe, Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastard series, and the aforementioned Demon Cycle. I just reread The Warded Man over the past two days.
If you're also interested in science fiction, I'd recommend the Sword and Laser book club, if you don't follow them already.
Steven Erikson's Malazan books pretty much require re-reading if you want to get what's going on at all. At ten books around one-thousand pages each, hundreds of named characters and more plot lines than you can shake a stick at, there's no way you're getting everything the first time around unless you're some kind of freaky reading genius.
If it's a book series I really enjoy I do try to revisit the earlier books. There are a few exceptions, like the Wheel of Time series where there are just to many books to read through.
But an example is The Kingkillers Chronicle. Before the second book came out I revisit the first one and still enjoyed it as much as the first time.
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