Mainline vs 'Side Stories'

I don't mind long books either as long as big events actually happen and the story gets moved along. I would have loved to see SFtS, MoH, ART and SoF get boiled down into one 900-1000 page book. Between the four of them, what really happened? The Mesan Alignment was revealed, they launched Oyster Bay, the Grand Alliance was formed, the Talbott Quadrant became fully part of the SEM, and the SLN had increasingly larger fleets wiped out, leaving us with Beowulf about to be attacked by the SL and the SL itself teetering on collapse. Really, all of that could have been in just one book (maybe two with padding). It would have MOVED along, rather than being a bunch of cut-and-paste repeated chapaters and endless staff meetings. And the single book could have ended with the SL broken up, with the next novel jumping forward 5 or 10 or 25 years in time, with Captain Abigail Hearns leading her Heavy Cruiser (or Battlecruiser) in the fight asginst the RF/SL Successor States.

One of my most favorire Honorverse books is Echoes Of Honor. It is revealed later that Honor & Co. spent two years on Cerberus. That book MOVED and lots of stuff happened. The last four (or five) books haven't even covered that long a time span yet.

61Cygni wrote:I don't mind long books either as long as big events actually happen and the story gets moved along. I would have loved to see SFtS, MoH, ART and SoF get boiled down into one 900-1000 page book. Between the four of them, what really happened? The Mesan Alignment was revealed, they launched Oyster Bay, the Grand Alliance was formed, the Talbott Quadrant became fully part of the SEM, and the SLN had increasingly larger fleets wiped out, leaving us with Beowulf about to be attacked by the SL and the SL itself teetering on collapse. Really, all of that could have been in just one book (maybe two with padding). It would have MOVED along, rather than being a bunch of cut-and-paste repeated chapaters and endless staff meetings. And the single book could have ended with the SL broken up, with the next novel jumping forward 5 or 10 or 25 years in time, with Captain Abigail Hearns leading her Heavy Cruiser (or Battlecruiser) in the fight asginst the RF/SL Successor States.

One of my most favorire Honorverse books is Echoes Of Honor. It is revealed later that Honor & Co. spent two years on Cerberus. That book MOVED and lots of stuff happened. The last four (or five) books haven't even covered that long a time span yet.

If David had condensed all that down to one book, lots of people would have been complaining that he sprang this crisis with the Solarian League and the whole mess with Mesa with no buildup. And they would have been right. You can't have it both ways. As it is, some people have complained about how quickly the situation with the League has fallen apart.

JohnRoth wrote:My impression, for better or worse, is that they just wanted to get the ***** thing out so they could move on. So they borrowed a lick from Tolkein with the two towers. **** happens.

Tolkien wrote the whole thing as a single book. His publisher broke it up. Tolkien always wanted it published as a single book. With the movie release and its popularity, you can now buy the whole saga in a single book. Honestly I wish everyone would write their stories this way. Well, not the publish in a 10,000 page book part, just none of this, first 50 pages is nothing but filler, for those who are too stupid to read the first book or second book of a series. This is NOT one of DW's sins! He has others

Hey, I still bought CoG. I will buy the next as well.

His style has changed. Plot is still top notch, but the writing style that made characters come alive and be personable has taken a nose dive by the addition of TOO many characters. When he sets up a character and does it right it is still great. Focus.

wastedfly wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:My impression, for better or worse, is that they just wanted to get the ***** thing out so they could move on. So they borrowed a lick from Tolkein with the two towers. **** happens.

Tolkien wrote the whole thing as a single book. His publisher broke it up. Tolkien always wanted it published as a single book. With the movie release and its popularity, you can now buy the whole saga in a single book. Honestly I wish everyone would write their stories this way. Well, not the publish in a 10,000 page book part, just none of this, first 50 pages is nothing but filler, for those who are too stupid to read the first book or second book of a series. This is NOT one of DW's sins! He has others

Hey, I still bought CoG. I will buy the next as well.

His style has changed. Plot is still top notch, but the writing style that made characters come alive and be personable has taken a nose dive by the addition of TOO many characters. When he sets up a character and does it right it is still great. Focus.

I recently started reading another modern series where the shortish books felt as if they were written in 3s- and each group of the 3 wouldn't have made 1 of David's. By book 8, roughly 33% of each book was a rehashing of how we got here- well written, but completely wasteful in a ~150 page book.

I agree with you mostly.

Still for me personally there is some truth in how 61Cygni has perceived those books as well.

To me the issue varied greatly from book to book. On my page MoH and ART are fine the way they are. Somehow I had trouble with the 'Shadows' storyline though. SFtS and SoF were a little boring for me in certain parts - especially in the 'recap' parts and other chapters in the first half of each book.
I would have preferred the first half of each skipped and both merged into one or the second halfs merged with the corresponding 'mainline' books.

CoG again I totally love and find perfect.

SWM wrote:

61Cygni wrote:I don't mind long books either as long as big events actually happen and the story gets moved along. I would have loved to see SFtS, MoH, ART and SoF get boiled down into one 900-1000 page book. Between the four of them, what really happened? The Mesan Alignment was revealed, they launched Oyster Bay, the Grand Alliance was formed, the Talbott Quadrant became fully part of the SEM, and the SLN had increasingly larger fleets wiped out, leaving us with Beowulf about to be attacked by the SL and the SL itself teetering on collapse. Really, all of that could have been in just one book (maybe two with padding). It would have MOVED along, rather than being a bunch of cut-and-paste repeated chapaters and endless staff meetings. And the single book could have ended with the SL broken up, with the next novel jumping forward 5 or 10 or 25 years in time, with Captain Abigail Hearns leading her Heavy Cruiser (or Battlecruiser) in the fight asginst the RF/SL Successor States.

One of my most favorire Honorverse books is Echoes Of Honor. It is revealed later that Honor & Co. spent two years on Cerberus. That book MOVED and lots of stuff happened. The last four (or five) books haven't even covered that long a time span yet.

If David had condensed all that down to one book, lots of people would have been complaining that he sprang this crisis with the Solarian League and the whole mess with Mesa with no buildup. And they would have been right. You can't have it both ways. As it is, some people have complained about how quickly the situation with the League has fallen apart.

Bruno Behrends wrote:CoG again I totally love and find perfect.

I tend to wonder how Haven's perfection of interstellar teleportation will impact the fight against the MA...

kzt wrote:It's not the first time. AAC was in desperate need of editing. My understanding is the problem is time. Editing takes time, both the editors and the authors. David has a limited amount of time to spend on a given book before the next one is due. So do you want a better edited/revised book next year or the year after, or what you have right now?

This hits the nail for me. Good or bad, the last few books would have been substantially better with effective editing. Why, exactly, is David on this treadmill? Has he managed somehow to become a slave to a publishing timetable?

Dca wrote:This hits the nail for me. Good or bad, the last few books would have been substantially better with effective editing. Why, exactly, is David on this treadmill? Has he managed somehow to become a slave to a publishing timetable?

I have no inside knowledge, and David is around to comment if he wants. My understanding is that it starts with multiple tween kids (with I assume plans to fund their college education - and not a huge amount of time to do this) and a wife with some serious medical issues. You gotta do what you gotta do.

I'd be happy just to hear some word on any new Honorverse book being in the works!

RFCs writing focus seems to have almost wholly shifted to Safehold, with the Honorverse being left to the prequel breakaway partnerships. As things stand we are looking at years before anything mainstream is available. There are just far to many loose ends with Mesa , Beowulf and the Sollies let alone the potentially major threat of the MA plans coming to fruition, now they have that confederation powerbase.

Cragsclaw wrote:I'd be happy just to hear some word on any new Honorverse book being in the works!

RFCs writing focus seems to have almost wholly shifted to Safehold, with the Honorverse being left to the prequel breakaway partnerships. As things stand we are looking at years before anything mainstream is available. There are just far to many loose ends with Mesa , Beowulf and the Sollies let alone the potentially major threat of the MA plans coming to fruition, now they have that confederation powerbase.

There's at least one new Honorverse novel in the queue this year. I've had to wait with the main plot line until Eric and my schedules meshed well enough for us to do Cauldron, since I couldn't know how/if events in it would impact my mainline books and I didn't want to run ahead of events in that book in the next solo. Hopefully, I'll be turning it in sometime late this summer or early this fall. I am assuming that if I make my delivery schedule, you would see the book in late spring of next year. I do have a couple of other projects competing with it for time and space, but that's the plan and --- at the moment --- I see nothing to indicate that I won't make it.

That help?