On Mon, 17 Feb 2003, Chris Turkel wrote: @> I read that trilogy and thought, "What a good idea. Too bad you ruined @> it." I feel the same way about the Pern books: There are some good @> ideas there but she ruins them. My aunt copy edited Acorna's World and @> thought her style was stiff. Ditto on this. Pern is kinda a bothersome one for me. Literally every single SF-knowledgeable person I knew told me the Pern books were excellent, so I ended up buying four even though I hated every one. I just kept hoping the next one would be better. @> >> And there's Jordan's Wheel of Time, which has also come up. This is @> >> what @> >> happens when you take a four-book series and stretch it out to three @> >> times @> >> that length. With sniffling and much adjusting of necklines. @> @> Yes! Oh I am so sick of sniffs, adjusted necklines, stiffens, etc. For @> a while Nyvanae's pulling of her braid got me. Well, this is how Jordan gets each book to 1200 pages. Each character has this enormous collection of nervous gestures that they constantly run through throughout the series (checking their hidden weapons?) - I'm not sure what the intended effect of this is, but the actual effect tends to be along the lines of "get on with it!" It's such a pain sifting through pages and pages of tedious hair-pulling and cross-chatter to find the significant event that actually occurs in the chapter. I've always said that Roger Zelazny could have written that entire series in one 300-page book. And it would have been better, too. Hell, Tolkien spent his entire life on less than two Jordan-sized books of published material. If you're taking up that much space, you ought to be doing more with it. (Heh. Another interesting tangent: how long would it have taken Mr. Brust to write the Wheel of Time series? And what would it have looked like?)