in the case of mr cook, i've very much felt that the 'black company' novels
were the ones he enjoyed writing immensely and did the rest to get the heck
out of the auto plant.
andy
>
> I get the same feeling. It's the one that hovers (IMO) over Glen Cook's
> later Garrett novels. For one thing, small plot elements begin to consume
> more and more pages. You get the feeling the author is mechanically
moving
> the characters from place to place, rather than paring down exposition and
> description to the minimum necessary to support the hot-potato story he
> can't wait to get onto the page ("Now I'm going to show you something
REALLY
> cool"). When Zelazney was (again, IMO) really having fun with what he
> wrote, ideas and developments came thick and fast. In the first novel in
> each series (Amber and Cook's Garrett books), the author creates and
> populates an entire alternate universe, plus tells an intense and
> complicated story within that universe. The later books get longer, and
do
> so without the heavy lifting of world-building. Eventually, rather minor
> stories take volumes to tell; things drag.
>
> Of course, there are a lot of other variables, and this is just my general
> impression. But in each case, the "drag" of the later volumes had to
> overcome my entuisiasm for the series; i.e., I tore into the books, eager
> for more, only to be disappointed.
>
> LJ
>
>