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Prequel before or after?
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Davey
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Aug 25, 2012 06:07AM
The reason I ask this question is because I don't know how to suggest a starting point for a new reader of the series. Should the prequel be before or after? I've only read two prequels, New Spring in The Wheel of Time series and Heaven's Net is Wide in the Tales of the Otor series. Both of them I read after reading other books in the series. In the case of "Heaven's Net is Wide" it is my favorite of all the books but I feel that is true only because I read all the other books first. I don't think I would've liked it as much if I had started with it and may not have read any more in the series. As for "New Spring" I feel I would if not understood a majority of the book if I had not read five or six of these books already. What do you think?
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Depends on the series--but my preference is usually the publishing order, some authors like to change the backstory halfway through the series.
This is a well timed-post! I just borrowed a huge stack of David Eddings books from a friend of mine (the Belgariad and Mallorean series). She says I should read Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress first, even though they were published last. I'm interested in hearing your opinions.
I say prequels go last, unless they are written by Kevin j Anderson, where they shouldn't be read at all
Always read in publication order, and never touch a prequel written more than ten years after the original -- it almost always signals that the author is going to retcon stuff from the earlier work that he no longer likes.
Kirsten wrote: "This is a well timed-post! I just borrowed a huge stack of David Eddings books from a friend of mine (the Belgariad and Mallorean series). She says I should read Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgar..."Read the 2 series first. Then read Belgarath and then Polgara. The Eddings didn't retcon stuff in their world and only added to it. You wont have any idea who is who if you read the two prequels first, and you will miss most of the humor of the two books if you don't know the other two series that were written.
The rule for me is to read everything in publication order just due to character development. I have read some series out of order (didn't know it at the time) and totally missed how a few characters changed. Then spent half the books being annoyed by how they had changed because I didn't understand what had happened previously.
I read and suggest everything in publication order.
Kirsten wrote: "This is a well timed-post! I just borrowed a huge stack of David Eddings books from a friend of mine (the Belgariad and Mallorean series). She says I should read Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgar..."Absolutely read the series in order and prequels after. They will make a lot more sense. Even though I know the series well I still re-read it that way.
I read almost everything in publication order.The one exception is Elizabeth Bear's Promethean Age series.
I read the Stratford Man duology (3rd and 4th books in publication order) which are set before the first book in the series (which I had attempted to read several times).
The Stratford Man books were more immediately engaging and gave me the motivation to go on with the two contemporary books in the series.
Prequels are usually littered with little nods to the story written first. Which means reading the prequels first will leave you full of spoilers, and confusing spoilers at that, since many allude to things without clarifying them, expecting you to fill in the unwritten blanks based on knowledge of the series. There are exceptions to this rule, but it's usually better to stick to the publication order, and be wise to these nods, and not spoil the previously written books.
The way I see it, the order the books are published is kind of like the order of the songs in an album. The artist and publisher took time to decide what would work best in what order and so they set it up like that. First time through a series or an album, take them in the order the artist wanted them. Afterwards you can pick and choose and jump around the ones you don't like.
I have a question on another series. When I was in high school I read the first trilogy in the Dragonlance series starting with Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I re-read them quite a few times in high school but haven't read them in about 7 to 8 years. Since then they released a new trilogy about events that take place between the books in that trilogy which I haven't read. Does anybody know if it would be best to read the original first trilogy all the way through before reading 'The Lost Chronicles' trilogy or am I okay to switch between them? I pretty well remember the majority of the original series. Thanks!
Agree with reading them in publication order.Many prequels contain nods to events that happen later (hopefully subtle), which are an absolute joy if you have already read the proper books, but will just pass you by if you don't know what to look for.
Sean wrote: "Always read in publication order, and never touch a prequel written more than ten years after the original -- it almost always signals that the author is going to retcon stuff from the earlier work..."Sorry, simpleton's question, what does 'retcon' mean please?
Noel wrote: "Sorry, simpleton's question, what does 'retcon' mean please? ""Retroactive continuity (retcon for short) is the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon
Ah thanks very much, would never have guessed that but thought it had to with altering old work. Come to think of it I like 'altering old work' better. Much easier for dumbos like me. God, retroactive continuity Is an ugly mouthful, no wonder it's shortened.
kvon wrote: "Depends on the series--but my preference is usually the publishing order, some authors like to change the backstory halfway through the series."^^ This. I would always go in Publisher Order, because sometimes it's the prequel is made after and it's nice to have to massive story and then aft a while, getting the background (AKA Prequel) on it all.
But there are other cases (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) where the Prequel comes first and therefore should be read first in order to know what you're getting into before plunging into LOTR.
I wouldn't consider The Hobbit to be a prequel. By the definition of prequel it must be released after the originating work.As most others here have said publishing order is normally the best way to go.
Kim wrote: "I wouldn't consider The Hobbit to be a prequel. By the definition of prequel it must be released after the originating work.As most others here have said publishing order is normally the best way..."
True, it's not out right a prequel but it is a type of backstory FOR The Lord of the Rings, what with The Hobbit including Gandalf, Biblo and The Riddles in the Dark chapter that relate to The Lord of the Rings.
In that case it's probably better to say LOTR is the sequel to The Hobbit. The Hobbit was always meant to be read first.
They aren't really prequels. They are autobiographies of Belgarth and Polgara. There's no new info, just fleshing out of events the characters talk about in the regular series. It's more supplementary info than prequels, like reading books on Lincoln, Grant, Lee, etc, after reading historical fiction about the Civil War, to learn more about the people in the story.
You also have situations like Michael Moorcock's Elric, where they started as a series of short stories from random periods in Elric's life, but then Moorcock went back and put them all in chronological order (with varying degrees of revision -- in one story, he changed out Elric's companion because in the "new" chronology, Elric hadn't yet met the person featured in the original story). Or there's Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series, which were again taken after the fact and assembled chronologically (although in that case I don't know how much revision he did).In cases like those, I'm kind of torn -- I actually prefer the chronological reading order, but that might just be because that's how I first encountered them. I've been reading the latest edition of Moorcock's Elric books, which shuffle the stories back into order of publication, and it just feels weird to me.
For example for R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt series I would go with the first book published, The Crystal Shard rather than the first book in the series, Homeland. It is because Drizzt is a totally different character in The Crystal Shard than Homeland. If one read Homeland first in my view, it would make the Crystal less of epic read. I read The Crystal Shard first, even though Salvatore recommends the reader to read Homeland first.
Kirsten, I second Micah's suggestion. I never read Polgara but if it's anything like Belgarath's book, it's full of spoilers of the Belgariad and Malloreon, and seems to assume you're already familiar with those.
I'm going to throw in just because the comments so far seem weighted to publication order. While I understand the reasoning behind the arguments for publication, I prefer chronological. I like to know how things happened in the order they happened (storywise). The most recent case where I had to make a decision like this was when I went back and read Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series. I had read a few books when I was much younger, but had lost track of the series. I chose chronological over publication and did not regret it.
I would rather read publishing order rather an chronological order because I get a sense of how much the author's writing has developed over time.
Skaw wrote: "I'm going to throw in just because the comments so far seem weighted to publication order. While I understand the reasoning behind the arguments for publication, I prefer chronological. I like to..."
I think that's why my friend wanted me to read the prequels first. I've started reading Pawn of Prophecy and decided to leave the prequels till last based on the advice given here. But now I have to break it to my friend that I completely ignored her advice. And I know she's going to ask me how much I've read so far.
I just remembered I also read Ellen Kushner's Riverside books in chronological order instead of publication and I'm glad I did because if I'd read The Fall of The Kings before The Privilege of the Sword I would have spent all of Kings thinking (view spoiler), which would have been very distracting.
Kirsten wrote: "I think that's why my friend wanted me to read the prequels first"Having read all the Belgariad and Mallorean plus the Belgarath and Polgara books I can say if you read them first you will be confused.
The other prime example is the Narnia books. When I was young, once I realized that The Magician's Nephew was the "origin story" I went through a phase where I had to read that one first.Now I've changed my mind -- partially because of spoilers, but mostly because the narrator makes off-hand references to events from the earlier (written) books in the series. And it kind of drives me nuts that the current published editions have been renumbered and reordered chronologically rather than in order of publication.
When I read Hornblower for the first time (in chronological order), I didn't realize they had originally been written out of sequence.When I read the Jhereg books for the first time (in publication order), I didn't realize they'd be skipping up & down the timestream.
I definitely recommend saving the prequels for last in Eddings work. The Belgarath and Polgara books don't have the same kind of story flow as the main series. The thrill you get from they way the prequels reveal back-story elements won't have the same impact if you have not read the main series.They are called "prequels" for a reason: they are *sequels* that refer back to an earlier time than the main story. They were designed to be read afterward.
Authors write the prequels after they write the main story, which means the background, the characters, the world, and anything else important will be set up and explained in the main series, while the prequel may assume that the reader already knows a lot about the world that it plays in, which, to a new reader of the series, could end up very confusing and even turn them off from the series.So I would always suggest going by publication order, unless the author says otherwise :p
Alice wrote: "If I can find the author's opinion, that's even better..."Yes! I've done that before. I forget which series it was, but I was confused about the order of the books and while trying to figure it out, I ran across a blog post or article where the author had made his recommendations.
Sometimes, just figuring out *what* the publication order is can be a challenge. The publishers often leave the volume numbers off the books because the stories stand alone and they don't want anything to get in the way of your purchase decision. But I find it really annoying to read a story where a major character has been killed off, only to later read a story that occurs earlier in the series and have that major character now be alive. The later books are effectively spoilers for the earlier ones.
I really think it depends on the series and whether it is a first reading or a rereading. First readings are usually better read in publication order but second readings might be more fun chronologically as you already have some of the background in your memory.I've actually just been debating this with the Forgotten Realms books. I stopped reading them about five years ago but still bought them (the advantage of owning a bookstore is getting cheap books). I just spent a few hours putting them all in chronological order which was a major task. Lots have prologues which are well before the story really begins and it makes it tough to decide where they go. There's actually a bunch that have no dates whatsoever in them so I'll probably just place them in with books that were published the same year and hope that's close enough.
Good thing I'm a fast reader since the shelving unit holding them all is about 6' high by 3' wide. I'll shoot for two a month but I have a feeling I'll be reading a lot of space opera and old classics in between them. We'll see how it goes.
Gord
Gordon wrote: "I really think it depends on the series and whether it is a first reading or a rereading. First readings are usually better read in publication order but second readings might be more fun chronologically..."That's an interesting idea. I re-read the Belgariad occasionally, so I may try reading Belgarath and Polgara first to see how it goes.
But I've been so busy reading indie works lately that I haven't re-read anything in quite some time. It's hard to resist free/inexpensive books even if the quality is sometimes substandard (and it isn't always).
It really does depend on the series. As I said before, Belgarth and Polgara aren't true prequels, they're supplements. For a real prequel, look at something like New Spring, the Wheel of Time prequel. A true prequel should add new, pertinent info to the series, not just expand existing info like Belgarth and Polgara. There isn't any new info in the books, the Eddings just gathered the various memories and remembrances of the two characters that were spread thru the 10 books and rewrote them into a single cohesive story for each character. It doesn't really matter when you read them, or even if.
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
New Spring (other topics)The Magician’s Nephew (other topics)
The Fall of the Kings (other topics)
The Privilege of the Sword (other topics)
Pawn of Prophecy (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Steven Brust (other topics)Michael Moorcock (other topics)
Fritz Leiber (other topics)
Elizabeth Bear (other topics)
David Eddings (other topics)
