[Dragaera] Reading series

[Margaret Young]

I spent a good part of my winter break re-reading two series

The Vladiad (for my own purposes)
The Dune Series (for a project a student of mine is working on)

One of the things that really stands out on rereading Brust is how
tight his continuity is compared to the various Herberts. Brust has, of
course, played wonderfully with various levels of unrealiable narrator
(unrealiable for more than one reason). We do obviously find cracks in
our relentless rereading but some of Herbert's (even in Frank's books)
are quite noticeable. And frustrating. 

One of Brust's nice touches is to go back and either clarify or use an
apparent discontinuity whereas the Herberts just .... well they just.

It is always a problem when a series of books are written over an
extended period of time — the writing of them becomes much more
similar to the problems involved in keeping continutity in a television
series than what one associates with writing.

Anyway, one of the joys of Brust to me is that his work continues to be
a joy. Indeed I find myself reading at least as carefully the fifth or
sixth time through as I did the first.

Which in my mind is one of the things which distinguishes one level of
writing from another.

Margaret