[ SECRET POST #6085 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6085 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 34 secrets from Secret Submission Post #870.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. https://i.imgur.com/bYG0SN9.png

[(Anonymous)]

It's pretty common for long-running series authors to change the continuity a bit in different installments. You may not feel that her new writing is holding up, or enjoy the direction she is going. I can't speak for her overall wellbeing. However, jumping to concern for her health over a change in continuity seems a bit much. With several years between the books, it's unsurprising that many authors will not rigorously stick to the original storyline, since it's their world to play with in the first place.

[(Anonymous)]

Very much this. Like, authors are dealing with a bunch of potential plot threads, revised plot threads, story ideas never fleshed out, something that came up in a draft but was cut, published things they later decide to retcon because it makes more sense to change it at the end of a series vs something they didn't know when publishing the first installment, etc. And she's been writing a whole bunch of books that build on each other for decades!

While readers are only dealing with the finished, published versions. It's a lot easier for us to keep some things straight.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Yeah, authors have access to all their drafts, and unpublished works that never got to market. Some authors are more strict about following their established canon, some diverge where they please. I tend to think of canon divergence in series as what ifs and slightly different timelines, it doesn't really bother me since I follow a few continuities with many authors who all have different takes, though of course I have my preferences and get irritated when an author changes something I liked or the quality of an author's writing drops. I just don't see it as inherently bad or a sign of anything terrible for a canon continuity to shift when it comes to a long running established world.

[(Anonymous)]

I've always just assumed that the discrepensies between Battle Magic and Empress were just because it's easy to have a character describe a war in a few sentences, but expansions and adjustments have to be made to make that war into an entire book on its own.

I do agree about Numair though. What was even the point of that book?

[(Anonymous)]

I could accept most of the discrepancies in Battle Magic if Brian's whole story arc in Empress hadn't concluded with him revealing that he was at some point isolated so badly that he made a false Discipline Cottage in his mind to retreat to. It's where one of the most pivotal final scenes of Empress takes place.

And then in the book about the war...this never happens. At all. He never makes the cottage. There's retcon and then there's diverging so hard you move into alternate universe territory.

[(Anonymous)]

oh man, no one tell OP about the Sherlock Holmes serials...

[(Anonymous)]

ngl I agree with you. I know authors, especially over the span of decades, forget things and reimagine things, but as a fan who has reread the books multiple times, it's frustrating nonetheless. This is generally why I don't like prequels to things when they directly involve characters known and loved in the main continuity.

My fav. prequels are all ones set in the far past of things. Where, in the main story, we might know a legend but we don't know the 'real story'. It's easier to ignore any blatant retcons then lmao.

(Though sometimes it's hilarious at the same time when an author forgets what they've said in one book and directly contradicts themselves in the next. I once read a series where all the witches had familiars and we were explicitly told our heroine's best friend had a dog familiar. Surprise, when we get to the next book and she's at the best friend's house, there's no dog mentioned ever. No dog in existence.)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know this author, but I am now reminded of an article written about 20 years ago that speculated Agatha Christie had dementia. It was based on a study of changes in her written vocabulary compared to a writer (Iris Murdoch) known to have had Alzheimer's. When I read the article I was reminded of the experience of reading one of her last books, Posters of Fate, and thinking it definitely read like she had a serious cognitive decline, because it was sadly incoherent.

So I can't speak for this situation but it's sometimes possible to tell there is something going on with an author. OP is bot necessarily imagining things.

[(Anonymous)]

i will say that reading Hallowe'en Party after a couple of her earlier works i was struck by how her writing had declined, but as someone who's worked a lot with dictation/transcription/etc it landed more to me as an older lady dictating her words and then...just not really editing/having them edited. Definitely less varied vocab (which happens a lot regardless of age--people who aren't used to oral storytelling often aren't able to add the same amount of variation as they do in writing), less description, and just so much repetition of the same phrases/ideas over and over. Still absolutely could be due to some sort of decline (lacking strength/cognition to write/type etc).

It might be a slight case of bias--someone looking for signs of cognition decline v. someone more used to the pitfalls of dictation. It's not really possible to truly say but it is always interesting (and frequently sad) when you can really identify declines in a writer's work.

I will say (and this is pettier and in reference to a work-that-will-go-unnamed) that particularly well-known/celebrated authors can sometimes be given way more leeway by editors in their later books. The unnamed work i'm reading right now needed SO much cutting of repetitive/extraneous stuff and ended up being a brick. (Def. not saying this was the case for Christie OR Pierce, just...a mini-whine).

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT-- the article I spoke of involved an in-depth vocabulary analysis, whole the book I am thinking of, Postersn Of Fate, read like the author had started three different classic Agatha Christie plots and spliced them together without noticing. I wasn't aware when I picked the book up that it was one of the last she had written. I read it and thought, This reads like it was written by someone suffering a major cognitive decline. Your reaction to that book might have been very different but I found it a very sad and upsetting experience. I did not have the same reaction to Halloween Party at all.

[(Anonymous)]

DA I have never read any Pratchett further than Snuff. I could see what he was trying to do but his voice died before he did and it hurt SO much.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yeah. That was so sad to read.