Diligent Reading

We addicts of science fiction and fantasy (SFF) literature are diligent blokes. We have to be, because when you care enough to want to appreciate every nuance of the book you are reading, and when the book in question is typically set in a world very unlike the real world, with a few millennia of fictional history, myriad cultures, and dramatis personae running in the hundreds (if not thousands)... well, lets just say you have to re-read books. Because with intricate plotting and serialization demanding that we remember chapter 3, line 5 from book 2 in a main series of 10 so as to appreciate the pun at the end of book 9 in the spin-off series, and when you are reading multiple series simultaneously there is simply no way the non-mentat brain can keep up with your ambition...

Easiest popular case in point - Harry Potter (before we get to high fantasy)... I first heard of Harry Potter when Goblet of Fire came out and naturally I read all four. Then with the subsequent releases of Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince, I reread the series (as I will in July when The Deathly Hallows comes out). Counting those times and a couple of times when I had nothing better to read, I reckon I'll have read the series some 6 times by July. Now thankfully, J K Rowling's books are very short by fantasy standards...

Consider then the mammoth Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. 7 of 10 books will be out by July with the release of Reaper's Gale (RG). Each is atleast a thousand pages, and makes each Potter outing seem like a 5 page illustrated book of nursery rhymes! I first heard of this series (easily the best in the genre right now) when the 5th was on the market (Midnight Tides), so I read from 1 - 5... then I couldn't wait for the 6th - The Bonehunters (TBH) - which had a slightly delayed release, and limited availability in the US, so I read the series again for the heck of it. Finally gave up and bought TBH from Amazon Canada, and that was the third reading. Yesterday, I finished my fourth reading (upto book 6) in preparation for the May 7th release of RG - which is going to be unavailable in the US for sure and so I have preordered from Amazon UK :)

Then there are the other favorites - Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time (11 books so far, with the final one not even on the horizon because the author has Amyloidosis... hope he recovers!). First heard of it when the 8th (Path of Daggers) came out, which puts the re-read count at around 6 (2 recreational, non-release related re-reads).

Stephen King's Dark Tower Septet - first read it when Song of Susannah came out... so 2 rereads. (hmm... need to take it up again I s'pose).

And so on...

What is the point in re-reads you ask? Well besides the refresher course in that particular fictional world, each time you read such intricate books that deal a lot with the most fundamental questions (albeit in an imaginitive way), you appreciate something new. Like wine, these books change with age. Some get better... others get boring. Some positively illuminating.

Sigh. So now you must wonder what this post is about (other than a thinly veiled boast about my obsessiveness and words-per-minute reading speed, or a tribute to a life spent in doing not much else... especially in college).

Well, I just heard some devastating news.

You see between the Deathly Hallows, and Reaper's Gale, and me getting my grubby paws on the third book in Bakker's Prince of Nothing trilogy (which calls for a first re-read of the first two books), I already had a list of about 17 books to plod through before that fateful month. Do-able? Certainly! I had even promised myself I'd read the Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy if I find the time... but alas!

Just found out that Stephen Donaldson, that verbally diarrheic yet unmissable author of the The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is releasing the 2nd book of 4 in the Last (third) Chronicles in October. Which means, between August and October, at the fag end of all those summer movie releases, I gotta re-read the First Chronicles (3), the Second Chronicles (3) and the first book of the Last Chronicles (Runes of the Earth).

And I already had vague plans for the year beyond August, man! Got to read the Amber series by Roger Zelazny (10 books), and Robin Cook's "Black Company" novels (9 books).

So let me ask you... how insane is it if one has a reading list of about 47 books and just under five months to finish it in?

Never mind... that was rhetorical.