Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I guess my one counterexample is Discworld. The first couple/few books are among the weakest in the series, and fans have done a great job identifying other great entry points throughout the series, often books where a particular favorite character or faction is introduced.

I disagree about this. While the first two or three novels are definitely weaker than what comes after, especially stuff that was written decades later, it's still as good as the average sci-fi or fantasy novels people read. Pratchett was a solid fiction writer right out of the gate.

I'm nearing the end of my complete re-read of the series (and picking up books like The Last Hero which were hard to get the first time I read the series). Although the continuity stuff isn't critical, it lends a lot of texture to, say, Making Money, to know the background of the newspaper folks, all of the stuff about vampires integrating into city life, previously learned info about the golems, previous info about the Assassins Guild and, of course, who Moist is and what the recurring reference to angels is about.

A lot of the Discworld discourse I see about "don't do it in chronological order" feels, to me, like people feeling guilty about just liking the Guard (typically) and wanting to justify not wanting to read the other books. The only justification for that is you just want to read the Guard stories. That's fine! Go do that! Sir Terry would 100% be on board with you skipping some of the more four dozen novels if you wanted to.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Another day, another person reinventing an existing food while insisting that Pizza Hut is the only food for them.

 

[prabe]

A lot of the Discworld discourse I see about "don't do it in chronological order" feels, to me, like people feeling guilty about just liking the Guard (typically) and wanting to justify not wanting to read the other books. The only justification for that is you just want to read the Guard stories. That's fine! Go do that! Sir Terry would 100% be on board with you skipping some of the more four dozen novels if you wanted to.

My take on, say, starting with Guards! Guards! is that it's more about starting people out with a strong novel that happens to not rely much on prior continuity. Once people are hooked, they can go back and fill in. Someone who already knows they like Pratchett can start from The Colour of Magic and it'll be fine.

 

[Gradine]

Psh. Those are piddling arguments! Let's do "Damage on a Miss". Or "ascending AC versus descending AC."

 

[Gradine]

Please do "Slaughterhouse-Five" next.

Isn't it already in chronological order though?

 

[trappedslider]

I wouldn't think that they were much more advanced than we are now. Probably just less regulated. We can do modifications to the human genome now, but there are international accords in place. We have nuclear and ionic propulsion tech. Nuclear has issues with the whole "don't put nukes in orbit" thing and while ionic is in its infancy, it can do a slow and constant push that is incredibly efficient. Both require reaction mass.

our level at messing with the human genome is limited to CRISPR and as far i am aware,we can't do the level of editing that lead to Khan or Julian bashir, and we haven't even moved beyond freezing/unfreezing eggs as far as cryonics are concerned.

 

[Ryujin]

our level at messing with the human genome is limited to CRISPR and as far i am aware,we can't do the level of editing that lead to Khan or Julian bashir, and we haven't even moved beyond freezing/unfreezing eggs as far as cryonics are concerned.

Largely because of the ethical limits placed on such things. Get someone like Dr. Arik Soong, who's willing to do trial and error gene editing on thousands of embryos "just because" and you might have that sort of result in years, rather than decades.

 

[overgeeked]

I disagree about this. While the first two or three novels are definitely weaker than what comes after, especially stuff that was written decades later, it's still as good as the average sci-fi or fantasy novels people read. Pratchett was a solid fiction writer right out of the gate.

I'm nearing the end of my complete re-read of the series (and picking up books like The Last Hero, which were hard to get the first time I read the series). Although the continuity stuff isn't critical, it lends a lot of texture to, say, Making Money, to know the background of the newspaper folks, all of the stuff about vampires integrating into city life, previously learned info about the golems, previous info about the Assassins Guild and, of course, who Moist is and what the recurring reference to angels is about.

A lot of the Discworld discourse I see about "don't do it in chronological order" feels, to me, like people feeling guilty about just liking the Guard (typically) and wanting to justify not wanting to read the other books. The only justification for that is you just want to read the Guard stories. That's fine! Go do that! Sir Terry would 100% be on board with you skipping some of the more four dozen novels if you wanted to.

As someone who relatively recently was able to finally get into Discworld, I agree. Reading books out of order is always wonky. Information the author assumes you already know is referenced but not explained because you should have already read the previous book(s) where it happened. Those references go over your head as a reader unless you've done the series in publication order. Also, weirdly, I'm more of a fan of the early stuff as it's more outright comedy. The later stuff is fine, but I prefer the earlier stuff that's outright parody of D&D and fantasy fiction.

 

[Gradine]

Release order is always the best way to consume media <glares at Star Wars fans>

 

[Willie the Duck]

As someone who relatively recently was able to finally get into Discworld, I agree. Reading books out of order is always wonky. Information the author assumes you already know is referenced but not explained because you should have already read the previous book(s) where it happened. Those references go over your head as a reader unless you've done the series in publication order. Also, weirdly, I'm more of a fan of the early stuff as it's more outright comedy. The later stuff is fine, but I prefer the earlier stuff that's outright parody of D&D and fantasy fiction.

This is definitely a concern. On the other hand, I've picked up The Colour of Magic at least 3-4 times and just bounced hard. If you had to do it in order, I would never have gotten into Discworld. Is there a cost to doing otherwise? Of course, but sometimes an earlier book (or film) is just not going to work. I've heard similar comments about Sundiver and David Brin's Uplift Universe, or the first Mad Max film.