Rate Narnia (spoiler-free thread)

[TanisFrey]

The first book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was published in 1950.

The remaining books were published later. The series should be read in the order of publication:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Horse and His Boy
The Magician's Nephew
The Last Battle

Some publishers rearrange this order to put them in "chronologial order", putting The Magician's Nephew in the beginning, and The Horse and His Boy third. This robs the series of a lot, as many things that are mysteries and secrets in the earlier books are revealed in The Magician's Nephew.

and with me, we have a 30-year old geek just getting around to reading the series. The copy I picked up said that the order was redone at the author request.

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

The copy I picked up said that the order was redone at the author request.

Except the author had been dead for about 30 years when the order was redone...

Actually, he had always planned on rewriting the series and republishing them in chronological order, but died before starting on the revisions. When the publishers rights expired and the new rights were picked up by HarperCollins, they were looking for a way to repackage the books so they could make a big push to sell more of them. They consulted with his estate, and the decision was made to reorder them as he had planned to do, although there were no revisions made to the text as he had planned.

So, yes, that was what he had planned, although not in the way he intended. As is, they still read better in original published order, as has been said above. Many surprises are given away if read in chronological order.

 

[Storm Raven]

and with me, we have a 30-year old geek just getting around to reading the series. The copy I picked up said that the order was redone at the author request.

It was done with permission from his estate, but as he was dead at the time he was unable to rewrite them in a manner that didn't take a lot of the fun out of several of the books if they were placed in chronological order.

 

[reapersaurus]

I guess those 2 1 votes is just proof positive about the percentage of people in any crowd that feel the need to crap on anything.

No way, in any world or way of ranking things, could Narnia ever deserve a "1" vote.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I was just.. kinda underwhelmed.

I need to collect my thoughts on this a bit, as to why, but it was unable to grab me. It also spent way too much time 'Gasping!' at it's own wonders. Same thing that kept the first two Harry Potters from greatness. It's tedious, wrecks the pacing.

At the moment I'm hovering around 6, but I'm not going to vote until I've reached a decision.

 

[Krieg]

You know, with the success of children's fantasy movies like Narnia and Harry Potter, I really wouldn't mind seeing live-action movies made of Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain books.

I'd love to see Niel Hancock's Circle of Light books done as well.

Greyfax Grimwald
Faragon Fairingay
Calix Stay
Squaring the Circle