I just picked up Jim Butcher's Summer Knight, Book 4 of the Dresden Files series. which means I now have books one to six. Now some of you might be thinking, that ain't right, four comes before six so shouldn't that be the last book I got. Well, that's one problem with buying your books in 2nd-hand stores, you're not exactly sure what they'd have on stock at any given moment. At least in this case I mangaed to get 1 to 6, maybe not in order but at least now that part is complete (though the series is up to book ten now,) I mean, I have several series where I have holes in the middle of the sets. Let's see, off the top of my head. Andrew Vachss' Burke novels; Glen Cook's Garrett P.I. series; Robert Asprin's Myth series; James Swain's Grift Sense series; a lot of the paranormal with female protagonists books I've been getting lately (most of which I've only recently came across, usually with the second or third book, Karen Chance's Pythia, Jeanne Stein's Anna Strong, Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld, Several of Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake Books, C.E. Murphy's Walker Papers and a couple of others.)
Reading books out of order is one of the things I have to live with. It's not so much of a problem with books that only occur in the same setting, say the Shadowrun or the Forgotten Realms line of books. Sometimes, it doesn't matter if you read it out order, Stven Brust's Vlad Taltos series wasn't in chronoligical order (at least initially,) and of course most of the stories in one novel can stand alone by itself, still sometimes, established characters are introduced or events that have happened in an earlier book and is now refered to, and I have no idea who or what it is supposed to be. And its worst when you already know that such and such character would be dead two books later or how a plot device just introduced has already been settled 'coz you've already read the next book.
It's even worse with longer series, not really a problem with say, the Hardy Boys or the Three Investigators series (Ahh, nostalgia...) where every book pretty much stands alone, but others... well, to give an example, the first book I got from Piers Anthony's Xanth series was Man from Mundania, already the twelfth book in the series. Hoo boy... and it's even worse with longer series that have since been concluded (for example, John Norman's Gor the Counter-Earth series of books,) there's no guarantee I'd even be able to complete it.
Sometimes I'd buy a book which starts off in the middle of the series, I'd promised myself not to touch it until I get my hands on the earlier books, just so I'd get continuity. But more often than not, I'd break down and read them anyway. Oh well, gives me more reason to go after the entire series anyway.
Reading books out of order is one of the things I have to live with. It's not so much of a problem with books that only occur in the same setting, say the Shadowrun or the Forgotten Realms line of books. Sometimes, it doesn't matter if you read it out order, Stven Brust's Vlad Taltos series wasn't in chronoligical order (at least initially,) and of course most of the stories in one novel can stand alone by itself, still sometimes, established characters are introduced or events that have happened in an earlier book and is now refered to, and I have no idea who or what it is supposed to be. And its worst when you already know that such and such character would be dead two books later or how a plot device just introduced has already been settled 'coz you've already read the next book.
It's even worse with longer series, not really a problem with say, the Hardy Boys or the Three Investigators series (Ahh, nostalgia...) where every book pretty much stands alone, but others... well, to give an example, the first book I got from Piers Anthony's Xanth series was Man from Mundania, already the twelfth book in the series. Hoo boy... and it's even worse with longer series that have since been concluded (for example, John Norman's Gor the Counter-Earth series of books,) there's no guarantee I'd even be able to complete it.
Sometimes I'd buy a book which starts off in the middle of the series, I'd promised myself not to touch it until I get my hands on the earlier books, just so I'd get continuity. But more often than not, I'd break down and read them anyway. Oh well, gives me more reason to go after the entire series anyway.
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