on breaking pub order

When reading a non-chronological series I tend to be a Strict Publicationist.

That is, I have a strong preference for reading books in the order they were published, rather than in internal chronological order.

If that didn't help: go look at your copies of The Chronicles of Narnia. (What do you mean, you don't have your own copies? Fine, go look at the library's copies.) If you're unfortunate enough to have an edition published in the mid-nineties or later, the first book is The Magician's Nephew. If you have an earlier edition, the first book is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. LWW was written first, but the events in MN take place before the events of LWW, and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture the publisher sorted them into chronological order in the mid-nineties.

There's a whole long rant I do about why this reordering is not only WRONG but a CRIME AGAINST LITERATURE. For these purposes just take it as a given that I believe in reading books in the order they were written, rather than in the order in which events in the books occur.

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So: when reading a non-chronological series, especially for the first time, I tend to be a Strict Publicationist.

Later-written prequels tend to only be interesting by the light they shed on later events in the series; volumes that jump ahead make for interesting speculation of the 'how are they possibly going to get character X to point Y?' variety. Then you have authors like Mr Brust who enjoy messing with chronological readers, as in Dragon which takes place before and after Yendi, or Tiassa which takes place at a wide variety of times possibly including no time at all. (Note to self: reread Tiassa and determine whether it is actually the best of the Vlad books.)

I may have found a point at which I'm willing to break that.

I read the first three books of A Song of Ice and Fire shortly before the third one came out in paperback, because that was supposed to coincide with the release of the fourth one and the timing seemed good. Ha. As You Know, Bob, when George R.R. Martin got to being three years late on A Feast for Crows his publisher said "just send us what you've got already," so he chopped it in half by geography and sent it off. Then he published the other half five years later as A Dance with Dragons.

The half that made up FfC was the half I was less interested in. I figured I'd just wait until the other half was out and read them both then. Trouble is, it's been long enough (eight ten bloody years) that I have only the vaguest recollection of the first three books, and I'm not ready to commit to a reread of the whole series every time a new one comes out. So these, like Harry Potter, have fallen into the "I'll read them when he's good and done" bucket.

Meanwhile, via zarfeblong, joenotcharles claims to have solved the Feast / Dance problem. He's gone through FfC and DwD, chopped them up, and stitched them back together in what, he claims, is an ordering that makes sense and is paced better so you're not abandoning half the characters for six hundred pages. It has the downside of needing to haul two big-ass books around instead of just one, but by then perhaps everything will be electronic anyway.

I find this an intriguing enough concept that I think I shall try reading it/them like this. In another ten or fifteen years, whenever GRRM finishes the series.