Would it Kill Ya?

[subplotkudzu]

Got 50 pages into Jack McDevitt's "Omega", happy as a clam to have discovered a sequel to "Engines of God" - which I read 6 years ago and had a large impact on my Star Trek game. 50 pages in and I toss it aside, realizing that this is not the sequel to "Engines". It's the sequel to "Chindi". That wasn't the sequel to "Engines" either - it was the sequel to "Deepsix". "Deepsix" was actually the sequel to "Engines."

OK, so I obviously haven't been tracking McDevitt's work obsessively, but some sort of reference to this on the cover or the flyleaf would have been nice. Including that the author also wrote "Chindi" on the cover, and including reviews of "Chindi" inside, is meaningless -"Chindi" could just be his last SF book (Hell, I bought an unconnected book of his the same day). The only books specifically mentioned as being related was "Engines". Part of me is happy that apparently I now have several books by an author I enjoy out... except I now have an idea how books 2 and 3 nd, having gotten some way into book 4.

Grump.

Comments

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I read Polaris, the second book of a series of three books by McDevitt, before I read the first book in the Alex Benedict series (A Talent For War).

The publisher did little to set me straight that this was a sequel, probably because of the reluctance of many readers not to buy a sequel if the first book isn't available.

Perhaps we should take a page out of ex-A&Er Viktor Haag's strategy book, and only purchase an entire SF series only after all the component novels in the series are published and are available.

::B::