Old Yeller

[Spark]

I think it was Brad who made the joke, "No. He's my dog, Ma.  I'll do it."

I think authors, especially those who have become successful, should not re-print old, bad novels  or new, bad novels for suckers like me to buy.  Or, even if they are desperate, they should have more pride than to say, "Yeah, that's enough pages for a novel."  Neal Asher, great Sci-Fi Brit has a series of novels called The Polity - Ian McCormac novels.  Great stuff. He even has a few Polity novels that are tangential to his main story line (may have been fleshed out short stories).  Anyway, he has a time travel novel that is HORRIBLE.  Ugh!  He has no shame, or he needs a kidney.  It's gotta be one of the two reasons.

[Smiling Jack]

Maybe it's just me, but I tend to shy away from anything with the subtitle of "A so-and-so novel."  I don't know why.  At one time I thought it was because I knew that the main character would live on to the next novel, thereby removing some of the suspense, but that's pretty much the case with any series.  Maybe it's because I know that the person is a fictional character and deserves no credit on the cover of a book.  Kind of like the author Rita Mae Brown, who "co-writes" mysteries with her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown.  I find that offensive for some reason, and because she has written about twenty stories or so, I can only deduce that this cat is now dead which, ashamedly, brings with it some small amount of pleasure.