I was going to Pit Amazon.com, then I found out Barnes and Noble did the same thing. So it’s me. Just can’t keep my eyes to myself…
Been avidly awaiting the new Harry Turtledove. American Empire: The Victorious Opposition. Checked Amazon to see how much they were asking for it. Then, on the foolish assumption that editorial reviews wouldn’t contain spoilers, as opposed to customer reviews, which might be rife with them but wouldn’t be up yet since the book isn’t out yet, checked the editorial review.
Now I know two major plot points.
If you’re not familiar with this series (alternate history: what North America in the 20th century* would be like if the South had won the civil war), suffice to say that what just happened to me is perfectly analogous to seeing a spoiler for Harry Potter 5. Both series have carefully crafted plots, and, IYAM, Turtledove’s pacing is far better than Rowlings: you can never be quite sure, at the beginning of a sequence, what changes will have been wrought by the end of it. In the past, readers have been left staggering from plot points that are out of the cloudless blue, and yet perfectly consistent: no deus ex machina, just life as it is lived.
Now I know two things that are going to happen. And even though I could have predicted one of them, I still feel robbed of the suspense I would otherwise have been under. I didn’t see the other one coming at all, and that just sucks. I know there are other Turtledove fans on this board, so I’m not even going to imply what these plot points are. And if anyone else knows, or wants to speculate, I highly recommend they use spoiler boxes.
Anyway. I’m not going to tell this to Mr. Rilch. Not out of embarrassment; I’m sure he would understand that I never expected an editorial review to give away so much…Although I think I will warn him to take off the dust jacket without looking at it, since it might have some of the same info. But I’m not going to tell him, because I don’t want to do the same tease that was done with HP5, saying, “Something’s gonna hap-pen! Something’s gonna hap-pen!”, leading him to speculate and thereby have his suspense ruined**.
Shit-o-goddamn. And I have no one to blame but myself.
*Yes, I know How Few Remain took place in the 19th century. Sue me. He’s now so deep into the 20th century that it would be silly to say “late 19th and early 20th century”.
**I realize, of course, why Rowling was compelled to warn people that someone was going to die in HP5: because kids read that series, and parents had to get their “We’re born; we live a little while; and we die” speeches ready. But it still took a lot of bite out of it, for me.
Forget the “couple of weeks”!