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# this is true sadly. i think verne needs to be read when you're young and not concerned with characterisation too much
H.G. Wells strikes the balance right though i find.
(, Tue 17 Jun 2008, 2:40, archived)
# there's this little quote from the epilogue of war of the worlds where he writes
'[i wrote some detailed something] that would scarcely be of interest to the casual reader'

which is so perfectly true.
verne just seems to be showing off his technical knowledge, and forgets he's not writing a Big Book of Boys Facts, he's writing a Story.
(, Tue 17 Jun 2008, 2:43, archived)
# this is what i love Wells for
"by a happy mingling of reasoning and intuition perculiar to her success she struck gold almost immediately. But the whole story of her submarine mining, intensely interesting though it is, must be told at some other time"
(, Tue 17 Jun 2008, 2:48, archived)
# My book was like that until I realised the additional information was disjointed and pointless really.
So had to rein loads of the stuff in and just add them as amusing asides.
(, Tue 17 Jun 2008, 2:48, archived)
# pratchett style footnotes or what?
(, Tue 17 Jun 2008, 2:49, archived)
# Nay, I just tried to tie the actual information into the speech, plot or whatever is going on.
When previously it was either only tenuously relevent or just came completely out of nowhere. And I just made the stuff more concise and to the point generally.

If it does ever get published and subsequently carries on to the potential series, I think I'll just have to put out a compendium of miscellania which has all the unfunny stuff in, like evolutionary paths, the creation of some of the weirder escher worlds and so on.
(, Tue 17 Jun 2008, 2:51, archived)