Quick Read
Got a comment on my blog today from a reader who got my book for Christmas, and stayed up all night reading it, finishing around 4:35am.
This is something I hear a lot from readers, and it makes me feel fantastic, because I feel like I did my job. I’ve been a fantasy reader all my life. I don’t think there’s ever been a period of more than a week in the last 20 years when I didn’t have a bookmark in a fantasy novel, and that’s only because I would sometimes take a week to catch up on my comics.
But when you do something all the time, it loses some of its luster. Much as you might want to, you can’t stay up EVERY night reading, if you want to have any kind of productive life. So for me, when a book is good enough that I’m willing to sacrifice sleep, and excited enough that I never get tired and don’t even notice the night dwindling because I can’t wait to see what happens next, that’s truly a magical thing. I love books like that. I live for books like that. And if my book is like that for some people, well, shit. That’s all I could ever ask for as a writer.
I’m a little distressed, though, by all the people who have written to me saying they read the whole 544 page book book in under 24 hours. You people know I don’t write anywhere near as fast as you read, right?
It’s a bizarre feeling, to think that you spent literally thousands of hours working on a project that someone consumes in such a short period of time. I guess movie and film producers feel the same way. I heard it takes like a YEAR to produce a single episode of Robot Chicken.
Thankfully, I had a head start, and The Desert Spear is almost done.
P.S.
I do love getting letters from readers. Seriously. It makes my day every time, and even if it takes me a while, I try to answer every one personally. Feel free to drop me a line at Peat@www.petervbrett.com
You’re making it sound like your readers don’t have anything to do and only read.
It isn’t so hard to finish readind your book in 2-3 h ’cause it’s nicely written and there aren’t any hard words – is it in the polish version or the original one.
I have now in my hands the german edition so I will check their translation of the book.
You’re writing as if the readers don’t have anything significant to do in RL and have heaps of time to read.
Between God and Truth, the book can be finished in 2-3 hours – is it polish version or the original. It’s nicely written so it doesn’t create any problems to finish it at such pace. Of course if some people want they can savour every word, comma and dot – they have the right to do so.
IMHO such books like yours Pete give me a dilemma: to read everything at normal pace and go as fast as possible to the climax or to relish the book…
Last Tuesday when i was coming back from work on a train i ended reading it for the third time and when I smilled reading the last word the people in my passanger car looked like they had creeps.
I think I looked then extremely suspicious XD.
2-3 hours?! Even at 3, for a 544 page book, that’s 3 pages a minute. You must read a LOT faster than me!
I certainly don’t mean to imply that readers don’t have anything else to do with their time. I know they do, and that’s why I always feel so honored when they choose to spend their precious time reading my work.
I can’t believe you got a hold of the German edition. I don’t know anyone that’s read it, and would love to hear what you think.
You know – quick reading and the ability to learn foreign languages are my only strong points. Also it isn’t that hard to find foreign editions of your books. You must have only know in which libraries search for it.
When I finish it I will give my opinnion.
I would read the Japanese edition too but there are 2 problems:
1. It’s not that easy to find it in bookstores (only ebay would help me)
2. Japanese isn’t the easiest language…I’m still learning it.
Well, I got sucked in and guzzled the book as fast as I could read… and then I went back and re-read it several times. So don’t worry, some of your speed-reading fans do indeed get more than a couple hours’ enjoyment out of your long labors.
Sucked in is right! Started reading your book around 11 last night. At about 6am this morning the birds started singing while Arlen was beating the crap out of corelings in the Maze, and around 10am I finished it and couldn’t get to sleep for 2 hours because my brain was still fizzing. Can’t wait to read the next installment!
I’ll be giving the missus a heads up when it comes out over here though, she’s somewhat “bemused” that I slept all day.
Haven’t done that since Brent Weeks’ Night Angel trilogy…. many thanks for a thoroughly excellent read!
Tim, that sounds awesome. Part of me wishes I could go back in time ten years and give myself a copy of the book, so I could read it without knowing what was coming next. I set out to write the book I would most like to read, and it would be interesting to know if I really succeeded. Sadly, the jury is biased.