Re: The Serpent, David Drake

On Thu, 29 Aug 2024 21:53:06 -0700, Robert Woodward
<robertaw@drizzle.com> wrote:

In article <varf6u$biqu$1@dont-email.me>,
Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>

On 8/29/2024 7:56 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:

 
 
Tuesday, 20 August 2024
 
I finished _The Serpent_ today, when I should have been preparing
supper.
 
The artifact with the serpent on it turned out to have nothing to do
with serpents, and I didn't see any anywhere else.
 
And it had very little to do with the plot, though it *was* very
valuable.
 
For that matter, there was no overall plot, just a bunch of
interlocking incidents.  Which miraculously end with Pal still alive.
 
It's a pity that there will be no more incidents.

 
Was this David Drake's last book ?  If so, then he was probably in the
grasp of his disease while writing it.
 

>
Yes, it was. BTW, it was significantly shorter than the two earlier
titles in that series.

Fleming, IIRC, wrote /The Man With The Golden Gun/ under similar
circumstances. And it is shorter that the novels preceding it.

But not shorter than his first four or so. This suggests the
possibility that he wrote all his novels that length, and the longer
ones were lengthened by adding the adjectives. Which didn't hurt them
at all, IMHO.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"