A change of pace

Consistency is a good thing. Especially if you're writing a novel and it's one of a series. Some of us don't read each novel of a series when they come out. Sometimes we don't learn about the series until after several or all of them have been published. 

In my case, I tend to read them in order and I don't stop until I've finished with the last book that's available.

That's also one way to catch writers who are inconsistent with their story and/or their characters. 

My latest series is the Lonesome Dove series. I realize they weren't written in order. 

However if you start with Dead Man's Walk which is the one when Gus and Woodrow were younger it could be considered the first of the series. However the copyright date of that installment was in 2000. The one that is next according to the age of Gus and Woodrow is Comanche Moon with a copyright date of 1997. Then we come to the one that really started the series, but is the third one of what is now the series, Lonesome Dove. The copyright date for Lonesome Dove is 1985. And to end the series we have Streets of Laredo. The copyright date is 1993. 

I've read that Streets of Laredo was in response to the movie Return to Lonesome Dove. It was said that Larry McMurtry not only didn't have anything to do with it, but disliked the way the story was continued so he wrote his own version of what happened after Lonesome Dove. The movie Lonesome Dove came out in 1989. Return to Lonesome Dove came out in 1993. 

If you've been paying attention, you'll notice that both Return to Lonesome Dove (the television version)and Streets of Laredo (in book form) arrived about the same time. Again, this is speculation and this is purely on my part, but I suspect that during that period of time their was a major pissing contest going on with the movie version of what happened next and Larry McMurtry's version. 

I can respect that. I really can. Since I spent many years writing, I know how protective a writer can get of their characters. They really are our children. 

What I can't respect is the fact that Mr. McMurtry doesn't appear to respect his readers. If he did respect his readers he would have done a much better job of being consistant with Dead Man's Walk, Comanche Moon and Streets of Laredo making sure the events were consistant with events in his previous works of the series. 

I realize he probably didn't plan on writing a series when he wrote Lonesome Dove. In my opinion when things were referred to in Streets of Laredo they should have been consistant with the way they were in Lonesome Dove. After all, Lonesome Dove was already a hit. Many people had read the book and/or seen the mini-series. Keep the damned events that are mentioned in the next book consistant.

Next came Comanche Moon. And after that, Dead Man's Walk. 

It's very disappointing to read the works of someone who is praised for being one of the best and find so many pull you out of the story because the backstory between Call and Maggie, Jake and Maggie, Jake and Clara change from book to book. 

Sorry, but I feel very cheated by the sequel and the two prequels. Extremely cheated.