Which adds two little bits of short fiction to the Elm Haven universe that I was previously unaware of. Which is interesting enough on its own, but what's also of interest here is of course Dan Simmons' Writing Well blog, mentioned just above this bit, and which I'd already studied the first few posts of back when I made a half-hearted attempt at being a writer myself. It's well worth reading if you're serious about writing, though, as with all things Dan Simmons, it can be a bit ponderous and a mite bit too pleased with itself.
So, Simmons states these stories should be read after Summer of Night, but, as I've already posited my own chronology earlier, these two should fit somewhere within that. And I'm not sure where to put them.
To be safe, putting them past A Winter Haunting would be best, but I'm kind of married to the idea that that novel should be the absolute last, the one that closes it all out, the one with the most retrospective a gaze out of all the Elm Haven novels. So I'll put these, purely for myself, after Darwin's Blade and before A Winter Haunting. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.
And about that 'you may not like that'... I remember reading The Happiest Little Dead Boy in the World after I'd read the hugely enjoyable Otherland Quartet, by Tad Williams, and I agree; These works stand separately and will feel different. People change, and that change will inevitably clash with your shared experience. It can be hard to see these people, these characters you've come to love, act different that what you'd expect or even would want them to act.
Here, for instance, in the Elm Haven universe, I'm not sure I would want to see how Jim Harlen is like, all grown up, his views on women solidified and put into practice. Might not be a fun thing to see.
Ah, well. With my reading pace, these short stories are well a ways off still.
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