The Sorrows of Empire - novel and novella?

[borgboy]

So I'm finally getting around to reading the Mirror Universe novellas. I know that the Sorrows of Empire novella was made into a full length novel. I'm trying to do a release order reading marathon of most Trek novels that's been going on for years. Should I just skip the novella and read the novel or are there differences that make it worth reading both of them? If I do skip the novella I'd think I should read the novel in between the novellas or are there continuity issues from novels published between the time the novella was published and the novel that work better if I read them before TSOE? Thanks for any help.

 

[Christopher]

From an old interview with Dave:

http://unreality-sf.net/2009/12/08/david-mack-interview-2/

What, in David’s opinion, makes the new Sorrows a worthwhile read? “The first reason is that the new novel is more than twice the length of the original, clocking in at around 92,000 words.” But quantity isn’t everything, so David has made sure to improve the existing material, too. “In the course of adding new material, mostly in the form of new chapters, I have also taken the opportunity to streamline much of the original work. In some cases this was done to mesh old and new material; in other cases I was addressing stylistic issues, tweaking my word choices, or otherwise applying the lessons I have learned in the last few years since I wrote the original.”

In terms of actual story content, I think everything in the shorter version is present in the expanded version, just refined.

Also, they're both novels. All the Mirror Universe and Myriad Universes installments were longer than the 40,000 words necessary to qualify as short novels.

 

[Smiley]

My preference between the two is the shorter version. I feel like it had more power and better pacing. If you want to read the longer version, which has a few more ties to other pieces of the Trekverse (screen and book), I would read it in the slot when the longer version was published.

 

[borgboy]

Thanks, I'll read the revised novel version in the revised novel slot then.

 

[Smiley]

I'll be interested to hear how it works when the revised version is the first version of it for someone. I hope you love it!

 

[borgboy]

I'll be interested to hear how it works when the revised version is the first version of it for someone. I hope you love it!

I am generally a fan of David Mack’s work so I expect I will like it.
I’m starting Age of the Empress right now.

 

[borgboy]

I did think to check the Mirror Universe short story collection and there are stories there that reference Sorrows of Empire. And the expanded version of SoE references those stories and/or other releases after the original version, so it sounds like the only way to get the whole story without missing anything is to read both versions in the order they were published within the series.
Side note, I have finished the MU story Age of Empress today and it was excellent. I'm really invested in the MU saga and looking forward to the rest of it.

 

[David Mack]

I did think to check the Mirror Universe short story collection and there are stories there that reference Sorrows of Empire. And the expanded version of SoE references those stories and/or other releases after the original version, so it sounds like the only way to get the whole story without missing anything is to read both versions in the order they were published within the series.
Side note, I have finished the MU story Age of Empress today and it was excellent. I'm really invested in the MU saga and looking forward to the rest of it.

If you read the standalone full-length novel, there is no reason for you to read the short novel in the anthology. In fact, I had to make some minor corrections to the timing of some events when I expanded the story, so the longer one is more correct, and is the version with which later installments (especially my MU revolution story, Rise Like Lions) are consistent.

 

[Damian]

I remember asking this very question several years ago when I was reading the "Mirror Universe" novels over on trekmovie.com. I believe David Mack answered the question there much as he did above, that it's unnecessary to read the novella. I had the Mirror Universe that I was just starting to read at the time along with the novel that I had gotten when it was first released. If I recall correctly there was a review on trekmovie.com of "Sorrows of the Empire" and I wanted to know if I should read both. I suspected the novel was just an expanded version of the novella but wanted to make sure before skipping the novella in the Mirror Universe collection.

And I really enjoyed "Sorrows of the Empire". Definitely worth the read IMO. Since I never read the novella version I don't know what was added for the novel, but there's nothing in the novel that I feel was extraneous. Put another way, I think I'd miss anything that was not in the novella. Whatever he added/adapted for the full length novel was well worth the read (and it has ramifications for the future Mirror Universe stories). In fact it's one of those few novels I'd rate as excellent. I noted in my review of "The Forgotten War" that I enjoyed it but it lacked what I thought would be 'staying power', that is a story that I would remember years after I read it. Probably within a year or so I won't remember much about TFW. But I still remember much of "Sorrows of the Empire" even though it's been years since I read that. It was actually my favorite MU novel.

 

[Christopher]

^Not a novella. A short novel.

 

[Damian]

^Not a novella. A short novel.

Oops, my bad. I was using the title of the thread.

 

[borgboy]

If you read the standalone full-length novel, there is no reason for you to read the short novel in the anthology. In fact, I had to make some minor corrections to the timing of some events when I expanded the story, so the longer one is more correct, and is the version with which later installments (especially my MU revolution story, Rise Like Lions) are consistent.

Thanks for that information.
Since I’m doing a release order read through, should I read the expanded SoE in the middle of Glass Empires or hold off until the expanded novel’s placement in the schedule?
I did read the first chapter of the original version this morning and am completely hooked.

 

[Damian]

Thanks for that information.
Since I’m doing a release order read through, should I read the expanded SoE in the middle of Glass Empires or hold off until the expanded novel’s placement in the schedule?
I did read the first chapter of the original version this morning and am completely hooked.

I'd read it when you reach the place in Glass Empires that the original short novel was placed at. The Mirror Universe books follow a continuing storyline so I'd read it in the original order (just replacing the full length novel where the short novel is in Glass Empires).

That's how I read it when I was reading the Mirror Universe books and it flowed nicely.

 

[JD]

I tend to think of the two different version of Sorrows of Empire as a movie with a theatrical version and extended version. Pretty much everything that was in the original version, apparently with a few minor tweaks, is still there, and the extended cut has new scenes inserted between the some of the old scenes.
I remember there is one part in the short novel where we jump over several years, and the longer version adds at least one or two scenes for each year that was originally skipped.

 

[Christopher]

I tend to think of the two different version of Sorrows of Empire as a movie with a theatrical version and extended version. Pretty much everything that was in the original version, apparently with a few minor tweaks, is still there, and the extended cut has new scenes inserted between the some of the old scenes.

That analogy works up to a point, but we're talking about an extended edition that's more than twice as long and contains entirely new material, not just un-deleted scenes. It's more like one of those cases where a director turned a short film into a feature-length film by shooting new stuff but keeping the original short essentially intact as part of the feature.

 

[JD]

Yeah, that probably is a better analogy.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, that probably is a better analogy.

Except on second thought, not so much, because those features usually just make the short film a small piece of a whole new plot, while in this case, the core of the plot is still in the original material and the added stuff just elaborates and deepens it.

Just goes to show that analogies are rarely perfect.

 

[David Mack]

I'd read it when you reach the place in Glass Empires that the original short novel was placed at. The Mirror Universe books follow a continuing storyline so I'd read it in the original order (just replacing the full length novel where the short novel is in Glass Empires).

I would second this recommendation.

 

[Damian]

Yeah, that probably is a better analogy.

Except on second thought, not so much, because those features usually just make the short film a small piece of a whole new plot, while in this case, the core of the plot is still in the original material and the added stuff just elaborates and deepens it.

Hmm, interesting. I never read the shorter novel but it sounds like nowadays it's better just to read the longer novel. After all David Mack himself said you can basically ignore the shorter novel, that in essence it's not worth anyone's time to read it now.

Perhaps an out and out replacement is a better way to put it. It sounds like his intention is if you read the Mirror Universe stories now that you should just substitute the longer novel where the shorter novel goes and pretend the short novel doesn't even exist now.

 

[borgboy]

Reading it now (in the middle of Glass Empire).
Thanks everybody!