posted
I was thinking that, once the series was complete, I might pick up the remaining books I don't have, and read it straight through. Certainly the first book was good, though it didn't inspire me to read the others as they came out. (I have Books One, Two, Three, and Four, given to me as gifts.)
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Honestly? No. The last two books were quite terrible (the last one didn't even have a proper ending) so I'm not really looking forward to the next one.
Posts: 450 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Actually, I had to read book 5 twice to really like it. The first time I was a little taken aback by Potter's sudden teenage angst. The second time I read it I understood it better and could properly enjoy the book. Of course, neither book came to an ending in the same way that the first four did (especially book 6) but compared to other series I've read....well, I just didn't think it was a deal-breaker. I'm enjoying the fact that each book is growing up a little bit and becoming darker.
But I can understand where you're coming from. Honestly, books 5 and 6 are quite different from the rest of the series. I expect book 7 to be even more of everything you probably disliked in books 5 and 6. (But I'm sure looking forward to it!)
Maybe not exactly bouncing, but I think I'll go to Amazon and pre-order it, rather than stand in line till after midnight as I did (to see what it was like) on the last one.
posted
I'm pretty excited too. As soon as Amazon sent me the notice that it was available for pre-order, I placed mine. I particularly enjoy reading them with my kids.
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posted
From what I've seen on drudge report, I think it ends with Daniel Ratcliffe riding away on a horse. Naked.
Posts: 683 | Registered: Oct 2004
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The trouble with the seventh is that the fifth movie is coming out on the 13th. Now personally, I could care less but the movie producers are worried that if the book is released just before the movie, people will be sitting in their living rooms reading rather than planting their buttes in a movie theatre. This way, the book is coming out after the movie has had a week and a day to draw in crowds. I think they are probably right in the order -- with the book set to release a week AFTER the movie, it should feed the frenzy but if the book came out first...well, who could care about a movie based on a book everybody's already read?
I went to Borders last night and reserved my copy at the store so i wouldn't have to wait for it to come in the mail. They said they would have a midnight party, so I can get it seriously quickly if I can find a baby-sitter. I also got a sticker that said, "Snape is a very bad man."
posted
I don't think I'll preorder. There are usually bunches of them lying around the bookstore the next day.
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posted
JKR couldn't release the book on 7-7-07 because that's the anniversary of the London bus bombing, which is still a painful spot for English people. She is a fan of "7's" and still got them in by having the book released in the seventh month, on the seventh day of the week, in the year 2007, AND 21 is 3x7! She is the most analytical writer I've ever read, hiding clues and putting them in plain sight but you don't BELIEVE they're clues until two books later when you go, "Ah-HA!"
As for Dan and the horse - I sure wish I could go and see him in Equus. He's developed tremendously as an actor (and physically - yikes!) and no, he's not underage IN ENGLAND for what he's doing (here, maybe, but not there). The angst and rage he's learned to portray as Harry will be nothing compared to what he'll have to portray as that deranged stablehand. Sure wish I could've talked my hubby into another trip to England! *sigh*
Lynda, who believes Dan will get rave reviews for his performance - and who can't wait to read book 7 (which must be the longest of all of them, given it's hefty price. Yay for "the longest book"! And "yay" for Amazon having it for $18.95 or so compared to ~$36 elsewhere!))
posted
When book 6 came out we went to Barnes and Nobles for it. We had to go earlier in day to wait in line for a bracelet that would let us back in that night. Then we had to wait until midnight, then we had to wait until our group was called, before being able to buy the book.
Afterwards we went to Wal-Mart. They said they just put several pallets of books out and the lines were gone within twenty minutes, no waiting, no stupid wrist bands.
I bet Wal-Mart will have the last book for $20 anyway.
posted
Amazon.com has the book for 18.95 NOW (pre-orders), although they don't have the audio book yet (*sigh* - I always get both).
For book 6, I thought I had my order in via Amazon, but I messed it up somehow and found out I wasn't going to get my book on the first day it was released (WAAAAH!) which also happened to be our 35th wedding anniversary. My dear, sweet hubby had seen a story in the paper about a Harry Potter festival in Wilmington Ohio (about 45 miles or so from us) and he asked if I'd like to go. What fun! They'd turned the whole old Main Street in to Diagon Alley, with Gringotts (we had to get a Galleon, Sickle and Knut to pay for each book, which also gave us a number in line), Honeydukes, Flourish and Blotts (the bookstore hosting the festival) and a street carnival complete with a parade of people in costume. Shops and businesses in town had professionally made signs with their "Harry Potter" names, including #12 Grimmauld Place and loads of other places. It was such fun! "Ectoplasm" (foamy bubbles) fell from the fourth story window of the Victorian-era hotel, and free showings of all the HP movies were held in the Victorian-era (GORGEOUS!) theater - projected from a laptop onto a huge screen on stage. At midnight, someone rode a unicorn (live horse that was very skittish about all the weird stuff going on around it) down the street to announce it was time to get the books. Snape gave a Potions Class, someone came dressed as a portrait, there were Dementors and Hagrids and TONS of Harry Potters - one family had three children, two boys and a girl, and the second boy's hair was spray-painted red so he could be Ron, while the girl's hair was mussed to make her "bushy haired" like Hermione. What fun!
posted
My husband works for Costco. He's been informed that the minute his warehouse opens he will need to go grab a copy of the book (or even two copies- my ten year old and I are arguing over who gets to read it first). Costco will have it for just as cheap if not cheaper than Wal-Mart. This is the first book of the series that we've had to wait for as we just started reading them last year. I'm interested to see how Rowling wraps everything up. I'm even more interested to see what she pulls out of her hat next. Does she have more in her or was Potter it?
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posted
I don't think she'll be able to stop. Maybe with Potter, but the writer in her won't be satisfied until she dies. At least, that's how I would be. But that doesn't mean she'll ever choose to publish again.
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Anybody else think Snape is going to turn out to be good really? I would really be surprised if he's simply a bad guy in the last book. I think the whole point of the oath he made to kill dumbledore was to excuse him for doing it.
Anyone at all agree?
[This message has been edited by Max Masterson (edited February 04, 2007).]
posted
Max -- would you pleas edit your post with a SPOILER warning for those who have not read the series? If you'd like to discuss that issue, we could start a post in "Discussion of Published Books"
[This message has been edited by Christine (edited February 04, 2007).]
posted
I note in passing that the date is on a Saturday...usually the industry likes these things on Tuesday to maximize sales. (July 7th is a Thursday.)
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posted
July 7 is the anniversary of the London bus bombing, so that wasn't an acceptable choice for a publication date. And the last two books came out on Saturdays, IIRC.
posted
I'm dying to read it. I waited the last time at Barnes and Noble at midnight, and was #742 in line if I remember correctly, but it went pretty quick. Plus there was a starbucks in there, so it wasn't that bad.
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posted
I'm so excited for it too! In July we can finally end the debate that's been raging in my family!
Posts: 125 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Lucky you! At least your family will talk about it! They just look at me with amused tolerance, *sigh* I have to do my Harry talk with online friends.
Lynda, glad she HAS online friends who are just as wild about Harry as she is!
posted
Perhaps my family is just a tad fanatical. I already have 3 copies on order for the house and two for the elementary school library. Once the audiobook is ready for pre-order, I'll order that as well. This way 3 of the four of us can read the books at the same time, I get to read a copy when I get home from work--assuming I've not finished it by then. The audiobook will be played in my car as I drive to and from work, even if I have not finished the actual reading.
Once we are done, one copy of the book will be sent over to a brother's house for him to reed.
posted
I have all the hardcover books and the audio books as well. Those books are the ONLY thing I've ever found that I could listen to while driving long distances and never get sleepy, even when I've heard the book bunches of times!
JK Rowling has a nice post in her diary on her website (www.jkrowling.com) about her feelings about ending the series. It's an intersting post. Check it out!
quote:[Rowling] continues, "If it comes as any consolation, I think that there will be plenty to continue arguing and speculating about, even after 'Deathly Hallows' comes out. So if you're not yet ready to quit the message boards, do not despair," she writes.
"I'm almost scared to admit this, but one thing has stopped me collapsing in a puddle of misery on the floor. While each of the previous Potter books has strong claims on my affections, 'Deathly Hallows' is my favorite, and that is the most wonderful way to finish the series."
posted
I don't know that I read it that way. You can have reams of background information on your books that you can't fit in or that doesn't make sense to fit in based on the POV you've chosen. This leaves much open to interpretation. IMO, the greatest books leave bits up to the imagination of the reader. Speaking as one with a great imagination, I appreciate that. No, while there are story questions that must be concluded in the seventh book, there are definitely things that can be left for interpretation and debate.
As an author, when I have this happen, I respect the readers to come to their own conclusions. The book speaks for itself. I may have my own ideas that fill in those holes but if it is not explicitly in the book, then there is no reason that my interpretation is any more or less correct than anyone else's.
posted
I feel a prediction coming on...I foresee Rowling writing more books, some involving Harry P., some not, but set in the same universe, but not at the school. And why not?
(Out of the depths of my memories of the first book, I recall something about Dumbledore being involved in Britain's victory in World War II. Wouldn't that make a tale? (Or am I just interpolating something from someone else's stuff? Either way...))
posted
Maybe the corner of each page will be dipped in poison and all the finger-licking page-turners will die instead. Posts: 1683 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
You know, A Conan Doyle tried to kill Holmes off because he didn't want to write about him any more (and hasn't J.K. said she won't write any more Harry Potter books? Hmm, just noticed that J K is an abbreviation for "just kidding." Coincidence? Yeah, probably.).
Of course, it didn't work for Doyle to kill off Holmes, but I wouldn't be surprised if Rowling did it anyway.
posted
Steven King met JK Rowling recently and begged her not to kill of Potter in the way Doyle killed Holmes. I thought it was interesting that he cited the Doyle example.
Speaking of the Snape/Dumbeldore thing; I've heard it suggested that Dumbledore may have been turned into a Horcrux (maybe during the scene in Bk 6, where LV is applying for the DADA position), and, knowing this, asked Snape to kill him.
Makes sense, if you ask me.
[This message has been edited by cvgurau (edited February 07, 2007).]
posted
I'm pulling for the ending where Harry wakes up in the small room he started in, and realizes it was all a dream, that there is nothing special or remarkable about him whatsoever. Would it be a satisfying ending? Not at all. Would it be a totally capricious, arbitrary, in-your-face exercise of the enormous power that Rowling has gained over millions? Absolutely. That alone justifies it.
Posts: 683 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
The final scene will have Harry and Voldemort locked in a duel where the flows from their wands are held together--similar to how they were in Goblet of Fire. Then the balcony where Dudley is hiding collapses under his weight and he crushes Voldemort to death.
posted
You know, I really, honestly, don't think JKR is going to write any more of the Harry Potter story outside these 7 books. I'm sure her publisher would *love* for her to do so and she may be pressured, but I hope she sticks to her guns. This is the story. I don't need the prequels because I know how they end and I don't need sequels if she ties up book 7 properly.
Rowling has said qite consistently that she has no plans to write more of this series after book 7. In a recent interview, she said she had very mixed feelings about saying good bye to the series that she has spent 17 years of her life on.
posted
So many series end in such a good way, that to go back would be sacrilege.
I'm upset that they're making another Indiana Jones movie because the third one ended so well.
They're making another Ghostbusters movie as well, and even though they were kind of silly, they should let it end where it did. The third one is slated as a CGI (Bill Murray refused to act in it, but he'll voice it) and will take place in Man-hell-ton, a hell version of Manhatton. And no, I'm not joking.
I've even heard rumors of a fourth Back to the Future movie. Again, don't risk screwing up a good thing once the series is over.
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