From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> writes:

(Narrowing to two groups. I'm going to omit alt.fan.harry-potter
because, while on-topic, I do have a comment that's possibly too harsh
and I don't want this to become a flame war...)

On 2026-05-03, Titus G wrote:

On 03/05/2026 03:10, The True Melissa wrote:

Verily, in article <0001HW.2FA5B1170A1D200C30655938F@news.eternal-
september.org>, did dalton@nfld.com deliver unto us this message:

May 2 is International Harry Potter Day.

I never could get into the Harry Potter books. They were such a huge
phenomenon, but it just didn't speak to me. I thought the first one was >>> kind of cute, with the OTT fairytale vibe and the "nice is different
than good" lesson at the end, but the others didn't really interest me. >>> I read them because I was in the field and literally everyone was
reading them, but I didn't get it.

They clearly spoke to a whole lot of other people!

My experience was similar. There was unexpected humour in the first but
I have yet to read the second.

I did find them entertaining, although I've only read each one
once. That they took years coming out probably means I could have a
different experience reading from beginning to end nowadays.

I plan on maybe rereading the series sometime, to assess how much it has
on top of being a public school story, with a setting that incentivates >needless rivalry, besides the usual bullying. That's probably coming too >strong, and I may have forgotten a significant chunk of the richer
aspects of the plot and their weight overall, hence why I want to reread
it.

After that, you may want to compare/contrast with Nuttall's _Schooled in Magic_ series. There are 24 in the series, plus a couple of novellas.

_Past Tense_ (#10) is a particularly interesting take on time travel.

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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.written

On 06/05/2026 19.55, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

On 5/6/2026 7:11 AM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:

On 05/05/2026 23.17, Steve Hayes wrote:

On Tue, 5 May 2026 08:13:40 -0500, "Michael F. Stemper"
<michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

On 03/05/2026 12.59, Steve Hayes wrote:

[Harry Potter books]

They didn't get as short as the first three, but it wasn't a monotonic >>>> increase.

Do they give word counts?

No, they don't.

Mine are the Bloomsbury editions, but I suspect different editions
might give different page counts.

I suspect that as well. That is why I specifically used the first
British publication (Bloomsbury) for all seven. Apples to apples.

But!-a But!-a That's actually the correct way to do it!!!-a No one on the internet is allowed do things correctly!!!

Sorry; I'll consider myself suitably admonished.
--
Michael F. Stemper
No animals were harmed in the composition of this message.

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