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A review by ianbanks
The Song of Phaid the Gambler by Mick Farren
4.0
Phaid is an interesting character to spend some time with and his picaresque meanderings - I often believe that we have just a random snapshot of several months of his life here and that any further adventures would be more of the same sorts of flirting with disaster and success in equal measures - have been a journey I’ve enjoyed on the occasional returns to his world I’ve taken over the last thirty years or so. Therefore, when I found the one-volume UK first edition at a sale recently, and realised that it was less than a year after my latest reread of the two-volume series (which was how it was published in the US, and how I first experienced it) I decided to jump back in. I was expecting any changes to be largely dealing with the transition between one volume to another, with a bit of added exposition in the second volume.
In that regard, I was correct. But there was a fair amount of other changes, too. Not much: around 5% of the novel was altered or cut but it did provide a fair amount of food for thought as to the reasoning behind such a decision.
The largest cut comes from the UK edition: there’s a sequence quite early on in the book where Phaid meets an old acquaintance and agrees to act as a dealer in a casino to raise some money for his further travels. There’s also an encounter with a prostitute and a little more exploration of on of the subcultures of this future world. These were completely new to me and they were tremendous fun to read but I did spend some time wondering why they had been cut from the versions I had read.
The best I can come up with is that when the US editors were slicing the nove in half, they needed to get rid of some parts to ensure that the two new books were roughly equal in length (they’ve chosen a logical cutoff point for the two books: interestingly it occurs midway through a chapter, wit a fair amount of editing and rearranging of scenes o either side) and to ensure that, they got rid of a few scenes that didn’t really show our protagonist in the best light. Not that he’s an attractive hero at the best of times, but in a slimmer volume such as I have been used to, you need to make a good impression faster.
Overall, the cuts and edits and rewrites work fairly well and feel logical and natural in the way that the book flows. I really enjoyed reading the original story at last and spent an amusing few hours with both versions of the text in front of me as I tried to put myself into Mr Farren’s shoes and thought about how the changes would be accomplished.
In that regard, I was correct. But there was a fair amount of other changes, too. Not much: around 5% of the novel was altered or cut but it did provide a fair amount of food for thought as to the reasoning behind such a decision.
The largest cut comes from the UK edition: there’s a sequence quite early on in the book where Phaid meets an old acquaintance and agrees to act as a dealer in a casino to raise some money for his further travels. There’s also an encounter with a prostitute and a little more exploration of on of the subcultures of this future world. These were completely new to me and they were tremendous fun to read but I did spend some time wondering why they had been cut from the versions I had read.
The best I can come up with is that when the US editors were slicing the nove in half, they needed to get rid of some parts to ensure that the two new books were roughly equal in length (they’ve chosen a logical cutoff point for the two books: interestingly it occurs midway through a chapter, wit a fair amount of editing and rearranging of scenes o either side) and to ensure that, they got rid of a few scenes that didn’t really show our protagonist in the best light. Not that he’s an attractive hero at the best of times, but in a slimmer volume such as I have been used to, you need to make a good impression faster.
Overall, the cuts and edits and rewrites work fairly well and feel logical and natural in the way that the book flows. I really enjoyed reading the original story at last and spent an amusing few hours with both versions of the text in front of me as I tried to put myself into Mr Farren’s shoes and thought about how the changes would be accomplished.