The Monthly [In]Sanity Check - June 2003

Cover Article

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix came out on June 21st.

We knew it was going to be a success from the start. Fans around the world loyally waited more than 3 years for the next addition to the Harry Potter series. The fifth book had been held up several times, and when they announced that it was definitely getting released on June 21st, 2003, and it had gone on preorder at Amazon.com, it was Amazon's bestseller within two hours.

Of course, most of us knew that. A lot of the people reading this right now probably are Potter fans, because most people who like to read like to read Potter. That's just how it works. ;)

The new book is 800-something pages (at least in my version), and apparently is 1/3 longer than Goblet of Fire. This is interesting... are the books going to get longer? In my humble opinion, this one has less filler at the beginning (eh... the Quidditch Cup stuff wasn't terribly exciting... *gets maimed by Eloria*), and keeps everything moving. Is JKR's writing style slightly different in this one, or is it just that I've been reading fan fiction for a year and a half...? Haha....

JK Rowling let out various hints about the content of the book... 'a fan of Harry's' is supposed to die in this one, according to her, as well as the DATDA teacher being like 'poisoned honey'. (As you can, ahem, tell, I haven't finished reading the thing yet at the time of writing, lol.)

Apparently some of the books were published without some of their pages. Make sure you check your copy of Order of the Pheonix to make sure that pages 402-435 aren't missing.

So, on a closing note... read slow enough to let the joy of the new books spread out! (Or read it a few times in a row!)