Midnight Sun (Partial Draft) - Stephenie Meyer

While finishing out her Twilight saga, Stephenie Meyer took a little break to play around with her story from a different perspective. So, she took the first book and rewrote it from Edward's vantage point. While playing around with this, and nowhere near any revisions or completion, someone leaked a draft onto the internet. Meyer decided that instead of asking her fans not to read it, that she would explain the situation and sanction the internet version - with the caveat that it was indeed a work in progress, and with the hope that perhaps someday she would return to finish it. So, I decided to take a look - at 260-odd pages, it is much shorter than the other books in the series - suggesting that Meyer still had much more that she wished to include. At present the version is very much a rewriting of Twilight, scene by scene. Accordingly, many of the conversations seem very familiar. I expected to see more of the Cullen family revealed - a more in-depth exploration of the vampires' hunting rituals, their conversations behind closed doors, a look at all their various hobbies - what they spend their time doing when everyone else is sleeping - and how they have come about their wonderous talents (such as Edward's piano playing) and amassing great wealth. But, instead of delving into what we could never have seen when reading the story from Bella's perspective, Meyer seemed very rooted to the story as she had already presented it. I would hope that if she does choose to go back to Midnight Sun that she will fill in the gaps with more interesting background - and that we could learn much more about Edward - where he came from and what he thinks about when he isn't constantly trying to protect Bella from herself. But, putting aside the fact that has her story remained a secret she would have had all the time in the world to polish it, I thought this was a fun exercise ( a kind of Wicked vis-a-vis The Wizard of Oz) and a nice little way to continue on with the Bella/Edward story now that it has seemingly been put to rest.