Quote:
Originally Posted by ProfCrash
I mind waiting 4-5 years for each book in a series. There are far too many authors who take advantage of their fans and continually delay the release of the next book in a series. If GRR Martin cannot find the time to finish the next book in his series in a year or two that tells me he is either too bored with it to dedicate the time to the series and he should wrap it up. Instead what was suppose to be a trilogy is suddenly looking like six books, all growing longer and taking longer to produce with the quality going down hill, all so he and his Publisher can make more money.
The Wheel of Time series is another good example of this type of behavior. If you are not interested enough in the series to write on a consistent basis, and I have no idea what that really means but I know that GRR has published on his website lists of other projects and things he is working on because he needs a break, then finish it off.
I respect Jim Butcher for limiting Codex Alera to six books. He wrote the story he wanted to and stopped. Trust me, I would love to see more from this series, and I am not the only one, but he has so far resisted the pressure and said no more. He wants to work a different project. I wish he would do the same with Dresden which has grown in length and is getting to be pretty repretitive. At least he sticks to his schedule so you have a clue as to when to expect the next book.
There are some series that lend themselves to the book a year schedule, Kim Harrison's Hallows series works well. The sookie Stackehouse, although that is a series that could have been wrapped up a while back.
The problem now is that some series are popular enough to sell even as the writing is getting repetative and boring. Kind of like sequels to Disney movies that go straight to DVD. But it dilutes the content of the series and makes me less likely to trust the author with a new series or other work.
I think JKR hit a good stride with her series. She had a natural series guide, one year for each year of school. She had the series outlined before she started writting so she had a guide to help her stay on track. She knew what the end state was going to be. She wrote on a regular basis and had a few delays in releasing but not many. Now if only others could follow her lead.
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How boring... JKR as a standard... I would rather an author put out books that are well-written and enjoyable, I'm not interested in calendars and, although I'd prefer a shorter wait than years, it's not that much of a hardship to wait for something good rather than something written to fit a schedule...
Oh yes, WoT is no longer being written by the original author as he was inconsiderate enough to die. Brandon is doing a pretty good job of finishing the series but I don't see why that means he has to stop all of his own projects to finish for the "I have no attention span and I WANT IT NOW" brigade...
And as for GRRM, if money was his pure criterion then he'd be churning out more and more "Song of Ice & Fire" and ignoring anything else as SoIaF is the best paying work he's ever done... try and catch some of the interviews with him and you'll see that he writes what he does when he does as inspiration and plotting strikes... and he's always said that it's better to take a break if you feel stuck, even do something else to refresh your thoughts and the end result will be better...
