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Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
And the romance industry began doing series by having the "next" be a brother or sister from the original story get his/her HEA. Or the children of the lucky first HEA couple. When I was growing up (lo those many eons ago) there was no such thing as series in romance. By definition, romance was HEA, so there wasn't much to say after that. These days, they can be more like family sagas where after the main character finds happiness, her drunk brother in law suddenly straightens up in the next novel and HE finds HEA. And so on.
I never used to read the "side-character" spinoffs in fantasy. I did so for probably the first time with Patricia Brigg's Alpha and Omega (the original series was the Mercy Thompson series).
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The Xanth series thrives by focusing on different characters within the same fantasy realm and giving the secondary characters their own turn in the spotlight.
One of the more enjoyable aspects of the DARKOVER novels is that while most are standalones, events and characters from one are reflected in others; the young protagonist of one volume might show up as an older relative in another or a minor character in one be the focus of a different story.
For all the increasing popularity of novel series, the generational saga isn't as common in SF&F as it should. There is a lot of untapped potential there.