I much prefer series that have a well-defined start and end point these days and of them I tend to prefer shorter ones to longer ones. For longer ones I try to wait until they are complete (or about to be complete) before reading them even if I love the author.
For series that are ongoing, I like "monster of the week" type stories that can be read as stand alone books (once you have the gist) rather than stories that build on each other a lot. That can be fine for a series with an end but for something that just goes on and on I really don't like it.
So mysteries with a small cast of regulars but without some ominous bad guy who has been pulling the strings of the minor bad guys are preferred. If there is some big bad guy, there is a resolution to that arc and it doesn't just go on and on.
Another example is Discworld which has a common setting and then follows a few characters through that world but doesn't require that you read
everything prior to a given book to be able to understand and enjoy it. You can enjoy an individual sub-series in Discworld without ever reading something from a different sub-series. There are even some books that you can enjoy without reading the rest of the sub-series. (And yes, I know some people disagree with this vehemently. No, this doesn't apply to everyone and certainly not every book in the series, but it does apply for many. Let's not argue about it, ok?)
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Originally Posted by HarryT
(e.g. Eddings' 6-book "Belgariad" series)
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"6-book"? Am I missing one that I should have been reading with this? I always took the Mallorean and Belgarath/Polgara books as separate entities so I don't count them as part of the Belgariad.