|
David Gerrold has been stuck on book 5 of The War Against the Chtorr since 1993, or thereabouts, with a cliffhanger sneak preview of book 5 at the end of book 4. He's claimed for a number of years now (on his website and in person) that book 5 is almost done. He's written several other series since then, so I'm assuming that he's written himself into a corner, and can't write himself out of it.
From my perspective, there are series where the same characters are in it, there may even be an overall story arch, but each story pretty much stands on its own. I'd rather read one of those series before reading one that each book ends with a cliffhanger, and then, if I'm caught up with the series, I have to wait one or more years for the author to finish writing the next one, have it fit into the publishing schedule, and if the author has several things going on, maybe have to wait for the author to get back to this series, if ever.
And then, we readers are stuck with "Do I buy this book to support the author even though I don't want to read it until the series is done?", or read it and then have to reread one or more books because there's a gap of several years between books (and who knows, maybe the suck fairy stopped by), or skip it knowing that the publisher might just dump the series?
|