The open ended series

[pwalker8]

There are a number of different types of series out there. There are series that have reoccurring characters, but each book is basically a stand along book. A good example is the various detective/secret agent series such as Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, the Agatha Christie books, etc.

Then there are the defined number, one long story series, such as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter (it was always going to be 7 books, one for each year in school) and the like. While it might take longer than you hope between book, you know it's not open ended.

Last there is the never ending series. I call it that because, while usually there is a final book, it tends to be open ended until it finally gets to the point where it's lost steam and the author/publisher realizes enough is enough, time to wrap it up. Wheel of Time is a famous example and I guess Game of Thrones. I would tend to call the Honor Harrington an example of this. The author might have an end in mind, but he or she just rambles along never really wrapping things up.

Fantasy, especially YA fantasy seems to be especially guilty of this. One of my frustrations as a reader is reading the first couple of books in a series and then coming to the realization that this is an open ended series that probably isn't going to be wrapped up until sales start to drop. It's not necessarily that the writing is bad that's the problem, it's the knowledge that it's going to just keep going. Most of the time, I simply start to lose interest in the series as it just keeps going without any real resolution.

Does this bother any of y'all? Do you just drop the series when you realize what's going on, or do you keep going until you get bored with it?

[JSWolf]

Lord of the Rings is not actually a series. It was split by the publisher into three books.

[JSWolf]

One ongoing series I read is the In Death series written by J. D. Robb (real name Nora Roberts) and it's up to 50 books with no end in site. There are 2 books a year and maybe a short story. But the ting is, the stories are good and they are an easy read. They are still very popular.

[Sirtel]

Depends on the quality of the sequels. I can easily lose interest if the quality of the subsequent books takes a dive downhill. Which it does in most cases, unless each book can stand alone (most mystery series fall into this category, as the OP already mentioned).

Janny Wurts "The Wars of Light and Shadow" comes to mind as well. I was a huge fan of the first book back in 1996, the second and third were ok, the fourth was barely there... and I haven't read the rest, although I've bought them all.

As to "The Wheel of Time", which I'm just re-reading among other things, it's awful to say something like this, but perhaps Jordan's early death was a good thing as far as finishing the series went. Had he not died, who knows how long he would have rambled on. Yes, of course it's not a nice thing to say, but there the fact looms...

Also the Vorkosigan series, which I'm also re-reading. Surprisingly it was very good up to the 8th book (I think?), A Civil Campaign (I mean to include the latter among the good ones). After that it dived downward and I lost interest. IMHO, of course.

[DNSB]

One of my pet peeves is that author who does a trilogy, writes the third book and then comes out with a 4th book 6 months later. My wife is currently reading a series that is up to book 10 of a "trilogy". The sad part is that in book 3, she says the series was pretty much wrapped up. Then book 4 went off in a totally different direction so about the only consistency was the setting and character names. The series seems popular enough that the local library makes it available.

[Sirtel]

Game of Thrones is not really open ended, because Martin has always known how it would end and he hasn't written 12+ rambling sequels with no end in sight. He's just no longer able to write it at all. I guess he lost interest in the series years ago, but as it's extremely popular, he can't admit it openly.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One ongoing series I read is the In Death series written by J. D. Robb (real name Nora Roberts) and it's up to 50 books with no end in site. There are 2 books a year and maybe a short story. But the ting is, the stories are good and they are an easy read. They are still very popular.

In Death is somewhere in my TBR pile and it's among those I really intend to read in my remaining lifetime. Glad to know the series doesn't lose steam after a few books.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

In Death is somewhere in my TBR pile and it's among those I really intend to read in my remaining lifetime. Glad to know the series doesn't lose steam after a few books.

As usual when a series gets that long, there are some books that are better than others but overall, I've enjoyed the series though I still blame my wife for getting me hooked on them.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Depends on the quality of the sequels. I can easily lose interest if the quality of the subsequent books takes a dive downhill. Which it does in most cases, unless each book can stand alone (most mystery series fall into this category, as the OP already mentioned).

Janny Wurts "The Wars of Light and Shadow" comes to mind as well. I was a huge fan of the first book back in 1996, the second and third were ok, the fourth was barely there... and I haven't read the rest, although I've bought them all.

As to "The Wheel of Time", which I'm just re-reading among other things, it's awful to say something like this, but perhaps Jordan's early death was a good thing as far as finishing the series went. Had he not died, who knows how long he would have rambled on. Yes, of course it's not a nice thing to say, but there the fact looms...

Also the Vorkosigan series, which I'm also re-reading. Surprisingly it was very good up to the 8th book (I think?), A Civil Campaign (I mean to include the latter among the good ones). After that it dived downward and I lost interest. IMHO, of course.

Yes, I read the Wars of Light and Shadow. I've got the first several in hard back. I think I have through Fugitive Prince and never read the rest. I had to look at Wiki to see how many more books there are.

I agree with Jordon. I frequently say that after the first couple, the books seriously needed an editor who was willing to be firm with him.

The Civil Campaign is also the last of the Vorkosigan that I really liked. I'm not sure if I just lost the train of action, or didn't really care for the change of focus. I haven't read the last couple.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Game of Thrones is not really open ended, because Martin has always known how it would end and he hasn't written 12+ rambling sequels with no end in sight. He's just no longer able to write it at all. I guess he lost interest in the series years ago, but as it's extremely popular, he can't admit it openly.

True, GOT is an example of an abandoned series, a major peeve of mine. There are a number of mid-tier writers who have abandoned series simply because they didn't sell well. Martin doesn't have that excuse. I'm just glad that I never really got interested in the books. I haven't gotten past 100 pages on the first book and I've tried to read it several times.

I'm told that I need to watch the HBO series, but then again, this is the same lady who told me that I need to read the Twilight series.

[Quoth]

I read the Twilight Series so you don't need to. I regarded it as research. I've read other "modern" Vampire books, some school settings. I think Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmila), George Macdonald (Lilith) and Bram Stoker (Dracula) were right. Exterminate them (1872, 1895 and 1897).
I quite liked a book of GRR Martin Short Stories my son bought me. He then bought me the 1st book of the series. I did finish it and told him to never buy me another. This was before the TV series.
I have all of the Wheel of Time but gave up before reading the last one Sanderson wrote.
I have all three sets of the Thomas Covenant books. I've not read the last one. I did start. I liked the Short stories with Daughter of Regals in it, and the two Mirror books, mostly, though there are a couple of gratuitous scenes I'd have cut.

I assumed that with Robert Jordan it was the publisher wanting him to spin it out. It would be good at four or five books.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

True, GOT is an example of an abandoned series, a major peeve of mine. There are a number of mid-tier writers who have abandoned series simply because they didn't sell well. Martin doesn't have that excuse. I'm just glad that I never really got interested in the books. I haven't gotten past 100 pages on the first book and I've tried to read it several times.

I'm told that I need to watch the HBO series, but then again, this is the same lady who told me that I need to read the Twilight series.

I liked the first 3 GoT books, never read further because I wanted to wait until the series was finished. Still waiting, heh. Probably I'm never going to read any more books in it. But I liked the TV series too, so I had a closure of sorts, at least.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by DNSB

One of my pet peeves is that author who does a trilogy, writes the third book and then comes out with a 4th book 6 months later. My wife is currently reading a series that is up to book 10 of a "trilogy". The sad part is that in book 3, she says the series was pretty much wrapped up. Then book 4 went off in a totally different direction so about the only consistency was the setting and character names. The series seems popular enough that the local library makes it available.

A fourth book (not necessarily this series) could be the start of a new story arc and the beginning of a second trilogy. Or tetrology!

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I have all three sets of the Thomas Covenant books. I've not read the last one. I did start. I liked the Short stories with Daughter of Regals in it, and the two Mirror books, mostly, though there are a couple of gratuitous scenes I'd have cut.

Thomas Covenant was one of those popular series I was never able to get into (a couple of others were Abercrombie's and Steven Erikson's). I finished Lord Foul's Bane some 15 years ago or so, but didn't like the protagonist (he's not even an anti-hero, he's just an ass, imho, and not an interesting ass at that. Yep, I know that was kind of the whole point, but not my cuppa) and never read more books. The Mirror was better (I agree about gratuitous scenes, they were pretty weird. And I'm no prude).

[DiapDealer]

In my opinion (as one who has read all of Donaldson's work except for the very last two), his SciFi Gap Cycle series was far and away his best work.

I read his Covenant books as they were published and loved the first two Chronicles (in '77, a fantasy fan who didn't want to re-read Tolkien again really only had Donaldson and Brooks to choose from). There were plenty of characters for me to love even if the main character was an ass. Though I understand perfectly about it being a deal-breaker for some. I felt the exact same way about the protag in Robin Hobbs' Soldier Son Trilogy. The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant was 100% inflated ego twaddle in my opinion.

Mordant's Need was meh, as was The Man Who... mysteries. He needs to return to Scifi, but apparently, he's back to the old epic fantasy gravy-train with Great God's War. I'm done with Donaldson. Didn't even realize he's got two books published I haven't read until looking up things for this post.