SF/fantasy books that turned into series, and shouldn't have

[Stormchild]

Originally Posted by Slite

That goes for all the "copy-cats" as well.

Vampires are NOT sexy, they are evil, blodsucking buttholes that should be staked, have their heads chopped off and dragged into the sunlight, every last anemic one! So there!

Vampires have rights too.

[BenG]

Read them their rights and then they should be staked, have their heads chopped off and dragged into the sunlight, every last anemic one!

I did like the first couple of Anne Rice books though.
I also liked Poppy Z. Brite's Lost Souls with a scene where a vampire encounters a goth with romantic illusions of vampirism.

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by Riles

I'll toss Ender's Game into the ring. Right after Speaker for the Dead that should have been nipped in the bud.

While most all the sequels pale in comparison to Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow was great.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Stormchild

Vampires have rights too.

No. Anything that thinks I make a tasty snack has no rights and needs to die.

[Stormchild]

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Darqref

Ya know, I remember reading some years ago that Isaac's publisher finally reached the point where they said "write another Foundation, or we're not going to publish anything else...." (because he had refused to write new ones...)

And Piers Anthony gets puns *sent to him by readers* to include in future Xanth stuff.

There really are authors who get told "we'll publish your other stuff as long as every other book is in the series."

That's the time to find another publisher....

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Darqref

Ya know, I remember reading some years ago that Isaac's publisher finally reached the point where they said "write another Foundation, or we're not going to publish anything else...." (because he had refused to write new ones...)

And Piers Anthony gets puns *sent to him by readers* to include in future Xanth stuff.

There really are authors who get told "we'll publish your other stuff as long as every other book is in the series."

Not really, though publishers may suggest it. In the case of Anthony, for example. the stand alone novels do about half the sales volume of the series books.

Publishers like established series because the books sell.

I have a friend in Britain who was dropped by one of her US publishers. The problem was, she didn't write series. Each book was stand-alone, and quite different from the predecessor, so she didn't build the kind of identity with an audience the publisher liked. Her editor was deeply unhappy about it, but it wasn't the editor's decision. Determinations of who isn't selling enough and should be dropped from contract take place higher up. And the publisher in question was a big one who requires big sales. She's currently doing a lovely series for a much smaller publisher who seems happy with her sales.
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Dennis

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Slite

That goes for all the "copy-cats" as well.

Vampires are NOT sexy, they are evil, blodsucking buttholes that should be staked, have their heads chopped off and dragged into the sunlight, every last anemic one! So there!

Heh. (Probably not worksafe)

Anyway, Terry Brooks should really, really not of done the Genesis of Shannara works.

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Anyway, Terry Brooks should really, really not of done the Genesis of Shannara works.

Agreed, with the exception of the words "Genesis of". (Speaking of which, I'll never forget the spot in the fist book where a character was introduced as "Allannon". I kept expecting him to pull out a 12-step plan. Land of Bad Names, indeed.)

Say Dennis, are we counting kids'/YA books? I recently ran across one of the sequels to The Diamond in the Window, and while not horrible, it certainly lacked the surreal quality, as well as the slightly wacky charm, of the original.

[DawnFalcon]

Well I like the Shanarra series as light reading, it's more it cross-contaminated the Word books.

[wayspooled]

Originally Posted by Margrete

agree, although I still ended up buying the hardback version of the last 5 books wanting to know what happened and hoping they'd be better.

Same

[Nate the great]

I thin this series should have stopped after the fifth book.

[wayspooled]

Originally Posted by DojoPat

Anne Rice: "Interview with the Vampire"

One "soulful tortured vampire" novel was all we needed, thank you.

Oh I agree! Then maybe Hollywood would stop wasting all those resources when they could be doing books about stuff like Roman mysteries and Hadrian and ... anything else.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wayrad

(Speaking of which, I'll never forget the spot in the fist book where a character was introduced as "Allannon". I kept expecting him to pull out a 12-step plan. Land of Bad Names, indeed.)

Say Dennis, are we counting kids'/YA books?

Sure. Why not?

I recently ran across one of the sequels to The Diamond in the Window, and while not horrible, it certainly lacked the surreal quality, as well as the slightly wacky charm, of the original.

I just think there are books that became series and we may wish they hadn't.

In some cases, you can argue that later books were worth doing, but weren't up to the quality of the original.

For instance, Madeliene L'Engle's _A Wrinkle In Time_ spawned several followups, which I think were progressively weaker books, though I'll stop short of saying "She should have stopped with Wrinkle".

It sounds like your Diamond in the Window sequel fits in that category.

In other cases, you get books where the conceit supported a nopvel, but not a series. One I'd place in that category is Harry Harrison's _Bill, the Galactic Hero_. The original was satire, intended in part as a response to Robert A. Heinlein's _Starship Troopers_. Harry was politically poles apart from Heinlein. Bill was a rube from an agricultural planet, enlisted by ruse in a military fighting a lizard like alien race called the Chingers, serving under officers who start at incompetent and progress to mentally defective.

It's a product of its time, and amusing enough to read once, but that's about it.

Someone decided it could be a series, and several more were published in the 80's. Harry was cut-and-pasting whole sections from one book to another. My SO defended Harry because she liked him (as do I), and the books were easy for him to write. I suppose, but I can't read them.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

No. Anything that thinks I make a tasty snack has no rights and needs to die.

But they are already dead...
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Dennis