Can you stop buying a series?

[thrawn_aj]

Interesting question. It was hard but I finally learned to let go since there are just too many good books out there to waste time on the bad (just because of series considerations ).

Gave up on Star wars (one large series if you think about it) after the Legacy of the Force debacle. Ditto Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series when it starting taking history far too seriously (NTTAWWT ). Dune, after (well, during) God Emperor of Dune.

It's the "waiting for a bus syndrome" sometimes. Well, I've waited 10 minutes, seems a shame to give up now. Sometimes you just gotta take a cab home .

[crich70]

I think you need a 5th choice for the cases where a series does stay good and you can't wait for the next book in the series to come out.

[odiakkoh]

Depends how much I disliked the book I'm on. If it was meh I would buy the next in line to see if the meh will continue, get better or get worse. If I hated it, it ends right there.

I have dropped a series or two just because I got bored of it though. Not the author's fault, my tastes just changed.

[shanghaichica]

It would depend on how good the earlier books were and how much of a role the characters play in my enjoyment of the series. If I like the characters and want to find out how they develop in subsequent books I'm more likely to carry on with the series even if the standard of the stories has dropped. If it was the storylines that drew me in initially and I didn't care much for the characters I'd just stop reading if the stories had dropped off in quality.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by AlbertaCowboy

I'll be completely OCD about a series that I enjoy, but I'll drop the author after two or three weak books. I used to love Clive Cussler wayyyy back in the beginning, when I read "Raise the Titanic" when I was about five or so. After twenty odd years, anything he wrote past "Atlantis Rising", is MEH. I haven't read a Dirk Pitt novel in years now.
Jim Butcher, on the other hand has me hooked, lined and sunk. Hopefully "The Dresden Files" never get too Cusslified.

OMG I used to be a big Clive Cussler fan, but perhaps my tastes changed or the books became a little to repetitive (always gets the girl, finds some cool rare car that gets shot up when trying to escape)....who knows.

I don't tend to read too many series, I am though still going through Wheel of Time but I am enjoying it and will finished it (reading book 11 as we speak). Its hard because my mood and taste changes. Years ago I got right into the Mars trillogy (well Red Mars) but Green Mars just didn't do it for me. Go forward 10 years or so and I got right back and re-read Red and finished Green in record time (I have Blue Mars in hardcover, I'm dreading holding that bone breaking, flower pressing monstrous sized book, but am looking forward to actually reading the story).

Then again I started On Basilisk Station some time ago, and got all the series thus far ready to read. Got half way through Honor of the Queen, not sure if I will finish it but I did feel compelled to get them all. Part of me also doesn't want to start a series and down the track have trouble getting hold of the books, or the series becomes unfinished (think GRRM....how long???). It is tough but I guess end of the day I would have to say that I would get them all. Life is too short to read bad books, but life is also too short to get right into a series only to give up on the last few books and fail to see how it ends.

[chamekke]

I suspect you're probably talking about long series (more than 3 or 4 books), but the main disincentive I've had for buying the series I love in e-book format is that one volume in the series is not available. That's the case with both John Crowley's Aegypt/The Solitudes tetralogy and Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy.

I just can't bring myself to buy the e-books until I know they'll all be available. What's the point of having volumes 1, 2 and 4, but not volume 3 (Crowley), or volumes 1 and 2 but not volume 3 (Barker)?

[lioslaith]

I voted "I feel like I should keep going in case the series gets better again."

I'm basing my answer on books which I have invested more than 5 or 6 titles into.

Once I find a series I really like the books become auto-buys for me (when funds allow).

I normally have a three bad books limit - if it's a really long running series - before I consider leaving it behind. But only for long running series.

[Xanthe]

It takes a while, but I'm able to give up on a series. Sometimes it's out of disgust with the direction the author is taking a/the character(s), sometimes it's just boredom with the repetitive nature of the stories and the characters, sometimes the "magic" of the series just disappears and there's no longer anything pulling me to read it.

I stopped Anne Rice after "Merrick" for no particular reason, Sue Grafton at the letter "M" because I was getting bored with the characters, Laurell K. Hamilton after the travesty that was "Incubus Dreams" when she lost Anita's moral compass and decided to switch to writing erotica. I stopped Tom Clancy once he picked up the co-authors and started "creating" series. I've gotten tired of John Ringo's diatribes. I still like the Ring of Fire books when Eric Flint writes them, but I can no longer handle Virginia DeMarce's cast of thousands in the ones she writes. I got tired of Robert Ludlum after a while. I stopped reading Frank Herbert after Chapterhouse: Dune because I just didn't care about that universe any more. Even though I liked the twists and turns in Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt stories, eventually I got tired of Dirk Pitt himself. I'm starting to get tired of Nora Roberts' trilogies - they are becoming very predictable; I stopped her JD Robb books after the third one.

Then there are some authors that I decided to just let lie fallow, because I was tired of waiting a year between a book and then trying to remember what had happened in the previous one, and decided to let a few pile up before I started the series again. Janet Evanovich, Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris and Simon Green fall into those categories. The problem is, I started liking other authors and have never gotten back to those four.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Then again I started On Basilisk Station some time ago, and got all the series thus far ready to read. Got half way through Honor of the Queen, not sure if I will finish it but I did feel compelled to get them all. Part of me also doesn't want to start a series and down the track have trouble getting hold of the books, or the series becomes unfinished (think GRRM....how long???).

Well, the Honorverse series has its ups and downs and different people reach their tolerance limits at different points. (I'm willingly sticking with it because I *like* large-scale space opera.)

The series has two clean breakpoints, so far; SHORT VICTORIOUS WAR marks the end of the "young Honor" arc and ASHES OF VICTORY the end of the relatively narrow focus books, with relatively clear endings.

If you go with WAR OF HONOR and beyond you are committing to a very complex story with at least three separate multivolume narratives and at least six sets of protagonists in at least three theaters of operation. Where earlier novels revolved around relatively small battles and skirmishes, the latter books are leading up to a long galaxy-wide epochal war. More plot-driven (pun intended) than character-driven. And openended/cliffhanger endings.
Not the same kind of story at all yet it is a single series that does hold together as a single epic.

[benham]

Well I gave up on Reacher after Nothing To Lose. With a series you look for character development and sometimes they just stagnate. Moe Prager may fall into that category but not sure yet.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Well, the Honorverse series has its ups and downs and different people reach their tolerance limits at different points. (I'm willingly sticking with it because I *like* large-scale space opera.)

The series has two clean breakpoints, so far; SHORT VICTORIOUS WAR marks the end of the "young Honor" arc and "ASHES OF VICTORY" the end of the relatively narrow focus books, with relatively final endings.

If you go with WAR OF HONOR and beyond you are committing to a very complex story with at least three separate multivolume narratives and at least six sets of protagonists in at least three theaters of operation. Where earlier novels revolved around relatively small battles and skirmishes, the latter books are leading up to a long galaxy-wide epochal war. More plot-driven (pun intended) than character-driven.
Not the same kind of story at all yet it is a single series that does hold together as a single epic.

My first try ended in the middle of War of Honor (book 10); I had read too much, too fast and completely burned myself out. I couldn't even finish the book. My next go round, I will not only read the series, proper, I plan to include the World of Honor Anthologies in chronological order, but at a much slower rate.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

II have not bought, borrowed nor even ogled anything she wrote after she started the great "Church as a publicity stunt" thing. I'm not religious, but I found the whole thing to be offensive. Not. Cool. At. All. By saying some of the things she said when it started, she totally crapped on a lot of her long-time fans. Then when her "new" audience didn't pan out, she basically threw the Church under the bus. I refuse to reward that behavior. If I ever get the VC/MW books in e-format, I guarantee it won't be an aboveboard acquisition. (Besides, I've already bought several of them more than once.)

I still love the Vampires and Mayfairs, but as far as I'm concerned, she's not the same person who wrote those books.

We didn't get to hear much about her Church kick over here, though I did know she'd written a number of Bible based books, which did give me pause. She just seems to have gone through a number of significant shifts in her writing (erotica, vampires, witches, biblical, who-knows-what-else) and you have to wonder what is going on in her personal life.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by orlok

I did know she'd written a number of Bible based books, which did give me pause.

Well, her own theology, not necessarily bible-based. Direct angelic intervention in human affairs, including recruiting a human to travel through time to 'right wrongs' in a remarkably similar way to Quantum Leap (the TV series).

There are so many things wrong with that idea, it's hard to know where to start. That's one series I definitely had no trouble in dropping after the first book. I almost dropped it during the first book! (Only the setting was of interest.)

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Well, her own theology, not necessarily bible-based. Direct angelic intervention in human affairs, including recruiting a human to travel through time to 'right wrongs' in a remarkably similar way to Quantum Leap (the TV series).

I thought he was referring to the Christ the Lord books, rather than the hitman and angels drivel.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I thought he was referring to the Christ the Lord books, rather than the hitman and angels drivel.

Oh - I didn't know she'd done other different religious stuff. Unsurprisingly I stopped looking at her output after that first angelic one.