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

[wayrad]

Well, I already mentioned Dickson's The Dragon and the George, Stasheff's The Wizard in Spite of Himself, and Asprin's Another Fine Myth in the other thread as books that (IMO) never should've spawned sequels. All three were light, whimsical fantasies that had a central conceit that was only good for one book, and/or couldn't stand the retrofitting of the underpinnings needed to make their worlds more than paper-thin. The Dickson series is a particularly good (or bad) example of the latter - he's been trying to cram his fantasy world into a quasi-historical setting, and it just doesn't work.

That reminds me, has anybody else noticed that in series involving the hero learning magic, he never learns much of anything after the first book?

[GJN]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I'll concur, but have a question: would you consider Dune Messiah and Children of Dune part of Dune, and stop after those? Or would you have just stopped after the original Dune?

(Herbert wrote the first three as one long book, split in three for publications, which is why I ask.)
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Dennis

I didn't realize they were written as one book, but my opinion still stands. Dune was great, Dune Messiah not in the same class, Children of Dune better than Messiah but still not comparable to the original in my opinion. Everything afterwards shouldn't have been written.

The original Dune was great in large part because of Herbert's detailed world-building and the complexity of the associated societies. Once this was done in the first book, there was little left for the rest except for their respective plots and further character development; these were OK but unexceptional.

[Archergal5219]

Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds is an absolutely PERFECT book, full of humor, magic & wonderful characters. He should have stopped there, but he went onto write two more books featuring Master Li and Number Ten Ox. The other books weren't horrible,
but they were pale reflections of the first book. Alas.

Bridge of Birds is #2 on my "All time favorite books" list.

[GJN]

Originally Posted by Archergal5219

Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds is an absolutely PERFECT book, full of humor, magic & wonderful characters. He should have stopped there, but he went onto write two more books featuring Master Li and Number Ten Ox. The other books weren't horrible,
but they were pale reflections of the first book. Alas.

Bridge of Birds is #2 on my "All time favorite books" list.

What are the others?

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by GJN

What are the others?

Story of the Stone and Eight Skilled Gentlemen. I agree, they're fun, but they aren't the little gem that Bridge of Birds is. Somewhere on the web, I've seen Hughart quoted as saying that he himself felt that he'd exhausted the possibilities and didn't plan to write any more Master Li stories.

[wayrad]

Oh heck, I forgot David Palmer's Emergence. Not only does the sequel turn the heroine into a whiny, arrogant pain in the neck, but the only other book he wrote (Threshold) was a mess.

[PieOPah]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I'll concur, but have a question: would you consider Dune Messiah and Children of Dune part of Dune, and stop after those? Or would you have just stopped after the original Dune?

(Herbert wrote the first three as one long book, split in three for publications, which is why I ask.)
______
Dennis

I think I stopped reading after the fourth book (God Messiah Dune?). The one based thousands of years in the future and Paul's Son is mainly worm. I found the books so difficult to enjoy that I didn't bother with any more.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wayrad

Story of the Stone and Eight Skilled Gentlemen. I agree, they're fun, but they aren't the little gem that Bridge of Birds is. Somewhere on the web, I've seen Hughart quoted as saying that he himself felt that he'd exhausted the possibilities and didn't plan to write any more Master Li stories.

Excerpt
(The following interview with Barry Hughart was conducted via mail during January-February, 2000. --Jerry. Kuntz )

JK: All fans of the Master Li books want to know why the series stopped after Eight Skilled Gentlemen. Can you explain?

BH: The Master Li books were a tightrope act and hard to write, but not, alas, very remunerative. Still, I would have continued as originally planned if I'd had a supportive publisher: seven novels ending with my heroes' deaths in the battle with the Great White Serpent, and their elevation to the Great River of Stars as minor deities guaranteed to cause the August Personage of Jade almost as much trouble as the Stone Monkey. Unfortunately I had St. Martins, which didn't even bother to send a postcard when I won the World Fantasy Award; Ballantine, which was dandy until my powerhouse editor dropped dead and her successors forgot my existence; and Doubleday, which released The Story of the Stone three months before the pub date, guaranteeing that not one copy would still be on the shelves when reviews came out, published the hardcover and the paperback of Eight Skilled Gentlemen simultaneously, and then informed me they would bring out further volumes in paperback only, meriting, of course, a considerably reduced advance.

NB: The "powerhouse editor" mentioned above would be the late Judy Lynn Benjamin, later Judy Lynn Del Rey. Judy had been editor at Galaxy Magazine before joining Del Rey books and marrying Lester Del Rey. She was also a dwarf, with the associated health issues. Her death was tragic but not exactly unexpected.
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Dennis

[wayrad]

Hmm, that's different from the snippet I recalled...I'll have to see if I can find it again. Maybe my memory is off.

Edited to add: Aha, here it is, from a blurb over at Subterranean Press:
"Will there be more? I doubt it, and it’s not because of bad sales and worse publishers. It’s simply that I’d taken it as far as I could. Oh, I could come up with more ingenious plots and interesting characters and so on, but the Ox/Master Li format had become just that, a format, and no matter how well I wrote I’d just be repeating myself. Many writers are content to settle down with an endless if predictable series, but I’d be miserable, and so it was like deciding to quit smoking: cold turkey or forget about it, and I chose cold turkey. Anyway, it was a lot of fun while it lasted, and I hope Ox and Li Kao can continue to give fun to readers, and I most particularly hope that on dark and stormy nights some of those readers will be able to crawl into my alternate world and pull it over them like a security blanket. "

The two quotes seem contradictory, but maybe after Subterranean picked up the original series and the possibility of doing more of them opened up, he decided it wasn't a good idea after all. A pity that more series authors don't come to the same realization.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by GJN

I didn't realize they were written as one book, but my opinion still stands. Dune was great, Dune Messiah not in the same class, Children of Dune better than Messiah but still not comparable to the original in my opinion. Everything afterwards shouldn't have been written.

That was about what I thought, and I mostly agree. Dune Messiah wasn't as well thought of when it was first released, either, but the weakness was generally ascribed to being the middle book in a trilogy. For structural reasons, those are almost always weaker than the other volumes.

The original Dune was great in large part because of Herbert's detailed world-building and the complexity of the associated societies. Once this was done in the first book, there was little left for the rest except for their respective plots and further character development; these were OK but unexceptional.

Agreed again, but I'm not sure how you get around it. If you have to substantially complete the world building on book one for the rest to make sense, what you describe is hard to avoid.
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Dennis

[wayrad]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Agreed again, but I'm not sure how you get around it. If you have to substantially complete the world building on book one for the rest to make sense, what you describe is hard to avoid.

Steven Brust seems to be doing a nice job of continued world-building in the Vlad Taltos books. There are things in the early books that didn't make sense, but are now beginning to, and you get the feeling it was all planned instead of a quick fill-in job.

[EatingPie]

A thread that beats me to the punch on BOTH books I was going to list!

Originally Posted by Slite

Oh goodie!

Another thread I can say Wheel of Time in

He really, REALLY should have made that one book only and then gone on and done something else!

Who keeps saying "or just not written the first book at all"?

I liked the series and characters enough to make it to the middle of 9, where 100s of pages are spent on describing walking through the snow. Then I heard God stepped in and said "enough is enough" and whisked Mr. Jordan away.

But even God doesn't get the last laugh. The guy who took over the last book is now turning it into three books!

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

That was about what I thought, and I mostly agree. Dune Messiah wasn't as well thought of when it was first released, either, but the weakness was generally ascribed to being the middle book in a trilogy. For structural reasons, those are almost always weaker than the other volumes.

I believe Dune Messiah inspired Robert Jordan. Two million pages on walking into a throne room, when the book itself is only two hundred pages!

Anyway, the badness of Dune Messiah has obviously been mis-ascribed. It was a terrible book, plain and simple... nothing at all to do with it being a middle-of-the-trilogy (infinite-ology). See Empire Strikes Back as proof that that's no excuse.

I have never been able to understand Herbert. He wrote one absolutely astounding work of science fiction. And every single follow-up, including Children of Doom, was not just bad, but absolutely horrible. How did he do that? (I'm even more shocked to hear that Messiah and Children were part of Dune originally.... I find that super hard to believe because the quality drops off so heavily.)

-Pie

[EatingPie]

I will add the seldom-mentioned books by Robert Holdstock.

Mythago Wood was a great book. Based largely on Hero With a Thousand Faces, and very well done.

The follow-up, Lavondyss was based on Campbell's other book, Masks of God. Horrible, horrible, horrible stuff. Totally forced story-telling. Then I realized he wrote the first really bad science fiction book I ever read as a kid, Where Time Winds Blow. Wow, great title... just stop reading right there!

-Pie

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by wayrad

Steven Brust seems to be doing a nice job of continued world-building in the Vlad Taltos books. There are things in the early books that didn't make sense, but are now beginning to, and you get the feeling it was all planned instead of a quick fill-in job.

Brust is a former programmer, so I'd expect a good feel for overall structure. But the Vlad Taltos books are somewhat different from the Dune series. Brust can continue revealing aspects of the world in later volumes, and it clarifies things that were unclear earlier, but the earlier books were still readable without that explanation. It's possible (and it's been a while since I've re-read Dune, so I'm guessing here) that Herbert had to do more world building in part one for subsequent parts to make sense at all.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

A thread that beats me to the punch on BOTH books I was going to list!

Who keeps saying "or just not written the first book at all"?

I liked the series and characters enough to make it to the middle of 9, where 100s of pages are spent on describing walking through the snow. Then I heard God stepped in and said "enough is enough" and whisked Mr. Jordan away.

I've made it through all of them thus far. I'm jus debating whether to do a re-read of the earlier books before attempting the completion.

But even God doesn't get the last laugh. The guy who took over the last book is now turning it into three books!

Yes, he blogged about it. He's dealing with some fundamental issues of how long you can make a single pbook.

He originally estimated the completion of Jordan's last book would be about 250,000 works. As he did a careful read of the prior books and the partial manuscript and notes Jordan left behind, he realized it would take a lot more to properly deal with various characters, deal with critical story arcs, and finish the story. The splitting decision was mostly on Tor's side, motivated by production concerns, with Tor CEO Tom Doherty saying "Do you have 250,000 words that can stand alone as an installment that we can publish as the next book in the series sooner rather than later?" The answer, after some editing and fiddling, became the upcoming release.

I believe Dune Messiah inspired Robert Jordan. Two million pages on walking into a throne room, when the book itself is only two hundred pages!

Dune Messiah wasn't that bad, but it doesn't really stand alone.

Anyway, the badness of Dune Messiah has obviously been mis-ascribed. It was a terrible book, plain and simple... nothing at all to do with it being a middle-of-the-trilogy (infinite-ology). See Empire Strikes Back as proof that that's no excuse.

Since I don't think Star Wars has aged well, and I consider some parts execrable (like The Phantom Menace), I'll avoid using that as a comparison.

I have never been able to understand Herbert. He wrote one absolutely astounding work of science fiction. And every single follow-up, including Children of Doom, was not just bad, but absolutely horrible. How did he do that? (I'm even more shocked to hear that Messiah and Children were part of Dune originally.... I find that super hard to believe because the quality drops off so heavily.)

-Pie

Have you read Herbert's _Under Pressure_? (Also published as The Dragon in the Sea.) Herbert has written other things besides Dune.

_Under Pressure_ is an interesting look at submariners in a future conflict. The western powers are in a conflict with the east, and the eastern powers have most of the oil. The subtug Fenian Ram is one of the boats that sneaks into eastern bloc waters to steal oil from underwater repositories. It's like the old joke "I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?", as the sub's captain has developed symptoms of paranoia, but these can be viewed as a survival oriented adaptation go the circumstances under which he lives. He really can't trust anyone else, including members of his own crew.

Another couple of books with interesting ideas marred by clumsy prose are _Whipping Star_ and _The Dosadi Experiment_. The protagonist lives in a world where an underlying assumption is that government should work, but not too well. He's a high-level operative for the Department of Sabotage, whose mission is to toss monkey wrenches into other departments which are becoming too efficient.

Dune is certainly Herbert's magnum opus, but it's far from all he wrote.
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Dennis