Today’s work read was the first in what I think will be an awesome fantasy series. So of course I’m disappointed that I’m going to have to wait who-knows-how-long for the next one, and the next one, and however many more there might be.
I don’t have a hard and fast rule about reading series. Mostly, however, I prefer to wait until I know that things are completed and done. I have heard all the Robert Jordan/Wheel of Time horror stories, and I’m glad I never started. I really hope George RR Martin keeps his cholesterol down so he can finish Song of Ice and Fire, though I don’t regret having started them already.
Trilogy readers, what’s your opinion on things? How do you handle it when a favorite author starts a new series?
Robert Asprin’s Myth Adventures was a delight when I found the first three. Then agony as the next three came out, a rationed 24 months apart. But then I think I liked the fractured quotes on the chapters as much as the story!
Elizabeth Moon’s SheepFarmer’s Daughter was a wonderment. Thankfully, the kind people at Future Fantasy in Palo Alto, CA, recommended I not start the second until I had the third in hand. Agony waiting, but sound advice for this very strong novel/sequence. I have read the trilogy at least six (6) times since then, along with the others that came out based on the first three.
Mostly I take a book as it comes available. Re-reading, I will locate all the volumes first, then dig in. I often re-read the first volumes as each new entry is release, before reading the new one.
Hmm. None of my favourite authors are really series writers. They do trilogies, maybe quartets (is that the right word?) but no looong series. Which is a good thing because I hate ’em, except for romance because I know the authors will finish it and the writers are young enough that I don’t have to worry about their cholesterol levels.
I think it’s mainly a problem in the fantasy/scifi world… though I don’t read romance so maybe it happens there, too.
I like to wait until at least the 2nd book is out/available at the library. Unless of course, I’ve found nothing better. I’ve heard the bad stories of Robert Jordan too and stayed away. Here’s a question, how many books do you think you can stay with a series? 5,7, more?
Hey Shari!!
I think 7 is reasonable, if the series is a good one & the world original. At a certain point I definitely want things to end, though.
I think the longest series I stuck with was the enjoyable ‘Honor Harrington’ books, David Weber. I don’t recall what particularly moved me to pick up ‘On Basilisk Station’, the first one. Possibly I was so please with Weber’s ‘Mutineer’s Moon’ — but the Harrington books are great. It is tough to say how long the series is, since there are serious branches in the story line, and a few collections of short stories featuring different authors written in the story world (‘Worlds of Honor’, vol 1-4 that I have read).
I picked up three or four each of Lydia Adamson’s ‘Dr. Nightingale’ and ‘the cat’ series’. Not really a series, each is a fluff mystery story, young female professional heroine. Pleasant release. I do look for any of Kelley Armstrong’s books. Light macabre/parapsychic, good writing.
C.J. Cherryh’s ‘Pride of Chanur’ series was way too short, at four novels plus the spinoff ‘Chanur’s Legacy’.
I am re-reading Christopher Rowley’s ‘Bazil Broketail’ series at the moment. Just finished Pierce’s ‘Magic Circle’ and ‘The Circle Opens’ quartets.