The Eye of the World
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are series getting to long
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Brent
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rated it 3 stars
Sep 29, 2015 02:12PM
Terry Goodkind book 15,bernard Cornwell book 9,christian Cameron book 5,george martin book 6,brandon Sanderson book 5,Have these guys lost the plot, is it all about churning out the same dribble time and time again, wheel of time series, come on guys are these books just to long.
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On general principal I do think that some of these series are getting too long. That said, if the writer is putting out good work such as, changing the plot, developing characters, killing off characters I think that it is worth writing. I am reading an older series by David Gammell, the Rigante series. The author had many years pass between each book. It is a different twist. I think that some of the series such as Goodkind and Jordan could have did this with their huge series'. This would give the reader more of an option to keep reading it or not.One of the major problems is that I don't remember the first book well when I am reading the last book. With Martins new book coming out this year I re-read the first five books. Well surprise it is not coming out until next year. That was five other books I could have read.
Don't forget the Game of Throne series, also starting to become really long... I started reading the WOT series by Robert Jordan almost 20 years ago and had to reread some of the earlier ones just to pick up some threads in the plot. No surprise then that in the end there were many errors/inconsistencies in the books (See also the famous WOTFAQ).
Terry Goodkind I stopped reading as it felt as a rehash of other authors.
In general I feel that fantasy series can be longer than mere trilogies, because world building is an important factor, and this might warrant more explanations, but as Brent says, if it's a matter of churning out the same dribble again and again, it's just isn't worth it to stay with the series.
For me, long series have their place and, to some extent, modern authors still have to figure out what that is. The main problem with many of the current long series is that they are using six, seven, eight books etc to tell a single story about a single set of characters, thus resulting in the subsequent books seeming iterative. This is painfully evident in Terry Goodkind's SoT, where he maintains the same plot for eight or so books with absolutely no change. there is no meaningful progress in the story or in the characters themselves, everything remains stagnant. Wot is little better, Rand goes through some character development and change but beside that the character remain mostly the same throughout the series. Neither of these stories were suitable for that many books; for a long series is about change, change in the characters as they mature, darken or find redemption, change in the world as it evolves and changes with the course of events, even change in the plot itself. One long series that wasn't mention above is Steven Erikson's MTotF. This is not the perfect long series, but unlike WoT or SoT it doesn't stagnate. There is a core cast of characters that are present throughout, but they are just a couple of people in a vast cast and seem to be mostly present to give the reader a sense of consistency. The story itself evolves, the reader is confronted with multiple different environments, multiple different races, and multiple different stories that are all connected in some way or form to the overarching plot. On the other hand, MTotF's greatest flaw is that its too large, there is too much going on for the reader to truly grasp it all without multiple rereads.
Anyway, that's my two cents: long series are about exploring change and the passage of time.
I don't agree with this. I read for the entertainment value. If I'm entertained for the duration of the series, then what does it matter that it's 10 books in length? I'm reading, because I like the story, not because I'm competing in a reading marathon.
Might I suggest not reading long series, if that isn't what you're interested in? I have read The Wheel of Time 3 times so far, having not even begun it until after the whole thing was out. I enjoyed it every time.Maybe some series are drawn out and overlong. I haven't read Goodkind, but I've been told that later books in The Sword of Truth are just additional adventures for his characters and don't add anything to the story. If authors don't have anything new to say and just want to send their popular characters on new quests because people buy the books, then I'm sure that could be too much.
It seems like you're getting confused in that OP, though. What do you mean about Sanderson having 5 books? He has two stand-alone fantasy novels and a number of stand-alone novellas. He has one self-contained trilogy. He has another series of four books (still in progress) in the same world as his trilogy but 300 years later, so it's its own thing. Then there's The Stormlight Archive, which will be ten books long, when it's completed. And almost all of his books take place within the same universe.
So there's a little something for everyone, there. If you want a one-off adventure, you can read one of the novellas or Elantris or Warbreaker. If you like shorter series, read either Mistborn series (or both). If you want a long fantasy epic, get into The Stormlight Archive. And if you're really crazy about immersive fantasy epics, you can look for the connections between all the books that make it a mega-series.
Is it the same thing over and over again? No. And, also, different series do different things. Some authors write works derivative of each other, but there's still a lot of variety. Long series don't necessarily provide the same kinds of things. The entire 14 books of The Wheel of Time only cover about 3 years. When the Stormlight Archive is through, it will probably cover 20 or 30 years in depth. Other series span centuries (L.E. Modesitt's Recluce books come to mind).
I don't think it's the ending that's usually the problem when series begin to stretch on; it's the middle. A Song of Ice and Fire is a perfect example. GRRM knew how his series would end when he started it. Things got muddled up in the middle, as he tried to get his characters where he needed them to be to achieve that ending and realized that he didn't know how. You could say the same of The Wheel of Time. Robert Jordan knew the whole story when he pitched it to Tom Doherty as a trilogy.
I strongly disagree. It's an oft-repeated canard that fantasy authors are milking cash cows. If so, why sell 900-page books? You could split those into 300-page volumes and make way more money. I read about someone who worked out how much money WoT would have made if it had been split into 30 volumes, and it was a TON more (and that's only tallying up the sales that actually happened, not speculating about how much easier it would be to move shorter volumes that the average reader would be less intimidated by). Authors want to tell their stories. Robert Jordan's style was such that he couldn't get his whole story out without going very, very long. Say what you will about him describing things in unnecessary depth, but he didn't suddenly start doing that in later volumes to stretch out the story. It's the same in The Eye of the World as it is in Knife of Dreams. I don't know as much about ASoIaF, but I do know a reasonable amount about WoT, and Tom Doherty said that the entire series was described to him by Jordan when he bought it in 1989 (or maybe 1990--not sure). I can say for a fact that he knew where it was going in the early 90s because one of the characters in Lord of Chaos has a Foretelling that exactly describes the ending.
Robert low book 5 harry Sidebottom book 6 Robert fabbri book7 sanderson mistborn series book 6 milking those cows baby.
Uh, okay. Don't read long series, then. I can assure you that the story in Mistborn progresses at a fast pace throughout. The sixth book may be coming out soon, but that's only the third inn the second series. It's in the same world, but it's 300 years later. It's a new story.
That wasn't for you, Steven. I was addressing Brent. Yes, WoT was sold as a 6-book series. Jordan kept insisting it would be a trilogy, but Doherty knew he went on long and told him that if he didn't need all 6 books in the contract for WoT, he could write another story.
I agree with you on ASoIaF. The Wheel of Time really did merit all the books it got, though. It's not so much that it's an incredibly complex story (though it is pretty complex) as it just is telling a long story in a particular way. Yes, there are literary devices that could be employed to gloss over sections of the story, but instead, the story is played out onscreen. It's very much the archetypal hero's journey/defeating the Dark Lord story, but you actually go along for the ride instead of having the narrative streamlined with clicheed summary.
I'm not talking about showing every detail. I can't handle that, which is why I've never managed to get past the first couple of pages of Ulysses. The Wheel of Time takes the whole prophesied hero trope and takes it seriously. How does someone go from being a farmboy to being THE legendary hero, one who bucks heavily ingrained social conventions at every turn? It would take a LOT, with lots of work from a huge supporting cast that might well not make it into the legend. The story is engaging throughout, for me (and for legions of other readers). Long-form fantasy can demand many volumes to tell its whole story.Take Brandon Sanderson, for example. He was employed to finish The Wheel of Time, but that's not his own personal work. Rather, his magnum opus is the Cosmere series, a loosely connected web of books that will eventually span at least 30 novels. Now, these are generally fast-paced adventure fantasy books. They aren't pretentious pseudo-intellectualism. But they're all part of the same story, and, yes, it really is that complex. He's not milking a cash cow. He's telling a massive story.
If that's not your thing, fine. But please realize that it is a possibility. There CAN be a story that warrants 10+ volumes. Its audience isn't just a bunch of idiots sucking up drivel from a douchebag who's milking his cash cow of a series.
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