REVISED SERIES GUIDE: MEDIUM-LONG SERIES

[Allan]

I've done a review of our series guide and made some revisions & clarifications. In particular, where we did not list some books in a series if they were not nominated, the complete series list is now shown, with those formerly excluded books flagged with ** before the title. Two page counts are shown: one for the basic series, another that includes all titles.

As in the original guide, series are divided by length into the following categories:
EPIC: 5000+ pages, 5 series
LONG: 2000-3000 pages, 7 series
MEDIUM-LONG: 1500-2000 pages, 10 series
MEDIUM: 1200-1500 pages, 9 series
MEDIUM-SHORT: 1000-1200 pages, 10 series
SHORT: 700-1000 pages, 13 series
VERY SHORT: up to 700 pages, 12 series

This topic is reserved for comments on MEDIUM-LONG series, additions, observations, etc.

[Allan]

Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson / Pages: 1,957
Red Mars - 572pg HNBN NWBN
Green Mars - 624pg HWBN NNBN
Blue Mars - 761pg HWBN

Dune Chronicles by Frank Herbert / Pages: 1,796
Dune - 604pg HWBN NWBN
Dune Messiah - 330pg
Children of Dune - 408pg HNBN
God Emperor of Dune - 454pg

New Crobuzon by China Miéville / Pages: 1,777
Perdido Street Station - 623pg HNBN NNBN
The Scar - 578pg HNBN
Iron Council - 576pg HNBN

Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant / Pages: 1,695
Feed - 599pg HNBN
Deadline - 584pg HNBN
Blackout - 512pg HNBN

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card / Pages: 1,668
Ender's Game - 324pg HWBN NWBN
Speaker for the Dead - 382 HWBN NWBN
Xenocide - 592pg HNBN
Children of the Mind - 370pg

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe / Pages: 1,656
The Shadow of the Torturer - 262pg NNBN
The Claw of the Conciliator - 303pg HNBN NWBN
The Sword of the Lictor - 279pg HNBN NNBN
The Citadel of the Autarch - 440pg NNBN
The Urth of the New Sun - 372pg HNBN

Lensman by E.E. "Doc" Smith / Pages: 1,590/2,036
Triplanetary - 287pg
First Lensman - 304pg HNBN
Galactic Patrol - 273pg HNBN [Retro]
Gray Lensman - 306pg HNBN [Retro]
Second Stage Lensman - 420pg HNBN [Retro]
** Children of the Lens - 254pg
** Masters of the Vortex - 192pg

Robot by Isaac Asimov / Pages: 1,583
I, Robot - 224pg
** The Rest of the Robots - 224pg
** Robot Dreams - 352pg
** Robot Visions - 496pg
** The Positronic Man - 290pg
The Caves of Steel - 206pg HNBN
The Naked Sun - 206pg
The Robots of Dawn - 435pg HNBN
Robots and Empire - 512pg

The Queendom of Sol by Wil McCarthy / Pages: 1,580
The Collapsium - 428pg NNBN
The Wellstone - 368pg
Lost in Transmission - 384pg
To Crush the Moon - 400pg NNBN

Remembrance of the Earth's Past by Liu Cixin / Pages: 1,516
The Three-Body Problem - 400pg HWBN NNBN
The Dark Forest - 512pg
Death's End - 604pg HNBN

The Cinder Spires by Jim Butcher / Pages: 1,507
The Aeronaut's Windlass - 751pg HNBN
Warriorborn - 146pg
The Olympian Affair - 610pg

[Kalin]

I think we should add Kathleen Ann Goonan's Nanotech Quartet to the medium-long series list. Two of the four were Nebula nominees.

Queen City Jazz - 416pg
Mississippi Blues - 511pg
Crescent City Rhapsody - 430pg (NNBN)
Light Music -406pg (NNBN)

Total: 1,763 pages. Taken from the original hardcover versions as listed on isfdb.org

[Allan]

It's in the short series list. My methodology on those lists is to sort by page count for the nominated books, mainly because there are quite a few series where the early books are nominated but the later ones aren't. The Alvin Maker series, for example, had nominations for the first three books totaling 894 pages, but not the next three, which brought the whole series to 1,970 pages. Pern shows up under medium-short because of the initial trilogy of 1,097 pages; adding the two later nominated books brings it to 1,787. The entire saga of 9,236 pages is in the epic series list. It was just a judgment call because they can be counted different ways. In this case, I should probably move it since the two nominated books are 3rd and 4th, and I assume one would want to read the first two first, but not necessarily if they are stand-alone. I'm sure there are other cases like this. I should probably update it in spots.

[Kalin]

Is Catherine Asaro's Saga of the Skolian Empire listed anywhere?

[Allan]

I don’t see it, looking through the threads, but I’ll check my spreadsheet, where I’ve got all this stuff stored. If not, I know I already have it compiled & can insert it quickly.

[Allan]

Kalin wrote: "Is Catherine Asaro's Saga of the Skolian Empire listed anywhere?"

I've added this saga to the EPIC series list.

[Kalin]

Thanks!

Do you think we can create a list of all the as-yet-unread series in one place so it's easy for people to nominate? These threads separate them out and also include the series we've already tackled. (Thinking ahead to setting up a 2024 challenge)

[Allan]

Kalin wrote: "Thanks!

Do you think we can create a list of all the as-yet-unread series in one place so it's easy for people to nominate? These threads separate them out and also include the series we've alread..."

Sure, that would be easy from my spreadsheet page. I'd only have to take out the ones we've read. It would still be a long list by itself, but that's ok. I can put it out there with your google docs.

[Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning]

Re the Asaro books -- there is a discussion of them somewhere that was quite long and then we read one of them as a group. I think it is called "The Quantum Rose.

The best way to read the books in Asero's Skolian series is by chronological order, but that order is confusing, especially with The Last Hawk (on our list) out of print, and one other earlier one, can't think of the name. I have been told by some retired publicist that Asaro won't put the two books out because she doesn't like them, even though I do. And one a nominee!!! Some people are never happy. Plus she now has another series which seems to interact/interconnect with Skolia, can't remember name right now, but I have not read them.

The thread here in Hugo and Nebula group that I'm thinking of had a bit of the timeline in it, but who knows what has happened to that timeline because of new releases in the last few years.

[Allan]

Added The Cinder Spires