SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
Recommendations and Lost Books
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I'll never, ever ever, start reading another unfinished series! How about you?
David wrote: "(Shrugs) Well it's not ruined, not enough info to do that, but I am one of those people that hates spoilers. What are the odds of someone revealing the end of the book you're reading?"I hate them too. I wouldn't have even wanted to know that Honor Harrington was IN book 6. Because I'm neurotic like that. But hey, one less series that I'm interested in now, so... Thread-mission accomplished?
Xetws wrote: "Well, more time to read unfinished series! hehLove my life.
I have bought quite a few books the last 3 months, just finished reading Dresden Files as mentioned.
Care to comment on what to read nex..."
That's a great stack of choices you've got there, Xetws! I've read some, would like to read the others ... I'd say read The Way of Kings. It blew me away!
On the topic of the thread: I've lost count of how many times I've vowed not to start reading another series till they're all published. But I've broken that vow just as many times. Series are kind of hard to avoid in the fantasy field! As a reader, I just wish authors would get their work out a little faster, though as a writer I understand it's not always possible. But as long as a book doesn't end on a cliffhanger I can manage to wait patiently(ish) for the next one!
Spoilers are not ok. I’m the kind of person who won’t even read a book synopsis if I can avoid it because they usually reveal too much about the story and spoil half of the fun. The Honor series is in my TBR, but fortunately one of the complaints about the spoiler below the post caught my eye before I read the spoiler itself so I was able to avoid it. Thank you, whoever you were, since I’m afraid to scroll back that way and verify the name!A far as the actual topic goes… I couldn’t say “never, ever ever”, but I can say it isn’t likely to happen often. I feel like I get more out of a series if I read the whole thing back to back. My interest in reading the next book in a series is never higher than when I finish the previous book. The longer I wait, the less likely it is that I’ll ever read it. If I do read it after a long break, I often feel like I’m missing something. I’m missing whatever emotional momentum I had going at the end of the previous book that caused me to become invested in the story and/or characters. Sometimes I’ll get it back when I start the next book and sometimes I won’t, but the motivation to read it in the first place fades with time. I also hate the feeling that some references to previous books are going over my head because they refer to minor events or characters that I’ve forgotten. I think I appreciate the over-all story more when I can catch all the little threads woven throughout the series that might otherwise be forgotten and missed since they aren’t major plot points.
There are quite a few newer and ongoing series out there that I’m very interested in, many of which have been mentioned in this thread, that I'm waiting to read until they're finished. But it’s pretty easy for me to do that because there are many, many older and complete series out there that I’ve never read. I didn’t really get into fantasy and science fiction until I was an adult, by which time real-world responsibilities had begun to restrict my reading time. There are more books I want to read than I feel like I could possibly find time to read anyway, so I might as well read the ones that won’t leave me hanging.
YouKneeK wrote: "There are more books I want to read than I feel like I could possibly find time to read anyway, so I might as well read the ones that won’t leave me hanging. "That's how I feel, too.
I haven't started a series this century that didn't already have multiple entries published. Well, intentionally. I did start a couple "first of a new series" accidentally. And with Alan Dean Foster, accidentally read the second of his series because there was nothing obvious on it to indicate it was part of a series. It was not good, but it felt kind of cheap on top of that.
YouKneeK wrote: "Spoilers are not ok. I’m the kind of person who won’t even read a book synopsis if I can avoid it because they usually reveal too much about the story and spoil half of the fun. The Honor series ..."I think loosing the momentum is very well defined fow how i feel when the next volume is taking too long to be published.
Marina wrote: "I've lost count of how many times I've vowed not to start reading another series till they're all published. But I've broken that vow just as many times."I totally agree, in fact I have now trained myself not to care. There are many first book in a series on the club bookshelf, I read them all and then decide if I want to continue reading the series. If not, I have trained myself to just let it drop.
I also find myself enjoying a brief break, anticipating the next not-yet-written book in the series. If the break is too long however...... I have permanently left SOIF, Rothfuss and Jordan. Too many interesting books while waiting.
How long do you think is too long between books? Or does it depend on how the book you've just finished reading ends?(Let's put GOT aside for now.)
That spoiler is bothering the shit out of me.I'm going to ask a Mod to delete that comment.
Spoilers are NEVER ok. I rate the evil of spoilers (and those who give them) right up there with people who put stickers on the backs of books.
>:(
For me cliffhangers are something of a mixed bag.In general, I don't like them.
That said. If I'm reading a story that I'm into and it has something of a cliffhanger handing, I do have that impulse to want to run out and get the next book. If it's already out, I've been known to just continue onto the next without any waiting time.
Conversely, if it's a book I'ma bit meh about, it might make me interested enough to continue, but it might also annoy me enough to bail. It really depends on how into the story I am, and how annoying the cliffhanger is.
The thing about cliffhangers, though, is that that "need" is temporary... so if I'm reading a series as it comes out, and the next book isn't out for a year or more, then, by the time it comes out, my interest/attention has waned.
So, really, the cliffhanger only works for suspense in a short-term fashion, and is only really going to work if people are invested in your story/characters in the first place. It's not a substitute for a good story.
Hi all. I've deleted the offending message that contained a spoiler thanks to a message from MrsJoseph. I too haven't read the series he mentioned and managed to avoid reading the spoiler. Please all be careful of spoilering books for other members when discussing books in any context. Thanks for letting me know! :)
Penny wrote: "Hi all. I've deleted the offending message that contained a spoiler thanks to a message from MrsJoseph. I too haven't read the series he mentioned and managed to avoid reading the spoiler. Please a..."Thank you so much!
I cannot count the number of series that I have gotten into. Unfortunately, some are literally never finished (as in final book(s) never written. Those are the truly frustrating ones. Of course, for those that I am up-to-date on, I have to try and remember all of those authors so that I can watch for the next "installment" to come out.
Dale wrote: "Of course, for those that I am up-to-date on, I have to try and remember all of those authors so that I can watch for the next "installment" to come out. "I find the goodreads' newsletter "New Books by Authors You've Read" useful for that.
I don't mind most spoilers a few of my friends are the same way it's about how it's executed. Now there are some things you REALLY don't want spoiled because the shows reveal of it is amazing. This is mostly the case in whodunit's there are some notable examples I could point out in SFF as well but just by posting the name of the books they occur in could be construed as actual big spoiler. Telling someone that the final battle ends in a fist fight on top of an erupting volcano is a spoiler...but it's also not a heavily foreshadowed one with a grand reveal it's more just a this is what you can expect.In general though you can spoil anything from most of the SFF I read and I will not care. All that being said spoiler tags do exist, and you can do nested spoil tags which I will normally use for the actual huge spoilers of DO NOT CLICK ON THIS, for other people like me that don't care and just read spoilers normally anyways.
Xetws wrote: "So, i just finished Skin Gamethe last published of The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher, which i love.So, no release date for the next installment and i'm feeling..."
I learned this lesson a long, long time ago. If I wait a long time for the next book I forget the story enough I'm lost and possibly have to reread.
Nothing wrong with the series not being finished. I'd rather the author take their time and do it right, but......I won't start a series until it's complete.
Waiting on Rothfuss to finish before I start.
Waiting on R.R. Martin (forever?).
Dale wrote: "I cannot count the number of series that I have gotten into. Unfortunately, some are literally never finished (as in final book(s) never written. Those are the truly frustrating ones. Of course,..."You can also "Like" authors on Amazon. Amazon will send you an email notification when a new book is published.
I wish i could have waited until Rothfuss was done...
I wonder how many good series with really strong opening books never get finished because of the amount of people who would read/like them, but don't because they were waiting for the series to finish, which led to the book never selling and the series being pulled.This isn't me judging anyone here for waiting, btw. I don't have any hard rules about it, but most series I start are finished or near finished as well. I'm just genuinely curious how many series(if any) never get finished because people waited for them to be finished before starting them.
Rebecca wrote: "How long do you think is too long between books? Or does it depend on how the book you've just finished reading ends?"Definitely depends. For me a book every year would be great but too much to ask for quality writing, so I hope for a gap of no less than 2 years but am willing to put up with as much as 4 years. Just based on my past experience, 4+ years and I have mostly lost interest.
If it is a cliffhanger without some sense of the sub-story being resolved...you better have the next book already being edited.
Tommy wrote: "I wonder how many good series with really strong opening books never get finished because of the amount of people who would read/like them, but don't because they were waiting for the series to fin..."I've honestly no clue. Most of the series books I read either have finished or are incomplete due to author.
I've heard of a few having contracts dropped but I'd not started on those books/series/authors to start with. So I can't really name names.
But (for me) its another reason to not start an incomplete series. I can read something and LOVE it and if a large group of people don't agree with me, I still get no payoff.
I feel like part of the fun of a book is sitting down after the new one comes out and speculating over it for a while and getting excited for the next one. Obviously 2-3 years is a bit much and I would vastly prefer a quicker turn around(just enough for me and my group to finish passing it around reading it and discuss for a few weeks).
Aaron wrote: "I feel like part of the fun of a book is sitting down after the new one comes out and speculating over it for a while and getting excited for the next one. Obviously 2-3 years is a bit much and I ..."I only get excited like that with series I know come out yearly.
Hank wrote: "Rebecca wrote: "How long do you think is too long between books? Or does it depend on how the book you've just finished reading ends?"Definitely depends. For me a book every year would be great but too much to ask for quality writing, so I hope for a gap of no less than 2 years but am willing to put up with as much as 4 years. Just based on my past experience, 4+ years and I have mostly lost interest."
If you break it down mathematically, it shouldn't take longer than a year-and-a-half to write a second book, complete with all the writing, revising and editing that goes along with it.
If you can manage to write 500 words a day -- for comparison, NaNoWriMo asks you to do 1,667 -- then if you write for 250 days of the year (giving you weekends off and a nice vacation), you will have written 125,000 words by the end of the year. 125k words is about 475-500 pages.
Of course, writing isn't work -- rewriting is work. But even then it shouldn't take much more than 4 or 5 months to go over your manuscript thoroughly.
If you decide to scrap everything and start over, that's a different issue. But 500 words a day is doable even with a full-time job. This response I've typed is about 160 words and it took maybe 5 minutes. (Including looking up the NaNoWriMo daily word count.)
Trike wrote: "Hank wrote: "Rebecca wrote: "How long do you think is too long between books? Or does it depend on how the book you've just finished reading ends?"Definitely depends. For me a book every year wou..."
Yeah and the more prolific authors like Sanderson blow that number out of the water.
There are plenty of authors I have really enjoyed that have written at insane writing speeds resulting in very quality work.
I don't find there's any correlation between speed and quality.There are plenty of fast good writers and slow bad writers.
Trike wrote: "I don't find there's any correlation between speed and quality.There are plenty of fast good writers and slow bad writers."
Some have argued that working fast boosts the quality of their writing rather than hindering it. The real answer is most likely that it's a varying thing from author to author, rather than just a set in stone quick/quality spectrum.
Chris wrote: "Trike wrote: 500 words a day is doable even with a full-time job.The Lord of the Rings is 561,996 words long (according to one website), and took at least 12 years to write. That's 128 ..."
LotR was also written in the age of typewriters not computers. Considering how detail oriented Tolkien was I'm sure there were an insane number of rewrites which were a good bit harder in that age then now.
Also -- and this goes to the point of the OP -- LotR was released all at once.It didn't take him 12 years to write it, it took him 27 years to build the world it's set in. The writing was significantly shorter. Most estimates I've seen put it at 5 or 6 years, which is an average of 300 words per day with weekends and vacations off.
Considering he had two jobs and wrote numerous other papers and books in that time, as well doing research, translations and raising a family, 300 words per day is pretty good. He once lamented he wished he'd spent more time on the book so he could have retired earlier. Lesson to authors: don't dawdle!
Note that I mentioned above that "If you decide to scrap everything and start over, that's a different issue," and Tolkien did that a number of times, hence all the Unfinished Tales of Middle-Earth his son later published.
And, to reiterate, no one had to wait for the series to be finished.
Hank wrote: "Rebecca wrote: "How long do you think is too long between books? Or does it depend on how the book you've just finished reading ends?"Definitely depends. For me a book every year would be great b..."
At first your response surprised me (2-4 yrs), but as I think about series I've read, I haven't lost interest in that length of time. If I have the choice between waiting and poor quality, I prefer to wait.
Chris wrote: "The implication is that publishers think they can let readers down if there's a profit to be made in doing so. That stinks."Which is precisely why we have threads like this. The first installment doesn't sell well enough and the series is abandoned. Readers then stop buying "first in a series!" novels.
The same thing happened with TV. Networks kept canceling series without resolving the stories and audiences stopped tuning in.
Thing is, we LIKE series. Continuing stories are popular. We just don't like the business model.
Chris wrote: "Trike wrote: Of course, writing isn't work...The hollow laughter you hear is from all the writers in the group."
I think that by taking only the first part of it, you are changing the meaning of what Trike was saying. And - as we hear very often - rewriting is the hard work. That's where plot holes get plugged, etc and stories get tightened. And where a lot of SPAs decide to publish so they can pull and republish when the bad reviews come in because "editing is expensive and painful."
Over the years I've become very anti-series, but it's a necessary evil in today's publishing world. No one seems capable of writing a single book anymore.My general rule of thumb is to no longer start a "series" that hasn't been wrapped up by the author.
NOW, series that I entirely endorse are books that take place in the same setting but are completely independent tales, with (at most) a tenuous connecting to one or more of the other books in that series. The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks for example. I can pick up any book, at any time, in any order.
Chris wrote: "Trike wrote: Of course, writing isn't work...The hollow laughter you hear is from all the writers in the group.
"
::: raises hand :::
Writer and filmmaker, right here.
Tommy wrote: "I wonder how many good series with really strong opening books never get finished because of the amount of people who would read/like them, but don't because they were waiting for the series to fin..."I know that the Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove got killed by the publisher before it was completed.
I had been happily reading along back in the early to mid-90s and then . . poof. Series dead. Well, that's not completely true, they actually (not sure which they) made it more annoying. The next book in the killed series did get published. Just not in the USA.
Get word series killed. Then get word another book coming out, but you can't read it. mmphs.
I do know that the series got picked up again, or that the author revived it but . . . I'd already been burned so I'm not looking at it. It's the first series rewritten. And plans for 20 books. 8 books of the original series got published. 8 or 9 of the new series are out.
Lexxi Kitty wrote: I do know that the series got picked up again, or that the author revived it but . . . I'd already been burned so I'm not looking at it. It's the first series rewritten. And plans for 20 books. 8 books of the original series got published. 8 or 9 of the new series are out...."It got killed again after 8 books.
Yeah, it can get pretty frustrating. I think with A Song of Ice and Fire, the climax pretty much happened in the third book (unless he has something bigger up his sleeve), so it's not so much that you're holding your breath as you're just curious how the rest of it plays out.
Interesting that no one seems to have pointed out the Exiles Trilogy by Melanie Rawn in this thread. The third book has been on hold for so long. I think it's been close to 20 years since the 2nd book was published. I heard Ms. Rawn is finally getting around to writing it so that's good news (I think some fans actually already lost hope that it eould get written). I read book 1 around 2 years ago and I really liked it. I should probably wait until that last book is written before I continue.
Chris wrote: "Trike wrote: ::: raises hand :::Writer and filmmaker, right here.
Ah, now I've got you. I seem to remember Keanu Reeves playing you in a movie opposite Al Pacino.
Perhaps I took you too literally. But I can only respond to the words as written. ."
I meant it literally.
The creation of something is easy. The first draft of anything is a piece of cake. It's like sex: all fun and games. Revising and rewriting are like raising a child. You have to do things you don't want to because you know it will be good for them. That's where all the work happens.
Then you have the series where the books get published further and further apart. While not sci-fi/fantasy the Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean Auel is a classic example, with 2, 3 and 5 years respectively between the first four books, all of which I liked. Then 12 years to the next, but I had the feeling the author was getting so involved in research she didn't have as much interest in writing the book itself. But then 8 years to the final book and and the final book was actually so bad I felt like she was sick and tired of the series and just wrote it so she could say it was finished and get all her readers to quit bugging her about it.
As I am currently writing an as yet unfinished series then I have to disagree
It's easier for me to start a serie that has only started or is ongoing with not that many pages than to read a finished long serie like WOT. That just seems so overwhelming.I am not sure I would read Stormlight Archives by Sanderson if I saw there were 10 books of more than 700 pages.
I understand, but the author is still going and there will probably be yet another Dresden to come. You can't get too frustrated with a series that is actually current. What gets me is one such as the "Kilroy" series from (I think) back in the '80's. There were 3 or 4 books and then it died. It was dual authored and neither had died. Yes, I know that 1)authors tire of certain characters or 2) certain books just don't sell, but it is frustrating to really like a set of stories to be cut off suddenly.
I will start an unfinished series if the author has a 'track record' for finished series and I'm usually reluctant even then to start one that is obviously not going to have a conclusion until after several more books. It isn't always a guarantee, but better than an author and a first book in what is obviously planned as a series.
@Brenda-- Heh. Me, too. At least I review these books for work occasionally...
my imagination can make nearly all loose ends weave. "game of thrones" if it ended with the last book published, I would be okay with it because my major questions were answered or addressed enough.
I have no problem starting a series that isn't completed provided I know something about whether or not the series is going to have a sequel and an estimated date. (i.e. not Rothfuss of Martin the two who everyone agrees to seemingly take forever). But then I love people like Michael J. Sullivan who write all the books and then publish them at different intervals. Yes I have to wait a bit, but thats part of the excitement and at least I know I will be able to read them sometime within this century...
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
His Majesty's Dragon (other topics)The Lord of the Rings (other topics)
Skin Game (other topics)
In Enemy Hands (other topics)
The Aeronaut's Windlass (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Jim Butcher (other topics)Jim Butcher (other topics)
Patrick Rothfuss (other topics)
George R.R. Martin (other topics)
It's like they are showing off how smart they are by knowing the endings.