Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” - Bilbo Baggins.

I'm not sure if it's a recent development or just mine becoming aware of it, but I feel as if almost every other new bestselling title in the F&SF arena is a part of a trilogy these days.

How does everyone feel about it?

Personally, I'm a sucker for backstories and lore. I usually prefer series to movies and for the longest anime's unrestricted structure satisfied my F&SF itch. Luckily these days we are bombarded with high quality series on all streaming services.

But somehow many of the trilogies I read do not do it for me. They just seem either bland or overly informative. Ancillary Justice is a perfect example. It would've been an interesting read, had there been one single volume with none of the word padding or the unnecessary endless leading in and unnecessary conflict resolution which does not segue well into the next volume.

So is it too little butter (writing material) or too much bread (page count)?

I have very mixed feelings between what I’d call “organic” and planned trilogies. An organic trilogy, one where the author wrote a first book without really having future books in mind, but later has another idea built on the first vs. one where multiple books were planned from the start. Planned trilogies have always have kind of an artificial feeling to them.

But this is only a perception that could be and probably is false. Who knows what the author was thinking unless they come out and say it? Oddly, I don’t necessarily feel that way about a saga like Game of Thrones. It feels organic, even though the whole saga has a plan and an end goal. Did Robert Jordan envision 14 massive volumes to get through his saga?

At the same time, Ancillary Justice was missing something. Did she plan it out ahead of time, or realize after Justice that there was more story to tell (perhaps using filler to flesh it out)? The original classic trilogy Foundation felt very organic & logical, but the addition of Foundation’s Edge 25 years later did not. Further volumes were more organic, individual ideas that came up later, but didn’t really feel a natural part of the series (maybe they’re good and fit in, but I haven’t read them).

Then there’s Scalzi’s Collapsing Empire, planned. I’ve enjoyed the books, especially after a re-read, but it rankles me a little that it feels so planned, books exactly 280 pages long, that it feels a little like a money grab (not necessarily by Scalzi but by the publisher). I just finished Jemisin’s The City We Became”, stated as the first of a new trilogy. That doesn’t quite feel right. Why a trilogy? Why not “the first of an indeterminate series”? It feels artificial and stilted, as if they’re writing to order.

So it seems like it’s an individual evaluation based on feel. One trilogy or series might feel like it occurred naturally, another planned and contrived. A series could feel organic but in fact was meticulously plotted. Maybe it’s just a bigger idea that would be a thousand page book, too daunting for the mainstream reader, so the author/editor/publisher deliberately break it up into segments. We don’t know, we can only go by how it feels and wrap that into our evaluation of the books.

I guess that’s a very long way of saying “it depends”.

Allan wrote: "it feels a little like a money grab (not necessarily by Scalzi but by the publisher"

That is exactly how I feel. I bet there is an agenda in promoting trilogies on the market. It pays better, it creates stronger fan base and it is a 2-3 exposure to the media if it's successful.

Scalzi got a multi-million contract with Tor, the largest one for a SF author. He obliged to write n novels for m years

Publishers have established that creating reader investment and a "captive audience" through series and trilogies brings in more money for them. Consequently, it is much easier for authors to find publishing contracts for trilogies and series than it is for standalones.

I have to say, I mightily respect standalone novels these days.

I agree with everything everyone is saying. The trilogy seems like a marketing thing and arbitrary and lacking authenticity. But also, I remember reading an interview or something with N. K. Jemisin where she talked about each book in a trilogy having a different job in terms of telling a story. So maybe there is something to the trilogy being a specific story form just like a standalone or a short story or a series?

I'm not a big fan of trilogies (or series as such), because I'm still one of those old fashioned types who adores authors that are able to tell their story in less than 500 pages.

Often the books indeed feel like page fillers. The most prominent example for me was The Wise Man's Fear, the second book of what I think was planned as a trilogy. The book has nearly 1000 pages and at the end of it the reader does not know much more than at the end of volume 1. A monumental balloon.

Glad to know that it wasn't just me. It's really nice to see when trilogies work though. Broken Earth is a nice example of this, I see it as a single story which was way too long for a single book and on top of that the change of pacing between the volumes would be difficult to accept were it a single book.

Sometimes a trilogy just feels as if it is a way to divide up a book into three shorter parts and thus 1) get them out on the market quicker and 2) make more money and/or sucker people into buying what should have been one high priced book into three cheaper books.

But there are lots of great trilogies (or series) out there where you can stop without feeling that you are missing all the answers.

Gabi wrote: "Often the books indeed feel like page fillers. The most prominent example for me was The Wise Man's Fear, the second book of what I think was planned as a trilogy. ..."

Gabi, thanks for the warning about The Wise Man's Fear. I keep hearing how wonderful The Name of the Wind is, to the point where I bought at e-book of it. But he doesn't seem to write much any more. Can that 1st one be read as a standalone? Or is it a cliffhanger . . . I hate those.

Kristen wrote: " I remember reading an interview or something with N. K. Jemisin where she talked about each book in a trilogy having a different job in terms of telling a story. So maybe there is something to the trilogy being a specific story form just like a standalone or a short story or a series?"

Yes, that's my impression, as well. In a trilogy you can have one vast story arc and two smaller mini-arcs, one for each of the first two books. That's a different structure from single-volume novel. Also, you can make the ending of the first or second book tragic without the whole trilogy being a tragedy, if you conclude the whole thing on a happy or hopeful note. This, again, is something you can't really do with a single-volume novel.

Of course, not all trilogies are thought out this well. The second book is often the weakest, being the filler between the setup and the conclusion.

I have often thought that if you haven't written your book as a trilogy in the first place, you should simply write a sequel, and if you want (or are contractually obliged) to write a third book, well, make it a second sequel. A book with two sequels is not a trilogy, if you ask me: it needs that overarcing grand story that ties all the three books together in order to be called a trilogy.

(Also, if you just cut your book in two like Too Like the Lightning, then you should call your volumes "Too Like the Lightning, part I" and "TLtL, part II" and not pretend they are two books!)

Kateblue wrote: "Gabi, thanks for the warning about The Wise Man's Fear. I keep hearing how wonderful The Name of the Wind is, to the point where I bought at e-book of it. But he doesn't seem to write much any more. Can that 1st one be read as a standalone? Or is it a cliffhanger . . . I hate those..."

It is a cliffhanger, I unfortunately have to say. The three (or how many books they should be in the end) are one story.

Gabi--thanks for the warning.

I thought Kingkiller Chronicle would be the epic fantasy that would make me like epic fantasies again. Glad you warned me. I mean it is rated with a 4.54 average rating and there are 672,608 ratings. I would have been really annoyed if I got to the end and it didn't.

I have never seen such a high rating on a book before, not even my beloved Bujold. Even my two most beloved books of hers are not as high--A Civil Campaign 4.43 average rating with 15,213 ratings and Memory 4.45 average rating with 14,683 ratings!

So there is another Kingkiller book that is a shorter piece listed after The Wise Man's Fear, The Slow Regard of Silent Things. I take it that it does not end either? Maybe it is a standalone and I can see if I will even like the way the guy writes? Or are there too many spoilers in it?

I haven't read that one, Kateblue. So I can't say anything about the level of spoilery content. From the description it looks like such a character tie-in story like "Edgedancer" in Sanderson's Stormlight Archive with little connection to the main plot, but of course a lot of connection to the worldbuilding.

Okay, I'm going to disagree with most everyone except Antti and say actually trilogies are one of my favorite narrative structures, when done well, and I think in most cases they need to be planned in advance. (The exception would be series without a strong overarching narrative that happen to be three books, which are fine too, just as Anttti said not really a trilogy.) I'm a sucker for a three-act arc in standalone books as well.

For me, trilogies offer a wealth of options for varying perspectives and storytelling perspectives, and sufficient space for complex, layered narratives, while still being limited enough to keep the story focused (and for me to be able to re-read previous books easily if I need to refresh).

A lot of trilogies, though, I think would probably be better served as duologies, which is another format I like but which seems underutilized. I feel like a lot of middle-book issues could be solved by trimming down the story and writing the second and third books as a single book instead. Trying to ensure that each book is the same length does feel very artificial - I would much rather have a well-paced but physically lopsided duology than a perfectly matched trilogy that drags in the middle.

The Broken Earth trilogy, I think, is a perfect example of a beautifully structured trilogy where the author has carefully considered why each book is necessary. Notably, Jemisin has previously used the duology format for a different series.

Kaa wrote: "The Broken Earth trilogy, I think, is a perfect example of a beautifully structured trilogy where the author has carefully considered why each book is necessary. Notably, Jemisin has previously used the duology format for a different series.
"

I agree, it was definitely thought from the start as a trilogy.

The standard for trilogies, and the work that possibly kicked off the trend, was of course Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, however, envisioned the three books we know as one volume of a duology, with The Silmarillion as the second book. It was the publisher who issued it as three books, for economic reasons. This was 1954-1955.

The other standard was Foundation, published in 1951. The first book was actually a collection of four previously published short stories with a nw one added. The other books were mash-ups of added novellas.

Both trilogies gained considerable popularity in the 60’s and 70’s, which seems to be where the trend started. But it’s interesting to note that neither of the standards was intended by the author to be trilogy. There was no intent or planning in that direction, it was entirely organic. Nowadays many are consciously planned and thus feel somewhat contrived. Or maybe they are just recognizing the economics and publisher’s desire to market it that way.