The Sword and Laser discussion

Just wondering. I see a lot of repetition at the bookstore.

makes for a guaranteed sequel that they will be able to gauge sales on?

it's one of the reasons i stopped reading fantasy for so long, the interminable series of bricks so many authors put out.

It's kind of annoying when you only have limited time to read and it feels like you have to read three (or more) books instead of one to actually get the whole story.

I don't know, I guess there's a pro and a con to it. The pro is that when you really like a series you get more of the same characters and an extended story line. I've read a couple of series (Hitchhikers's Guide, The Thursday Next books) that I really liked and where I really looked forward to reading the next book.

On the other hand it is intimating to start a series when there are already five or more books waiting. I try to take it one at a time and just start it and see whether I like it enough to keep going. With some series, although it helps to read them in order I guess the books are still stand alone enough to jump in.

As to why that is, I guess I only have vague guesses. From the publisher's side I guess it really is an advantage to have a series where you already have a dedicated readership that you can count on. But I can also imagine that for an author it can be nice to be able to develop a character and story further than just one book. It's a matter of taste after all: Do I want to write something completely new or do I want to stay in the same world and elaborate on that? I can see arguments for both options.

For the readers I guess that - as I said - when you like a book it's a nice idea to come back to the same story and kind of know what to expect.

Currently it feels like every other book I read is part of a series (so far this year: The Name of the Wind, The Passage, The Hunger Games, Soulless, The Shadow of the Torturer, A Game of Thrones, Shades of Grey and actually Anne of Green Gables). Even Pattern Recognition is listed on Goodreads as a #1 of a series, although I wasn't really aware of that.

So, yeah, I guess you're right, a *lot* of books are actually part of a series.

I am a fan of series because a single book rarely captures my desire for character development. I do think there are a ton of series out right now though.

Brad wrote: "I am a fan of series because a single book rarely captures my desire for character development. I do think there are a ton of series out right now though."

I think it's like me enjoying TV shows (i.e. series) a bit more than movies. I like the character development and the longer story arcs and the way you really get to know your favorite characters. Movies in a way are more tight and plot-centered. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just a difference I've noticed.

In book form I'm not sure what I like more. I think I try to find a healthy balance but since there are so many books I want to read I find series intimating since it means even more books to read - at least when you want to follow a series.

I agree with all that. Some stories need the right format to be told - whether it's a short story, a novella, a novel, a trilogy or an extended series, but I do think commercial pressures often encourage a story to be stretched beyond the limits of what it can sustain. The same way that sequels to movies are usually inferior (with diminishing returns for subsequent sequels) but a TV show, planned as a twenty-some episode run, can sustain itself for 3-4 times the screen time of a movie trilogy. It's a fact that when an author presents a book to the publisher, especially a genre book of any sort, the publisher will often put a great deal of pressure on them to extend it into a series, even if that was not the original plan.

I would also add that the skill of writing a single story of any length is a hard skill to execute and the longer series give the writer time to flesh the story out with out having to edit. Mostly I think it is a publishers choice though because it brings readers back. I also think that readers must be buying series the most because they just seem to increase as the years go by and publishers are in business to sell books and they are going to skew towrds the type of works that help that process....

It always comes back to the Tyranny of Talented Readers. They just need to be fed:

http://gnarrative.com/?p=272

Part of it is the business of writing. If something sells well there is an interest in seeing more of it, and it makes it easier for a publisher to gauge the demand for a book.

While it seems to be a part of genre books now, the serialized novel is part of why some Dickens, Charles and Alexandre Dumas books are so long. They were originally serialized as opposed to being issued as one complete work.

It also depends on how you define a series. The The Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time are series. You cannot read them out of order and each book assumes you have read all of the prior books.

A second group is "world" books. William Gibson, and Terry Pratchett set multiple books in the same world, but they rely much less on the other books in the series to inform the reader. Each book is more of a stand-alone work, though additional reading can provide additional revelations that a reader of just the one work would not comprehend.

Stephen King combines the two with his The Dark Tower Series. Here, the books in the series build on each other, but they also serve as a way to tie events that happen outside of the series in seemingly unrelated works to the series. Tom has mentioned this several times across his many podcasts. He is doing a read of the series now.

A third series type is the shared universe. This type tends to be a collaborative creation, led by an editor, but with the other authors allowed a great deal of leeway. These are series like Thieves' World or Wild Cards. These books usually follow the standard series structure, each subsequent book building on the prior books.

Yet another group is the extended universe. This type tends to be more tightly controlled by an original IP holder, much more than a shared universe. Star Wars, and Dungeons and Dragons come to mind as two of the more populated extended universes. These books tend to be shorter series inside of larger worlds. This is out of necessity - there are simply too many books to assume anyone has read them all in order. Doing a search for "Dragonlance" gives me 359 books, and while there are duplicates, Dragonlance is only one of several Dungeon and Dragons settings.

Paul 'Pezter' wrote: "It's a fact that when an author presents a book to the publisher, especially a genre book of any sort, the publisher will often put a great deal of pressure on them to extend it into a series"

I have also heard, anecdotally, that publishers don't seriously consider new authors unless they're submitting a series. The author I spoke to was shopping around a fantasy novel, where series seem to be more prevalent.

I typically prefer series books. Once I enjoy a world the author has created I want more than a books worth of time in that world