posted
I posted this on the "other side," but felt it needed more examination. Maybe I am the only one to feel this way, but it is how I have been feeling toward the genre for about five years.
I pesonally believe that the need for authors to write a "series" has wounded Science Fiction as literature. The authors are stuck finishing what they started (usually taking them five to ten years), and it effects the amount of creative output on other projects.
Now, if they are really, really, interested in pursuing the story or going beyond the first book that is fine. At least they are doing it because they have a personal interest. However, too often it is because the author either isn't that good of a writer creatively or because a contract insists that is what they do.
Another problem is it locks out a new fanbase. In order to get involved with an author they might have to read the first in a series. Recognizing the need for a vested interest in the whole corpus of the books in order to finish the story, they are turned off by what might have been a casual interest. Another problem, as this place has shown even by those already fans, is that the energy of long multi-volume narratives often becomes repetitive, preachy, and/or bogged down. Because a person might recognize how good an author was to start out with, they will be reluctant to read yet another series that might do the same damage regardless of the initial positives. I don't know how many books and authors I have turned down because of the size of the first or the amount of the rest of a series. This isn't laziness (as I read a lot) as much as conservation.
This series devotion in science fiction has become so prevailant that many great talents are wasted when they could be going other directions. It also places them squarely in the hands of a small "fanbase" rather than more open to new readers. It has shrunk the size of the audience, and stymied the creative growth of the genre. Sadly, the overblown use of shared universe series (such as Star Trek and Star Wars) even by seasoned authors has further brought the legitimacy of the genere into more disrepute and accusations of immaturity (much less further elitised the readership).
My suggestion is simple. Reinvigorate the Science Fiction and even Fantasy genre by producing a series of no more than three books. Stick with single and distinct stories more often. Let readers, espcially of new generations, be allowed easily into the currently over-serialized world. If you have to, do like the current mystery writers who use the same characters, but never the exact same case.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
So write for the proven fanbase, or strive for literary respectability?
What about Harry Potter?
I guess this comes back to Lord of the Rings which as we know was originally one giant novel.
I guess what was originally an inspiration of quality became used to artificially elevate, and now is a mark of low quality. Kind of like hairstyles and other fashions trickle down.
P.S. I'm not very widely read, but one series longer than 3 that I really love is The Chronicles of Narnia.
posted
I think it depends on how many books the author set out to write, and whether the author had a good plan in mind at the start.
Philip Jose Farmer's first 2 "Riverworld" books are great. If he could've ended it with a small third book it would've been fine... but he didn't, and the rest are mostly useless padding. (I understand Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" books have a similar problem.)
With the Harry Potter, the Dark Materials, and the Song of Ice and Fire books, the author started out with a plot outline for all the books. (GRRM may not be able to squeeze the plot into 6 books anymore, but it's not like he's intentionally padding the books to sell more of them...)
OSC's "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the Dead" are wonderful, and they fit together fine because he wrote both of them with Ender in mind. "Xenocide" and "Children of the Mind" run into problems because he hadn't planned on writing them back when he wrote "Speaker for the Dead"... and I think the whole Shadow series has problems because it uses characters and events that were originally never planned to become a series.
Asimov's Foundation series is the only series I can think of where the author improvised as he went along and got away with it... but in that case I think it's because he had new worlds and new characters for almost every story. (The ones he didn't -- Foundation and Earth, Forward the Foundation -- don't work as well and are the weakest.)
OSC seems to be doing a lot of improvising with the Alvin series; I think he wandered off course with the 4th book, and part of the 5th book, but in general I think it's a great series.
posted
Occasional does point out a problem that can get out of hand, but series have been a tradition in SF since the pulps of the last century. But now, with contemporary marketing ideals, there seem to be many. And we see this in the movie industry as well. Why did LOTR do so well (other than the fact that some brilliant choices were made by Jackson)? Attendance kept climbing with each successive movie.
But if everyone starts their own series, and there is no relief, there could be a problem. I just don't see that happening yet. I agree with plaid, it really does depend on the author.
Posts: 1843 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I swear, late at night in the bookstore, the Star Trek section tries to warp over to the TSR section, where they have full contact battles to conquer more shelf space.
The poor DR Who books get obliterated, which is not a bad thing.
The problem is that the TSR books call in reserves from the Jordan section. Heck, one of those books can take on the entire Q-Continum sub-series in just weight alone.
The Star Wars series, while despising the Star Trek Section, does allie itself with them, for fear of losing to a combined Fantasy Series on slaught.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I don't object to a long series, as long as it's done well.
Jordan's writing has, imho, been showing the strains of enlongated plot and protracted padding as at least one book was nothing but character interaction which, granted, can help drive the plot.
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