Book series that go on too long

[Australis]

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy being a good one; nothing against the author who wrote the new book, which I hear is a good one, but it should have ended when Douglas Adams was no longer available.

Frankly, The Hitchhiker novels should have ended after the second or third one (anyway, before So Long and Thanks For All the Fish). I remember having all the Adams books in an omnibus, and while I blazed through them the series had seriously ran out of steam by the end.

And even with the concessions to the second and third books the first was easily the best. Adams was very funny, but he wasn't able to make a kind of endlessly amusing weird comic universe in the manner Pratchett did (the only really long running book series I have any fondness for).

Ther real problem with HHGG is that Adams never wrote the final part of the trilogy as a radio series, there should have been a conclusion, that went from Arthur leaving in the Heart of Gold, and ending up, I don't know, back on Earth, but without a hyperspace bypass. That would have been fine. The wibbling in the books put a distinct pall over the whole thing for me.

 

[Kemaiku]

I admit I gave up on Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles after Queen of the Damned.

Yeah, the opening trilogy pretty much covers the whole story, the rest is pure filler, the latter half of the chronicles used to prop up her Witch series. Pandora adds some interesting background to her, Marius and the Mother and Father, as well as summarising several other books far more bareably. Its not a great book, but its more readable than the otehrs.

 

[Sean Aaron]

I agree the Foundation Trilogy should have stayed a trilogy. It's not like the last two books ended the series either (even if it ended Seldon's Plan, that just led to a bigger thing). That being said, Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth are good sci fi books (until you get to the long exposition with robots), they just aren't in the same spirit as the trilogy. I haven't read the two prequels, though, so I can't comment on them.

Wow I totally forgot there were two more Foundation novels - hell I even read them and have no memory of it! And there were prequels too? Clearly I've not paid attention to fiction in decades...

Frankly, The Hitchhiker novels should have ended after the second or third one (anyway, before So Long and Thanks For All the Fish). I remember having all the Adams books in an omnibus, and while I blazed through them the series had seriously ran out of steam by the end.

Agreed, I felt like Restaurant at the End of the Universe wrapped it nicely. I did read through "So Long," but it did feel like it was past sell-by.

Like with Hitchhikers, totally a book series I would have wanted stopped when the author was still alive - in retrospect, God Emperor is just a good book to go out on.

I think you're a bit generous there. Whilst I did read God Emperor, it didn't have the same feel and got a little OTT. Children of Dune is a better conclusion; the fact that it was written when Dune was (if I recall correctly) probably has a lot to do with that.

I admit I gave up on Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles after Queen of the Damned.

Yeah, me too. Lestat as rock star really didn't work for me; just started to feel like Rice was performing for her fans at that point.

Also, probably an unpopular view here, but I do not like the Star Trek relaunch books (other than Enterprise) at all. I wasn't drawn into them at the beginning, but when they decided to start having disaster after disaster (which I had just been railing at Dragonlance for doing) I lost all interest.

I enjoyed the Deep Space Nine relaunch until they did the Typhon Pact leap and that really soured me on it so I donated the lot to Oxfam. It was an interesting experiment reading franchise novels, but not one I'm likely to repeat.

 

[Dream]

A Song of Ice and Fire.

Martin has caught the same writers disease that infected Robert Jordan. Hopefully he can finish the series before he dies.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Wasn't that also the increasing problem with Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels until he did Red Rabbit as a prequel?

Yep, and Teeth of the Tiger with Jack's son. Clancy wasn't able to really run with either approach, though; after Teeth he gave up writing for a while before eventually handing the reins of his characters to Grant Blackwood.

Aha...NOW I know why I thought Dead or Alive didn't measure up. I take it Blackwood did the vast majority of the writing?

It was truly a sad day to see Against All Enemies being sold (the start of a new series, I think), and realize I didn't give a damn.

I mean, without spoilers, there was even a BIG character death I should've cared a lot more about, but in my opinion was handled badly. Basically, I was reading the book more as political commentary than I was for the characters. Not to mention that events involving the real-life inspiration for the Big Bad ended up happening within months of my finishing the book, which also knocked my enthusiasm for another Ryan book to zero.

Damn shame, considering how much I liked Clancy's novels through Teeth of the Tiger. I even consider the older Clancy novels (the Soviet-era ones) to be an inspiration to my own writing.

But if I had to point to where the series started getting weaker, I'd have to say The Bear and the Dragon. Rainbow Six at least held my attention all the way through, though I think after what happened in Debt of Honor/Executive Orders (talk about a scary predictive set of novels...), Clancy got himself into a position where it was going to be impossible to top himself. He should've saved that for the end; the result is that everything else simply doesn't measure up in comparison.

 

[Aldo]

The Golden Compass trilogy. When I discovered a movie with Daniel Craig was coming out I knew I had to read the book. So I did, and I enjoyed it immensly. However, I got to the second book and just had a heck of a time getting through it. I actually put it down for a few months before returning to it.

I never did make it to the third book (never did see the movie either).

 

[Owain Taggart]

The Golden Compass trilogy. When I discovered a movie with Daniel Craig was coming out I knew I had to read the book. So I did, and I enjoyed it immensly. However, I got to the second book and just had a heck of a time getting through it. I actually put it down for a few months before returning to it.

I never did make it to the third book (never did see the movie either).

Agreed. Actually, the first book was the best one. The second one was Ok, but I felt somewhat disappointed in that he presented a good concept but didn't really use it to full potential , and the last book was nigh unreadable. The trilogy basically fell apart by the 3rd book, in my opinion, and I felt sad when I came to the end, because the first book held so much potential. It's a good example of an author who spreads himself too thin. It should have been one book plus a sequel. The third book has too many plot threads and characters disappearing, including major characters like her mother, and the resolution is unsatisfying. It gave me the impression that while the author had great ideas, that he didn't know how to close things out as he went along, leading to an unsatisfying 3rd book. My favourite plotline in the 3rd book had more to do with the aliens than the main plotline, so that's saying something.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I am going to nominate the Cat Who books by Lilian Jackson Braun. My mother bought a few of them second hand a few years ago and really enjoyed them. In the last two years of her life she could only manage light reading and one day lamented to me that she wish she could find more of the Cat Who books. I decided to buy the whole series for her but had to convince her that I was buying them for myself instead of spending my money on her which she didn't want me to do. So I started reading the series, so I could discuss them with my mother, I managed to get through about a dozen. Of the books before I became bored with them. My mother read the whole series -29 books in all. However my mother admitted that the last 2 or 3 books in the series, written when the author was in her 90s, weren't very well written.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I've heard that (my Mom's a fan of the series).

 

[jgalley]

The books (author escapes me) about the "Seeker"...Wizards first rule, soul of the fire, stone of tears, etc.

I love the world. And the characters. But the Author goes into FAR too much random detail over the most mundane and inconsistent things...

like in the first book did I really need to read 2 pages describing Richard chopping a guys head off? And hey, I'm as big a perv as most guys, love me some sex...but the Author seems overly deviant..and his use of rape as a plot device got old...EVERY book someone's getting raped or almost raped (in the case of Kahlan)..

there's what 12 books? I'm hit and miss on these..again love the world, characters, overall stories...but the guys writing method goes from really good to god awful.

 

[RoJoHen]

For my own taste, the Ender series has grown too expansive. (Yet I await every new novel.)

I agree. I love the Ender books, and whenever I see a new one, I immediately pick it up. Even so, they're completely unnecessary. I actually loved all of the original 4 books (yes, even Xenocide and Children of the Mind). When the second series about Bean started, though, I have to admit I lost interest.

 

[JoeZhang]

Like in the first book did I really need to read 2 pages describing Richard chopping a guys head off? And hey, I'm as big a perv as most guys, love me some sex...but the Author seems overly deviant..and his use of rape as a plot device got old...EVERY book someone's getting raped or almost raped (in the case of Kahlan)..

Plus the increasingly weird neo-con politics (Torture is good if done by good people, Killing political protesters is OK if you are armed with moral truth) that he starts to inject into the books along with bizzare strawmen versions of liberal political views.

Then Bill and Hilary Clinton turn up and it *really* goes to shit.

For anyone who has never read those books, this extract is from one bit where Richard (the hero) confronts some protesters who are against the invasion of Iraq (it's dressed up but that's what he's talking about with absolutely no nuance at all):

" A plump, curly-haired woman took a step out from the others. Her round face was red with anger as she screamed. "Stop the hate! No war! Stop the hate! No war!"

"Move or die!" Richard yelled as he picked up speed.

The red-faced woman shook her fleshy fist at Richard and his men, leading an angry chant. "Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!"

On his way past her, gritting his teeth as he screamed with the fury of the attack begun, Richard took a powerful swing, lopping off the woman's head and upraised arm. Strings of blood and gore splashed across the faces behind her even as some still chanted their empty words. The head and loose arm tumbled through the crowd.

A man mad the mistake of reaching for Richard's weapon, and took the full weight of a charging thrust. Men behind Richard hit the line of evil's guardians with unrestrained violence. People armed only with their hatred for moral clarity fell bloodied, terribly injured, and dead. The line of people collapsed before the merciless charge. Some of the people, screaming their contempt, used their fists to attack Richard's men. They were met with swift and deadly steel."

You see Richard is armed with the magic power of MORAL CLARITY and by the logic of the story cannot be wrong in what he does. So if in a story, he kills some pacifists, it's automatically the right thing to do.

 

[sidious618]

Holy shit, that's fucked up. And people read those books? Yikes.

 

[JoeZhang]

Holy shit, that's fucked up. And people read those books? Yikes.

The books are filled with such stuff - here's how Richard deals with an eight year old's tauts:

Princess Violet glared at him. "My mother says that Confessor Kahlan will come back and that we'll have a surprise for her the next time she comes here. I just want you to know because my mother said you'll be dead by then. My mother says I get to decide what to do to her.

First, I'm going to cut off her hair." Her hands were in fists, her face red. "Then I'm going to let all the guards rape her, every one! Then I'm going to put her in the dungeon for a few years so they'll have someone to play with! Then when I get tired of hurting her, I'll have her head chopped off and put it on a pole where I can watch it rot!"

Richard actually felt sorry for the little Princess. The sadness for her came over him in a wave. At that feeling, he was surprised to feel the thing in him that had come awake rise up. Princess Violet squeezed her eyes shut, stuck her tongue out far as she could.

It was like a red flag.

The strength of the awakened power exploded through him. He could feel her jaw shatter like a crystal goblet on a stone floor when his boot came up under it. The impact of the blow lifted the Princess into the air. Her own teeth severed her tongue before they, too, shattered. She landed on her back, a good distance away, trying to scream through the gushing blood.

 

[Skywalker]

Yeah...my cousin got me Wizard's First Rule for Christmas some years ago, but I never read it because I'd heard about way too many things like those excerpts you just posted.

 

[jgalley]

Holy shit, that's fucked up. And people read those books? Yikes.

The books are filled with such stuff - here's how Richard deals with an eight year old's tauts:

Princess Violet glared at him. "My mother says that Confessor Kahlan will come back and that we'll have a surprise for her the next time she comes here. I just want you to know because my mother said you'll be dead by then. My mother says I get to decide what to do to her.

First, I'm going to cut off her hair." Her hands were in fists, her face red. "Then I'm going to let all the guards rape her, every one! Then I'm going to put her in the dungeon for a few years so they'll have someone to play with! Then when I get tired of hurting her, I'll have her head chopped off and put it on a pole where I can watch it rot!"

Richard actually felt sorry for the little Princess. The sadness for her came over him in a wave. At that feeling, he was surprised to feel the thing in him that had come awake rise up. Princess Violet squeezed her eyes shut, stuck her tongue out far as she could.

It was like a red flag.

The strength of the awakened power exploded through him. He could feel her jaw shatter like a crystal goblet on a stone floor when his boot came up under it. The impact of the blow lifted the Princess into the air. Her own teeth severed her tongue before they, too, shattered. She landed on her back, a good distance away, trying to scream through the gushing blood.

exactly. but there are parts that are really well done and written..hence my comment about his writing.

and that little girl was like that because of her upbringing..which does not make what Richard did here ok. But, as you said, he can do no wrong.

I couldn't quite put my finger on certain things that bothered me about those books...but you're hitting them on the head.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I may not like liberal policies, but that kind of scene that you posted is where I draw the line. I don't like it when I hear liberals say things like hoping conservatives get AIDS and die (nicely lowering herself into the same category as Jesse Helms), or indulging in assassination fantasies--which was why I found the whole Min Zife storyline in Treklit so galling. I mean, it was pretty clear who Zife was supposed to be and why the authors wanted "him" bumped off.

Argue with protesters? Fine. Provide the logic that undermines their positions? Fine. Parody them some? Fine. Go for it; people can decide if they're interested. Even crude metaphors are legitimate political speech, though I think people who use them should actually use their brains before opening their mouths. But a first-person shooter (first-person sword..er? ) revenge fantasy? Absolutely not. That is not how we handle dissent.

I'm going to have to agree that author is twisted and thank you guys for the warning to stay the hell away from his books.

 

[Admiral Shran]

" A plump, curly-haired woman took a step out from the others. Her round face was red with anger as she screamed. "Stop the hate! No war! Stop the hate! No war!"

"Move or die!" Richard yelled as he picked up speed.

The red-faced woman shook her fleshy fist at Richard and his men, leading an angry chant. "Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!"

On his way past her, gritting his teeth as he screamed with the fury of the attack begun, Richard took a powerful swing, lopping off the woman's head and upraised arm. Strings of blood and gore splashed across the faces behind her even as some still chanted their empty words. The head and loose arm tumbled through the crowd.

A man mad the mistake of reaching for Richard's weapon, and took the full weight of a charging thrust. Men behind Richard hit the line of evil's guardians with unrestrained violence. People armed only with their hatred for moral clarity fell bloodied, terribly injured, and dead. The line of people collapsed before the merciless charge. Some of the people, screaming their contempt, used their fists to attack Richard's men. They were met with swift and deadly steel."

Princess Violet glared at him. "My mother says that Confessor Kahlan will come back and that we'll have a surprise for her the next time she comes here. I just want you to know because my mother said you'll be dead by then. My mother says I get to decide what to do to her.

First, I'm going to cut off her hair." Her hands were in fists, her face red. "Then I'm going to let all the guards rape her, every one! Then I'm going to put her in the dungeon for a few years so they'll have someone to play with! Then when I get tired of hurting her, I'll have her head chopped off and put it on a pole where I can watch it rot!"

Richard actually felt sorry for the little Princess. The sadness for her came over him in a wave. At that feeling, he was surprised to feel the thing in him that had come awake rise up. Princess Violet squeezed her eyes shut, stuck her tongue out far as she could.

It was like a red flag.

The strength of the awakened power exploded through him. He could feel her jaw shatter like a crystal goblet on a stone floor when his boot came up under it. The impact of the blow lifted the Princess into the air. Her own teeth severed her tongue before they, too, shattered. She landed on her back, a good distance away, trying to scream through the gushing blood.

I think this sums up my reaction to that fairly well....

Yeah, that's some pretty fucked up shit! (Please excuse the profanity, but.... DAMN!)

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

I imagine that some people who were fans of the TV series first and then read the novels will be rather horrified at some of Richard's actions as presented through the prism of Goodkind's particular strain of Randian objectivism.

 

[JoeZhang]

I imagine that some people who were fans of the TV series first and then read the novels will be rather horrified at some of Richard's actions as presented through the prism of Goodkind's particular strain of Randian objectivism.

Reading between the lines, I have to wonder if someone happened to Goodkind that caused some sort of personality shift - the first couple of books are readable fantasy books (at least that's how I remember it) then they just become a platform for him to pontificate about evil pacifists, liberals, communists etc.

Oh and write in lots and lots of rape as mentioned above.