Series--thrill or threat?

[sartorias]

Over at the Tor.com site, Jane Lindskold talks about series and stand-alones. The nice thing is, she doesn't sneer. I've taken to avoiding the sneer posts. Most of the time they just slang fat fantasy altogether (lumping it all together) or point to one or two examples that the poster didn't like, and again assuming they are All The Same. Life's

Comments

[cedunkley]

Well there are really two types of series:

1) Series

2) Serial

Something like the Dresden Files is a Serial where each book is a self-contained story, but has a central set of characters throughout. This can be either one where the main character starts over each book or grows and changes due to his/her experiences throughout.

Something like the Wheel of Time, while called a Series is really 1 long story broken up into a set of novels. While it is fashionable to bash the WoT these days I think most people who do so miss the point of the story. It is a story about the end of an Age, not about Rand. He just happens to be the central character or the most pivotal one. I think some people just wanted Rand's story and when he would often fade to the background for periods of time so the rest of the events could each have their turn, it seems to have turned those people off.

Anyway, a Series could also be something like Kurtz's Deryni books which tell the stories of the Deryni, often in the context of their relationship to the royal Haldane family. Her novels span many hundreds of years, but are divided up usually into trilogies that encompass a specific storyline.

For me it boils down to two things: Do I like the characters and Do I like the settings? If so I'll enjoy either a stand alone or a series.

If the author has a website, then it should be evident from that website whether they are writing a serial or a series.

I just want good storytelling more than anything else.

Also, I understand your point about opening a host of books to find just that right bit of research to inform your story. I've got a stack behind me ranging from life in castles, villages, medieval cities. I even have a book about everything that happened during the year 1215.

[sartorias]

I like that about serial and series...though I've seen the two terms swapped, and I've seen people refuse to use serial because it reminds them of the old Saturday morning cliff-hangers.

[danceswithwaves]

That's an interesting perspective to WoT, and I think it makes sense. Perhaps that's one reason why I kept with the story and enjoyed it for the other characters when I felt like Rand's character changed in a not-too-convincing way. The problem, then, is that WoT definitely starts out as Rand's story, with other characters brought in as secondary, so when the boundary fades and it becomes more along the lines of many main characters, rather that one, people get confused/annoyed/denied expectations. Though the end of an Age part is apparent from the beginning...