a rant about recent publishing trends....

[mike_c]

Novels published in series. AARRGGHH! It's gotten to the point where I routinely check EVERY book I buy to see whether it's part of a series, and I don't buy it if it is unless the bookstore has all the installments. Unfortunately, it's sometimes impossible to tell, especially from the first novel in a series. This sometimes leads to cliff hangers that go on for years, or at best, unsatisfyingly incomplete stories.

I HATE this publishing practice. I don't have any issues with multi-volume stories, and I happily buy them-- I LIKE long stories. I just wish that when authors and publishers mean to issue a story in multiple volumes, they'd publish them all at once.

I'm just finishing Allen Steele's Coyote series (or at least reading the most recent-- third-- book in the series-- I hope that ends it!). I'm currently enduring cliffhangers by S. M. Stirling and Peter Hamilton (whose Night's Dawn "trilogy" in six books was one of the worst offenders in this category, IMO).

[YankeyMCC]

1. I read I think in SciFi Weekly

that he does plan for this latest installment to be the end.

I've just read the short story versions published in "Asimov's Science Fiction". I really enjoy serializations like that.

[Ready4Change]

2. I agree, but it's not recent.

One of the first 2 sci-fi books I picked out and bought for myself was the first of a series, of which the second (and any followers) were never published. The main character had just gotten a cool starship, but you never saw it really get used. Grrrr...

That was in the 70's. I suspect its been a problem since books themselves were first published, and not relegated to recent sci-fi. Doesn't make it any less annoying, though.

[Kellanved]

3. Night's Dawn was published in three books in Europe

So, I guess splitting it into six books was an idea for the US edition.

[politicat]

4. Series = money.

It's nearly impossible to sell a stand-alone novel these days. Publishers look for long term money, and that's in a series. Readers have been trained by TV to expect things to go on and on, and so they'll buy a series, but stand-alone works aren't so well loved.

I've come to the point where I'll buy a part of a series as long as it reads well on its own.

My big beef is that SF and F publishers are publishing a lot more of the F than the SF... and the SF is pretty fantasy-y too.... (Not that I dislike fantasy, I'm a Buffy freak and enjoy S&S fantasy and a DnDer, but sometimes I want rockets and colonies on the moon and spaceships and getting off the planet and cyber-hackers and ship's engineers, too....)

[YankeyMCC]

5. I have to second that sentiment

about the F vs SF trend.

[NewJeffCT]

6. Not quite Sci-Fi, but...

I started reading Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" at least 10-11 years ago. I think he was on Book 4 then. I stopped after book 9 or so. So, I feel your pain.

[NewHampshireDem]

7. I agree

I do the same thing, and have often waited until the entire series is out until I buy the first one. It's hard enough when you have to wait years between your favorite author's books (William Gibson, I'm looking at you!). I think the last book that fooled me was John C. Wright's 'The Golden Age.' Fortunately, the first two were out and I only had to wait a couple of months for the last one.