Reading Series

Somewhat spontaneously, my writing group had an interesting conversation/debate – some people seemed to think it was a debate, anyway – about reading series.  One member had mentioned that he avoids reading trilogies/series, so it was perhaps inevitable that another member would inject “what about Lord of the Rings?” or any number of other “must-read” series.  The discussion involved a lot of reflection on why different people read in the first place, which was fairly interesting, and my own thoughts on series are well-documented here on the site.  I enjoy a good series – the recent Wheel of Time reviews should be ample evidence of that, and we have numerous other examples of completed series I’ve reviewed, from Wight’s Cradle to Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles – but I also have a tendency not to read sequels unless the first installment is especially compelling.

Years ago, I loved series of all lengths, sought them out, because I liked having the familiar to fall back to, and it helped keep me from the dreaded “between-books” syndrome. At some point, though, I began reading more broadly (beyond science fiction and fantasy from a few authors and recommenders), and, perhaps more significantly, I started keeping a reading list. That reading list now has almost 300 books on it and never seems to get any shorter, despite maintaining my average book-a-week pace. As a direct result, I’ve become far, far pickier in both what I read in general, and how I approach anything longer than a single book. In the past decade, I’ve read many first books from various series and authors, but the list of second books I’ve read is much shorter. I have no hard rule against trilogies and series – my present, protracted reread of Wheel of Time is ample evidence of that – but a first book has to do much more to capture my attention to convince me to read the second book. Usually, that means I must still be thinking about, and enjoying, the story months later. Auel’s Earth’s Children series is a prime example – I enjoyed the first book enough that, an entire year later, I picked up the second…and I still haven’t picked up the third (nor do I know if I ever will, even though I enjoyed the second almost as much as the first). Another symptom of this is that I’ve become a connoisseur of the self-contained novel (which can be a rarity in speculative fiction, especially amongst more recently published titles). Shorter lengths can offer some of the same benefits that longer works provide, but I will say it is a rare short story that I find manages to be as fully immersive as I seek. Novellas and novels, though? A much easier order.

My conclusion, then, is my prototypical call for moderation. I neither seek out nor avoid series and longer works, but I am quite particular about them (and what I read, in general). Of course, there’s the pertinent question of format which has not yet been addressed in this discussion. Is Lord of the Rings a trilogy, or is a single book split into three volumes, as Tolkien suggested? Chernow’s single-book biographies are easily as long or longer than some series, as are many stand-alone novels. What about series of novellas, or serialized short stories? Many classic science fiction novels began life as serialized short stories before being compiled into novel form. This makes me wonder if perhaps this whole debate is somewhat missing the real point, which is obfuscated by the forms in which we happen to package stories.