Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I’ve stopped series for all 3 reasons: a disappointment I can’t live with (the 2 main characters in the series have sex that I considered non-consensual), a realization that the books are essentially the same book, and a realization that no matter how much I hoped otherwise the characters were too stupid to live.

The Anita Blake thing started to give me a migraine —I was getting the bright lights in front of my eyes.

I’ve pretty much divorced Betsy The Vampire Queen. Every subsequent book seems both longer and less substantial and Betsy seemed to never experience growth—eternity would seem extra long with her. I can’t even get into it for the Minnesota connection as there seems to be very little interaction with real places.

been24—don’t rub it in.

With Anita Blake it was the realization that each book was getting longer and that in each volume the added length consisted entirely of graphic porn; as series progress editors back off (I guess).

I have quit a series when the author has played fast and loose with my intelligence, my emotions (killing off main characters-I’m talking to you Jennifer Roberson), when they don’t have anything new just rehashing characters with different names to keep the series going (Kenyon but I did read Acheron to find out his deal), and when it wasn’t fun to enter their world anymore (Sookie is moving in that direction for me but I am a fan from the beginning so I haven’t quit her yet)! I also realized from this post that I quit Evanovich because she doesn’t have any growth whatsoever !
Thanks Sarah, for this great post!

I’m getting close with JR Ward’s BDB. When the book comes out and it’s $5 cheaper than my favourite pair of shoes, it’s a good sign that the end is near.

For me it started with Stephanie Plum (around book 6 or 7), Anita Blake (around 9 or 10) and Betsy the vampire queen (book 4) as all of them really stopped developing the main character. Note to author: having the main heroine whinge and whine about her life at every chance is NOT emotional growth.

I’m still enjoying Kenyon and Sookie though I accept that I may grow out of these eventually.

I just don’t break up with them… sadly

I buy the new books. Put them on my shelf - wince because I know it’s going to be a trainwreck - read it then bitch about it. I still bought the latest Anita Blake books - gods help me.

I should have broken up with them long ago. With Anita it made the change about book 9 - after that there just wasn’t any PLOT. Characters or world building both died entirely - it was just a series of sex scenes loosely connected with Anita’s new Shiny Powers of Sueness.

Betsy I liked - but like Michelle she frustrated me. I still consider the books fun fluff reads (turn off brain, it’s some easy mush) but Betsy was a ditzy self-obsessed and rather clueless and incapable woman who remained… a ditzy, self-obsessed and rather clueless and incapable woman. All the characters are rather 2 dimensional - fun 2 dimensional, but it got old quicky

Hmm - this long ramble says I break up with a series (or should) when the story stops happening. When nothing changes, nothing grows (and new shiny powers +lots of sex isn’t change and growth) and nothing develops

I thought that after the last Ward book.  I wondered if I really care when she totally changed up the course of the series and now threw in a new random creature to keep the money train moving…and left characters I really cared about hanging in the wind.  Now I’m ehhhh….but, in some parts I want to see how certain characters fare in the new book.

I really dislike it when authors start being in their own hype (ahem you, Stephanie Meyers)

I stopped reading Stephanie Plum at about book 7 or 8 because nothing new was happening.  It wasn’t a planned decision - it was more that I flicked through the pages of the next one in the bookshop, and read the back cover, and thought, ‘why bother?  I’ve read that three times already.’ 

I enjoyed Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series, but I was getting a bit bored with the same family by book 8 and was glad that the set was complete.  Ditto Mary Balogh’s Slightly and Simply series: individually good, but after a while the repetition becomes a bit much. 

If a book feels like I’ve read it before when I haven’t, I’ll just get bored and wander off in search of something new.  Either I have a short attention span or I’m secretly an inveterate thrill-seeker.  Or both.

I broke up with Anita Blake after 10 books and years of being emotionally invested in the series. When the author did a 180 and changed the whole dynamics of the series and the character I enjoyed, that was when I broke up and have never looks back.

After reading Lover Avenged, I am still interested but I have the feeling that Ward may decided to break up with her BDB series after a few more books.

I am a pansy-ass when it comes to breaking up with a series.  I’m always thinking maybe this time will be better…um, not usually, but there are sometimes surprises.  I did like Lover Avenged better than the last two BDBs.  Or maybe I’ve just lowered my expectations. ;)  If a series has jumped the shark, or is at least rapidly skiing toward that, I move them from “must buy on drop date!” to “get at the library or wait for the paperback to hit the UBS.”  I may have that compulsion to read, but not enough to pay full price.

The long-assed series can be fun as you get to know the world and the characters so well, but a smart author really should know when to say when and provide the satisfaction of conclusion.  Trilogies are great for that purpose - you get the “what happened next?” without the “jeez, can we just defeat the great evil already and head for Miller Time?”

I have a hard time breaking up with a series, so I’ve developed a scale to determine the strength of my addiction:

1 - I’ll buy it in hardcover, the day it’s released.
2 - I’ll buy it in hardcover, if it’s on sale.  If not, I’ll troll ebay for an affordable copy.
3 - I’ll wait until it comes out in paperback.
4 - Used bookstore (or paperbackswap.com) time.
5 - I’ll read the synopsis online.
6 - Done.

I quite Anita after book 8 (or was it 9?) because the Anita I loved had been replaced by a blow-up doll with ammo.  Betsy from the Undead series is down to used bookstore status - is it just me, or is every MJD heroine a carbon copy of Betsy?  I tried her mermaid series, and it read like Betsy with fins.

I love series. I love/hate the anticipation of that new book. I lost interest in Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt, he was my first series heartthrob, when he started writing with other people. It just didn’t have the same voice. I was a huge fan of the Stephanie Plum series until Janet Evanovich apparently got as bored with the series as I was. I stayed through 12, hated 13 and 14 and won’t even try with 15. I love Sookie Stackhouse, I can tolerate Betsy the vampire, but my favorite series couple is Joe Pike and Elvis Cole. To me, that is a romance on so many levels. All that’s missing is the kiss. :-D

I broke up with Anita Blake when it became less of a mystery/thriller story and more of a “It’s all about me, me, me!” fest for Anita and her lovers.

I was thinking about this the other day when I was reading the latest J.D. Robb, wondering why it still captures me.  I believe it may be because while each book has a wink-and-a-nod to the reader about the characters (Eve is going to diss Somerset, Peabody’s going to admire Roarke’s butt, Roarke is going to be revealed to own another planetary system), at the core of the book is a story—a mystery, a character developing, new characters who are interesting enough to make you wonder if they’ll return, etc.

I’m still reading Sookie Stackhouse, but I’m beginning to get to the edge of tolerance.  And I gave up on Stephanie Plum around book 10.  She just doesn’t grow, change or make real decisions and I can’t relate to her anymore.

I stop reading a series when the author stops telling a good story.

Sometimes an author forgets—or ignores— the fact that it’s not about them or their name on the cover. It’s about wanting to know where that author is going to take the characters/story next.

If we aren’t going anywhere new or the character(s) are going to become something else entirely then it’s time to move along to another book.

I HATE breaking up.

Like Charlane, my love affair with Ward’s BDB really ended with Butch’s book. I thought V’s would be so awesome because he was the baddest of the bunch and would finally get his HEA. AND it was advertised/classified as a Romance.

By Ward herself.

When less than half the book was devoted to V, and any kind of romance, and then she pulled a Casper at the end…I skimmed Phury’s. That was even worse, and again, advertised/classified as a Romance, also by Ward.

I’ll stick with a series if it’s still got a strong romance factor, though I need an HEA at the end of every book or I won’t read anymore (which is a big reason why I never got into the Anita Blakes) but lie to me, change genres in the middle of a series, or make me have to visit a forum to find out who new characters are, and that’s it for me!

need84…I don’t need 84 books in a series, kthnxbai

The stopping point for me does have a lot to do with emotional growth. I quit Stephanie Plum about book 7 when I realized that she wasn’t going to learn how to be a better bounty hunter… and she was going to keep jerking Joe around for another 8 books. I don’t want to read about someone who never learns or grows. I will admit Joe was the reason I read books 5-7. : )

I quit Anita when I realized the books were going to be focused on sex and not the great mysteries/action that the first few had. I can’t even remember the number. Just when Anita lost all her sexual inhibitions, I lost her character too. The funny thing is I read the first couple fairy books (Mercy?) and the sex didn’t bother me because it was a part of the story. A little weird part, but from the beginning she let us know that was the focus.

But usually I have a hard time quitting a series unless it really gets under my skin in a bad way.

There are series I stick with even though the writing and characterization is only getting worse and worse because I’m hoping for a good idea—stuff by Harry Turtledove would be my own canonical example.

I agree totally with you about series. I have given up on the BDB. Her books have become soap operas instead of compelling romances. Its sad, because the first three were the best vampire romances I have ever read. I borrowed Lover Avenged from the library and every chapter started with “back at the mansion” or some other location.

I’m a little wary of open-ended series in general, as they tend to go the route of long-lived TV shows after a while and become bored with themselves and disrespectful of their audience.  I much prefer when an author states up front, “There will be X number of books in this series, and then the story arc will be complete.”

Most of the series listed here I’ve given up for reasons already mentioned (except for Anita Blake; couldn’t even get halfway through the first one), although it sounds like I have far less patience than most of you guys; I got bored with Stephanie Plum after Book Three.  Another factor that will make me lose interest in a series is too many characters and too many plot threads left unresolved; The Dresden Files has been veering in this direction lately, but I still love the writing and characters, so I’m likely to stick with that one til the end.

It drives me nuts when I have to stop reading a series but sometimes it has to be done because the story that drew me in in the first place is gone or the characters that I originally loved have morphed into unrecognisable beings.

The Anita Blake series lost me when Anita started resembling a Mary Sue and the plot of each book became all the sex. I remember feeling intensely angry with each succesive book until I hit the point when I couldn’t get past the first few pages and ended up chucking the book at the wall. It was a big disappointment as I’d invested a lot into the series, not only financially but emotionally and timewise too.

With the Dark Hunters and Carpathian series, I can’t pinpoint an exact book since I didn’t read them in order but it was after 4-5 books, when I couldn’t tell the characters apart and the stories started to blend into each other.

Usually when I give up a series, it’s because I’m bored with it, often to the point of forgetting about it entirely.  Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series was like this for me, although I reckon that’s mostly because I started reading them when I was seventeen and, well, things change as you get older.  I have to admit I was a huge Stephanie Plum fan up through book twelve.  (I’m on the Ranger side of the fence.)  Thirteen fell apart, Fourteen was unbearable, and there’s no way in hell I’ll read Fifteen.  The thing about Plum that disappointed me the most was what Evanovich did to her characters.  Morelli, a once likeable guy, became a controlling, misogynistic asswipe who was often more preoccupied with his penis than he was with anything else.  Stephanie, whom I loved, warts and all, went from bumbling to idiotic and from incompetent to just plain lazy.  The last book I read (14) had no plot at all.  Stephanie talked about Ranger’s penis, then she talked about Morelli’s.  Then Morelli talked about his penis.  And then Lula talked about Tank’s penis.  And then a pizza fell from the sky and that was the end of that.  I have never been so outraged as I was the moment I realized Evanovich must think I was a real idiot to have invested my time, money, and energy in such garbage, and that she had been right.

For a while an author I liked going into hardcover seemed to be the clue that the series had jumped the shark for me.  Like others I have a progression which varies whether the book is mass market or hardcover.  The current sign that an author (publishing in hardcover) is losing his or her luster is whether I put the book on hold at the library when it is announced.  I know I officially have broken up with a series when I won’t even pick it up when I see it in RapidRead or on the new book shelves.

With mass market books, if I don’t buy it within a week or so of it’s being released, it is a warning that the relationship is in trouble.  I tend to purchase new (to support authors) unless I am glomming backlists. 

I have not yet figured out how purchasing for the kindle fits into this work flow.

Hmmm…charge92…rarely.

I broke up with Robert Jordan.  I thought he could have completed a story arc focused on fewer main characters in, say, a trilogy.  Then he could have focused a second arc on other characters, and so on.  I’m not saying he had to end his main storyline in a single trilogy—the thirteen wards and other parts wanted and need all the books.  Just that Perrin, Lan, Matt, and others deserved focus, deserved to be built on, to have their powerful and interesting stories told.  Instead, the parts I loved were constantly sidelined.  Those characters appeared just enough for me to start feeling satisfaction, and then their storyline could disappear for entire books.

I really need for characters to evolve, too.  The first few books are often the best in a series because the main characters are still feeling each other out, and there’s a dynamic of the unknown.  In Cornwell’s Postmortem, we don’t really know at first if Marino is a big mysoginist blowhard, or if he’s worth something.  When a series gets stale, when I feel like the main characters are just going through predictable motions, I put it down.  Maybe a few books later, if a book gets a good review, I’ll pick it up and give it my “30 pages” worth of time to see if it has anything new.

I stop reading when I feel like I’ve been left outside. I’ve felt this most recently with Ward’s BDB series and Moning’s Fever series (to a much lesser degree). Basically, if you’re writing a series, and I’ve been reading that series from the beginning, I don’t appreciate feeling like I’ve missed out on some crucial information because I don’t follow your message boards.

The angel (whose name I don’t even remember) at the end of Phury’s book was created on the message boards, and I found his appearance in the book extremely jarring. It’s really great when author’s are able to connect directly to their readers via message boards, I just wish they wouldn’t do it at the expense of the fans who don’t read the boards religiously.

I think Moning drops similar hints about upcoming character and even Barrons’s true nature on her boards, but because this is a limited series (only 5 books), I think of them more as spoilers though I still feel like I’m missing out on parts of the series because I’m not dedicated enough.

Still I hate quiting a series, even when it loses track of the overall world as SB Sarah mentioned because I do want to see how it turns out in the end. It’s just hard when a lot of these series have no end in sight.

Ha, this was actually a topic of conversation at lunch with my mama yesterday.  My first big break-up was was Stephanie Laurens.  I read the Cynster series all through college, even started the Bastian series, and finally had to stop.  Like Sarah said, I got tired of reading the same book over and over.  No matter how unique a make character was as a secondary in a previous book, once the spotlight was on them, they seemingly lost most of those individual traits and became all alpha, all the time.  Don’t get me wrong, I like alpha, I just needed a break.  Also, I realized that if I had to read one more “he smiled internally” or “mentally blinked” I was going to punch someone.  Don’t any of these people display emotions on their faces?  Beyond the intense, gleaming eyes, of course.

Er, holy typos, Batman.  That’s breaking up WITH Stephanie Laurens and a MALE character.

I usually do well with romance series where each book focuses on a different set of main characters.  I like how Eloisa James and Liz Carlyle (for ex) have books in smaller sets, but old characters keep popping up and getting spotlight time.  each book in this kind of series is focused on its individual story arc of getting to the HEA; so while you run the risk of getting repetitive each story has an equal chance of being tightly written and polished, complete in itself. 

I also really like Stephanie Laurens, although I’ve been struggling with myself over her books lately.  as Kelly W just remarked: “No matter how unique a make character was as a secondary in a previous book, once the spotlight was on them, they seemingly lost most of those individual traits and became all alpha, all the time.”  I agree completely!  her male characters all seem to come out of the same mold and yet I can’t stop reading them!  I think for me I’m still there because the plot and relationships are individual enough that I can still deal.  I do a comforting kind of suspension of disbelief, “once upon a time in SL England…”  ^_^

I’m wary of starting open-ended series following a single protagonist (or set of them).  I like how Elizabeth W compared them to tv shows, that “long-lived TV shows after a while .. become bored with themselves and disrespectful of their audience.”  the beginning books may be very well written, but it becomes really obvious if the drive and life of the story slacks off.  what SB Sarah said about the importance of balancing character growth with world building is very true for me.  when these two elements slack off,  they may still be fun, but nothing -happens- ! 

this points to a more basic element of the series that is crucial to my investment, the story arc.  often with long running series they can start out with what looks like a good story arc, but it goes all to pieces when the author sacrifices tightness of story to keeping spinning it out for more and more books.  with some stories/worlds there is no end of potential; but with others there really isn’t, not the way the author set it up.

one recent series that I praise to the skies is Lois McMaster Bujold’s Sharing Knife books.  the books follow the relationship between a single couple, Fawn and Dag.  throughout the four books we watch Fawn and Dag experience growth and change as individuals, and we see their relationship mature and deepen.  unlike other series/tv shows/movie sequels, the writer does not throw random wrenches into the relationship to get tension and plot twist! thrills.  the tempering of the characters and forging of the relationship is strong, the world building is solid, and the minor and major story arcs wrap up into a richly satisfying conclusion at the end of bk 4.  happy time all round.

anti22 = please god don’t drag a series with one main character out into 22 books!  of course, that’s just what happened with Christie’s Poirot and Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, and by the end the authors couldn’t stand their characters.

I break up with series pretty easily since I have a limited book budget and limited time to read. There are some I follow if I find a volume on sale but the releases get so far ahead of me I lose interest. The hill just gets higher with every release. I like the releases to have a bit of a gap between books (I know other voracious readers hate that but it suits my budget!) so I can remain current. The only series I bought in hardcover was Harry Potter.

Feehan-book 9 or 10
Kenyon -book 10
LKHamilton-book 8 or 9
Evanovich- book 12

Mostly, I leave a series when it becomes repetitive - when the basic plot begins to feel recycled.
With Feehan, it was when they started feeling like club-her-over-the-head-like-a-baby-seal-and-drag-her-home romances.
And for Kenyon, when the romance became secondary to the subplots in the book.
With LKH I completely agree with Anj - once the books switched their focus to Anita’s sexcapades, I no longer identified/cared about the protagonist.
And for Evanovich- grow up and make a decision already! Agh! And really, how many cars can one person destroy?

I usually lose interest when series go to HC, because I’ve moved on to other things by the time the paperback comes out or plain forgotten.  I finally realized when Robb went to HC that I don’t like Roarke at all and haven’t read the series since (apart from that fact that since the names are all the same, I couldn’t remember whether I owned this or that one already).

One series which really shouldn’t have had book 5 was Auel’s Earth Children.  Book 5 was an insult and I wish I didn’t have to remember it as the final installment of a series that was quite important to me as a teen.

Brockmann really went off the deep end with her last few books, so I quit her.

I only read a couple of chapters of Plum and am glad I never got started on her series seeing of where it ended or didn’t, and I don’t do paranormals, so I never read Blake, BDB or Sookie and hearing the complaints I’m very glad I didn’t.

I hate nothing more than books being sold as romance that are not and with Brockmann and Ward that definitely seems to be the case.  Truth in advertising and all that.

What about the time before the breakup, when you know you should go, but you just can’t? I know I should have given up on Gabaldon somewhere in the middle of the last sprawling book, but I love Jamie and Claire so much that I’ll wade through it all, just to get at their interactions.

What I’ve seen over the last however-many responses is that a lot of people are breaking up with a series around book eight or nine.  Is this the point at which we naturally get bored?  Or at which the author has nothing else to say?

Of the series I’ve broken up with, it’s mostly been because the books became identical.  I can cite series where each book was related to the previous—not a sequel with the same characters, but a new pair.  Who were identical to the last pair in everything but hairstyle.  While there are going to be common elements I look for in each related book, there are quite a few that feel like churned-out repeats.

I can cite series where the world has become too massive and sprawling for me to keep up with (JK Rowling, I’m looking at you: three years between books and you expect me to remember what happened in the last one?).

Or there are the series which have gone the other way, and changed focus entirely (yes, Anita Blake).  I think this is perhaps more of an issue with the series that feature a single protagonist, rather than the series of linked romances, which at least have their own plot and ending.  The author tries to keep the character changing and growing, and when you have a character whose experiences are as vivid as, say, Anita Blake’s, that person is going to be altered by the experiences of each book.  But what happens when they change too much?  Time, perhaps, to say goodbye.

I can think of at least one series where after the first couple of books, it became a little like a long-running anthology show.  No character growth, no relationship change, and very little in the way of a plot: just a series of amusing scenes.  Which became less amusing as I lost interest in the whole shebang.

I guess the question becomes, how did it get to this point?  Maybe the author has lost her spark.  Maybe she’s lost interest and is only writing because she’s under contract to (I can think of several authors trapped in ‘next book’ deals; also plenty who want to try something different but simply aren’t allowed).  Maybe she’s got too mentally fat and lazy after early success—or maybe her publishers were the ones getting fat and lazy off her success, and didn’t want to lose their cash cow.  Who knows?

The series I’m still reading are the Dresden Files, Sookie Stackhouse and Stephanie Plum.  Plum is beginning to retread books, but maybe I’m still reading because I started with book seven, then went back and began again.  My perspective is different.  Jim Butcher could probably write an account of going to the supermarket and I’d still wax lyrical about his awesome writing skillz.  And as for Sookie, I do feel the books have changed from the original premise (you made her first love a bad guy!  Oh noes!) but I still want to know what happens next.

I find it revealing that it seems all of us who read Anita Blake books broke up with the series around the same time (Narcissus, which I think was book 10). I really like series books b/c when I’ve spent time with a couple or a group of characters in a novel, I want to see how it goes on. But when the characterization suffers or the series doesn’t grow, I wane. The Anita Blake books had me sucked in - they were GOOD books - but then the sex took over to the detriment of everything else. More than that being boring, that wasn’t Anita and her previous conflict over such behavior dissolved without even a whimper.

I was never as die hard for the BDB, but broke up for good with Butch’s book for the same reasons others mentioned in earlier comments. Ditto for Evanovich, though that’s more a break up with my dollar going to her books than a break up of reading. I now just hit the library for the books to keep track of Joe (sigh, Joe). Even the J.D. Robb books have gone from must buy (I once made a poor B&N employee go into the back room to get a book because I knew it was the release date and they had yet to get the books on the shelf) to reserve at the library.

My series breakups are Joanna Lyndsay, her books became so formulaic in nature, I just felt like she was inserting names in the blanks. Sherrilyn Kenyon, the Dark Hunters became one in the same and there was too much of everything else…I could keep up and the books I was reading, were to me, poorly written, or rushed or something. Although, I did read and enjoy Archeron.

Series that I am now hooked on is F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack series, there will only be 17 of them and we are on books 13 and 14. I love Jack and Gia and can’t wait to see how their story unfolds.

Greg Hurwitz’s Tim and Dray Rackley series, this couple have been through so much with the series and they continue to stay strong and have a deep love for one another. *sigh* :-)

spamword: right59 I wish.

For me it’s all about watching the main character grow and change & secondary to that is the comfort of reading about a setting/world you enjoy. The only series I’m still into is Sookie Stackhouse. I think Sookie’s personality is miles away from what it was at the start of the series, and the books still feel like they’re building up to something as opposed to treading water.

I’m less enthralled with romance series because you get a new couple in every book and so you don’t get to see a character you love continue to grow and change. Also I despise the scenes where the happy couples from books past reappear solely to show off their children/pregnancies and make goo-goo eyes at each other so the current couple can see what’s in store for them. Blah.

I gave up Anita when the sex started taking over the plot. And the plots have gotten down to a single sentence:  New baddy arrives in town, baddy threatens Anita’s friends, baddy must die so everyone can have lots of angst-driven sex.

One series that I truly enjoy because there are not only plots but the characters continue to grow are the In Death series.  It’s the only series that I look forward to and wait for.  When one comes out, my evening is pre-planned so I can sit back, relax and visit with “old friends”.  As long as Dallas and Roarke continue to grow and don’t turn into sniveling angst-driven sex fiends, I will buy this series until it ends.  The fact that we’re at book 28(!) bodes well.  One thing that I love about this series is they can be read again and again.  I can’t say this with the Anita Blake books past the 5th or 6 (and that is being generous).

The only series I still keep up with is Robb’s Eve Dallas. Still buy them in hardback when they come out, too. I’ve left all the rest behind for all the reasons stated above. Sometimes I get lucky and an author I like will start a new series. It’s happened.

While the world is important, it’s still the characters for me. When I lose interest in them, I’m out the door. RL is full of boring people I have to relate to. I don’t have to do so with my choice of reading material.

What about series that ended before you were finished with them? Melanie Rawn’s Dragonprince books come to mind. I loved them! I so wanted to see how things settled after the war, but no… no more books in that world. I’ve bought everything she’s done since, and I liked them well enough, but come on, Melanie! Give us some more!

All this talk of LKH made me think of her blurb on the back of Gaiman’s Graveyard Book. Essentially she said she wished she could read about Bod’s continuing adventures. And even though I loved the book, LKH made me throw it against the wall.

Not every book is suited to become a series! This was a beautiful story about life, how it changes, how your family grows and shrinks, you make friends and loose them, and finally how you grow up. Turning it into a series would reduce its message.

Lately I’ve been looking for stand alone books in all the genres I read. I have too many series going, and I’d like to avoid starting another. I think a lot of the commentors here have said something similar. It’s hard after 10 or 12 or however many books not to loose track of the story.

I guess I see book series more like girlfriends, and the break ups really fall into two different categories:  the Drift-Aways and the Betrayals.

It’s no one’s fault that some friendships just don’t last.  Maybe you just mature at different rates and move on (Sweet Valley, Nancy Drew, Stephanie Plum), or maybe you’ve physically separated for awhile and you just don’t have the same things in common anymore (Pern, Dragonlance).  But you may meet one day, and then you’ll experience a brief memory, maybe happy, maybe rueful, of how much you enjoyed their company once upon a time.

Other friendships… well, some people self-destruct and you’ll never know why (Anita Blake).  No matter what you do, they don’t want your help, and so you’re left with the choice of watching them destroy themselves or just walking away.  Other times, of course, you find out that your friend just isn’t who you thought she was, not because she’s changed, but because she worked hard to draw you in with a deception.  The closer you were, the harder it is to walk away.

One last note:  I immediately drop any author who has the audacity to treat rape like it’s a compliment to the desirability of the protagonist.  Laurell K. Hamilton, Kirsten Katherine Rusch, and Rachel Caine all hit my black list for that crime, and Patricia Briggs just barely escaped.

Worst trope EVER.

For me, when the characters stop growing, I stop reading. It took me too long to give up on the Stephanie Plum books, probably because I was glomming books 1-11 pretty quickly. Then I read #12 and Stephanie was still doing stupid shit like leaving her house without charging her cell phone or taser, and leaving her gun behind entirely. If characters don’t learn from their mistakes, I’m out of there.

Kat said: 

When the book comes out and it’s $5 cheaper than my favourite pair of shoes, it’s a good sign that the end is near.

YES.  I can fill up my gas tank for the price of a hardcover book.  And what’s with the (gulp) $16.00 trade paperbacks?  The price of books unfortunately makes it all the easier to break up with a series that you’re starting to feel meh about.  Or if you DO stick with it, to check it out of the library.  I understand that being published in hardcover is a career accomplishment for a writer, but as a reader it drives me absolutely bugfuck. 

I quit reading Evanovich’s Plum at book 6, Hamilton’s Anita Blake at 7, and Davidson’s Betsy at 4 - mainly because I thought the authors were starting to sacrifice character development and plot for humor (Evanovich, Davidson) or sex (Hamilton).  They weren’t telling well-balanced stories anymore.  I checked Kenyon’s Acheron out of the library, even after the trauma of watching that video trailer - the first and last I’ll ever watch.  Ward’s BDB series is still a must-read for me, though since it went to hardcover, I’ll check the book out of the library instead of buying it.  I read Roberts and Robb in hardcover from the library when the books are first relased, then buy them when they come out in mass market PB. 

One thing that a lot of the series I’ve quit seem to have in common is that, to me, the latter books in the series feel…rushed.  The quality’s not as high.  As a series catches on, and there’s money to be made, the books get pumped out on an accellerated schedule.  The very qualities that made me love the books in the first place becomes evermore diluted, until finally you just don’t care anymore.  Tell me how a midlist author who still works a full time day job is supposed to pump out two to three books a year and keep the quality high - and not burn out.  Something’s gotta give, and we know what gets sacrificed. 

I’d rather an author whose work I love release a single book a year rather than 2 to 3 inferior ones which read like assembly-line “product.” 

Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot.

So many reasons…

Sookie?  Got bored around book 4.  Don’t think I even finished it, and when the next book came out I didn’t even have a twinge about buying it.

Betsy, QotV?  When they went to hardback.  I like cheeseburgers, but I’m not paying $20 for one.  Same thought about these books.  They were mindless fluff, but not that worthy of the price tag.  Luckily the books are so light that I’ll spend an hour in Borders and read the book.

Carpathians?  We had a separation but seem to have gotten back together.  Initial breakup was because it was same plot.  Also, it didn’t seem like any thought was going into the the bad guy/overall arch.  BUT she seems to have actually thought out how the overall plot is actually going, and the relationships are no longer following the same pattern that she had in the first, oh, 15 books.

LKH’s Merry?  When I pay $20 for a book, I would like the plot to advance more than 4 hours.  About three of those books should have been lumped together in one bigger book.  Just because Merry likes being screwed doesn’t mean I like it.

Anita Blake?  Oh. My. Gawd.  There is no series out there that inspires so much rage among people I know who used to read the books.  Mostly when someone stops reading a series it’s mainly boredom or disinterest.  But that one?  I have at least 5 friends who, if I would like to seem them go off on something, all I have to say is, have you read the latest Anita?  The answer will always be no, but then comes the diatribe about WHY they didn’t read it.  LKH didn’t get rusty or run out of ideas; the woman needs a therapist and is instead taking her issues out on her books.  I think the biggest problem was, they were good once.  And then from book 9 to book 10 they quickly went horribly, horribly wrong.  I believe that authors should be able to do what they want with their characters, but really, there should have been an intervention in her case.

picture89? *snort* picture 89 men lined up - that’s the next Anita book

I don’t have much time or money these days, so when I read I want the books to be good, not just a habit. That makes it much easier to walk away from a series that has gone bad. 

Why do I quit? The short answer is because I’m no longer interested in following where the author is going.  That can happen for a lot of reasons. I quit the Plum books when I realized that they’re a sitcom and therefore Stephanie was never going to grow.  I’ve quit other series because they got repetitive or stale and I started to suspect that they exist purely because the author or the publisher can’t let go of the money.

There are several open-ended series that I still love, but not every author can do that.  I think many authors would be far better off if they planned an X book story arc from the beginning and then just closed the series out and moved on. 

In general, I think we would all be better off if more people could let go. If there was no money in continuing a series that has run out of steam then authors and publishers would stop doing it. In fact, if series weren’t such a license to print money maybe we would get more stand alone books. I like series, but I also like to read self-contained stories. Sometimes it feels like there are none of those left, especially in the mystery genre. That’s annoying.

The stopping point for me does have a lot to do with emotional growth. I quit Stephanie Plum about book 7 when I realized that she wasn’t going to learn how to be a better bounty hunter… and she was going to keep jerking Joe around for another 8 books. I don’t want to read about someone who never learns or grows. I will admit Joe was the reason I read books 5-7. : )

Amen to everything Anj just said.

I’m sticking with Sookie because last year she finally told all the horrible men in her life to leave her alone. Of course a few won’t, but at least she recognized that they were making her life hell and not giving her what she wants in return. (n.b.: I haven’t read the one that came out last week yet.)

Gabaldon got demoted to buy-the-remainder status when Fiery Cross covered a very small amount of time (compared to the other books) and had the characters flailing around in their personal problems rather than striving against historical events. Everything was suddenly small-scale, and the pace crawled. I thought the book was a steaming pile of pointless BS, and the next book was worse.

Come to think of it, I broke up with Jordan’s series for much the same reason. The seventh book covered a mere two weeks, and in that time the protagonist didn’t make much progress in his quest, but found time to bonk three of the four love interests he’d been stringing along. DO NOT WANT.

Lack of epic-ness in an ostensibly epic series really irks me.

I usually finish a series once I’ve read two or more books. I’m pretty obssesive conpulsive about series and I’ve gotten really angry with myself for finding myself in the thouroughs of a long winded series.

The series I know I’ve had to let go because I knew they weren’t worth the money and time I was spending on them was Sookie Stackhouse (5th book), The Princess Diaries (6th book), Betsy Vampire Queen (4th), and the Cynster Series (5th book).

I stopped reading for the same reasons, but I also stopped reading because there seemed to be no end in sight and some books like the one’s in Betsy and the Princess Diaries were often too short and stopped at weird moments and cliff hangers for me to actually enjoy them.

The Cynster Series was another situation entirely. I think it was just that in an effort to catch up I read too many of them and it made me sick not just of the series but romances in general. I actually can’t pick up and read one of Stephanie Lauren’s books because it.

My reason for breaking up is boredom…. I guess that ‘sameness’ you mentioned.  If the characters can be swapped out for previous characters in previous books, then I get really, really bored.

Some series, I didn’t even realize I had a break-up until new books were released and I didn’t know about it until I saw it in the store and had a ...“should I or shouldn’t I” buy moment.  Usually with a series, it ends up being ‘shouldn’t’ which leads to ‘not messing with it’.

One series I won’t ever be able to give up on is the Eve Dallas books.  I’m totally hooked on those.  Kresley Cole’s paranormal series is another.  Viehl’s Darkyn and Stardoc books.

I know, I know, Anita…sigh….I say “never again,” then I do - but only in paperback!
I keep coming back for those hints of the old story AND I want to find out what happens with Marmee Noir—it could be kick-ass big badness and I wanna know!

I tend to just keeping reading a series out of habit even though I know it starting sucking about 5 books ago. I think I’m holding out hope that things will improve. A good example is the cat who mystery series. They used to be good, but with the last few there’s no real mystery until the last 50 pages of the book. I think the author died and some ghostwriter took over.

I wonder if the biggest problem with these long-running series is that they’ve got no overall plot or focus.  Is it building to something?  Is it going somewhere?  Will the heroine finally decide which of her many gorgeous suitors she wants/save the world/remember to charge her phone?

I can fill up my gas tank for the price of a hardcover book.  And what’s with the (gulp) $16.00 trade paperbacks?

Yikes, I wish I lived somewhere with fuel that cheap.

I remember asking a couple of rather big-name authors once why, if they and their readers disliked hardbacks so much, publishers were so determined to produce them.  The answer?  Bestseller lists.  Hardback bestseller lists, which enable you to put a NATIONAL BESTSELLER label on the paperback.  And then do a whole new sales push for that release, too.

Going to hardback is purely a sign that an author has become successful enough for the publisher to risk losing a few sales—ie to those who can’t afford/haven’t got space for hardbacks.  They know there are plenty of fans who’ll buy the book no matter the cost, and most of it’s offset by the bigger royalties from the larger cover price.

I find it interesting that so many of these comments come down to
“the series changed” (Anita Blake, BDB, etc.) OR “the series DIDN’T change” (Stephanie Plum, Cynster, etc.)

Of the ones people have mentioned so far, the only one I’m still reading is JD Robb, mainly because it strikes a nice balance between the two:  the characters are still recognizably the same people, but have shown some growth (well, Roarke not so much, but it’s hard to grow from impossible perfection!) and the focus on mysteries with different casts of characters (some of whom reappear later, and that’s nice too) give me the sense of “yes, this is still the books I started with.” 

I’m a big comic book fan, and you see this same dichotomy even more strongly there.  There are people who are furious when the hero isn’t the one they grew up with (usually described as “XYZ is acting out of character!” and “You are ignoring continuity!”) and others who are disgusted when the series doesn’t break new ground (“This is a new century!” or “You just want to re-tread stale old stories!”)

Me, I’ve begun to gravitate more towards manga, where (many) series have a defined story arc with a definite end-point.

(verification word:  stood63—no, I’d never stand for 63 volumes!)

When a character, typically a heroine, doesn’t experience any kind of growth or maturity or insight whatsoever is when I stop reading. 

Becky Bloomwood loves shopping!  She cannot manage her money!  I don’t want to read about the same problems in each book.

Sookie Stackhouse may be on her way out for me, too.  I’m hanging on to the new book in the hopes there’ll be resolution for Sookie and Eric. 

Book 5 or 6 is usually my touchstone for a good series.  By that point, I’m either flinging it against the wall or cannot wait until the next book is released.

It’s pretty easy for me to break up with a series, though depending on how much time and/or money I’ve spent, my outrage at HAVING to breakup, varies. Additionally, I’ll never go back. Once I’ve broken up, there are no second chances. And once I’ve broken up, I’ll get rid of the entire series, since I know I won’t ever re-read them again.

My outrage with LKH was pretty high (I stopped at like book 13, though those last 3 were really really hard to get through). And just recently, I’ve broken up with Karen Marie Moning with high outrage (WHAT is with the very thin hardback? It’s a novella (WTF?) and it costs $20!!!??? Piss me the F off!). Moning is a rare scenerio where I still am really interested in the series, but felt super gipped on the Fae hardbacks. They’re just novellas wrapped in a big package and are really expensive. This is unacceptable to me. I also had a high outrage with Viehl’s Stardoc series (threw the book at the wall). I stoppped reading Betsy just from boredom (outrage nonexistant), Dresden Files from boredom (outrage nonexistant), Kenyon from confusion and lazy writing (outrage mid-level), never got past book 2 of either Lyn Viehl, Feehan, or Ward. Those stories just never grabbed me, so I didn’t even bother. I haven’t made a final decision on Evanovich, yet. I haven’t read 14 yet, so jury’s still out.

But I still love me some JD Robb, Brockmann, Lora Leigh’s Nauti series (though this last one was boring-we could be looking at a future breakup), Catherine Asaro, Jeanine Frost, Nalini Singh, Kresley Cole, Larissa Ione, plus a bunch of others.

Essentially, it’s the same thing as others have said. Consistent world rules and character growth are key. And in my case, don’t freaking package a novella as a hardback book (I bet you can see I’m still really pissed about this one). In fact, don’t package a novella at all-put all three of them in one book and call it a freaking novel! *steps off rant*

Stephanie L: Gabaldon got demoted to buy-the-remainder status when Fiery Cross covered a very small amount of time (compared to the other books) and had the characters flailing around in their personal problems rather than striving against historical events. Everything was suddenly small-scale, and the pace crawled.

I gave up the Gabaldon series after Fiery Cross.  I love Claire and Jamie, but Fiery Cross was so painfully slow.  too much boyfriend, not enough roller derby (to quote buymeaclue).

season27 = soap operas may go here, but I won’t!

I gave up on the Stephanie Plum novels with one phrase: “that I felt right in my dooda.”

I mean. Dooda. I thought, Really, Janet? and closed the book, and haven’t gone back.

I gave up on Robert Jordan after one book because I finished the first one, looked at the page count, realized there were fourteen or so more to read to get the whole story, and thought, No way, no how.

I’m glad I waited to read Stephen King’s The Dark Tower until the whole series was done. Reading an entire series is much less taxing when you know there’s a set ending.

You can’t win with series, it seems like. Change a character too much and readers complain it’s not the series they fell in love with; change a character too little and readers complain of staleness. Finding a balance is very, very difficult, and from all appearances not many authors can do it.

similar82=when you’ve read the first 82 books and they’re all too similar? Time to break up.

I broke up with Anita about two books ago..I was beyond tired of her ridiculous porny ways.  The BDB I dumped after the fourth one, because Marissa was easily the stupidist person ever..and that urban slang was even more stupid.
I hate it when authors try to milk a story beyond it’s death, it’s irritating and insulting.
I’m a fickle bitch when it comes to reading, theres plenty o’ books on the shelf.

You can’t win with series, it seems like. Change a character too much and readers complain it’s not the series they fell in love with; change a character too little and readers complain of staleness. Finding a balance is very, very difficult, and from all appearances not many authors can do it.

I think it’s doable when you have a set number of books/story in mind from the beginning and stick to it. It’s much harder with an open-ended series.

RE:  LKH. 

So, am I the only one rooting for Edward to come back and put the entire cast out of their misery?

What about the time before the breakup, when you know you should go, but you just can’t?

meagan- I know the feeling! I think it’s the “it’s not you, it’s me” phase of the breakup. You want to do it gently, there were good times had together in the past. And it’s not necessarily that they aren’t still a good story, you’ve simply grown apart. lol

Hi!  I just discovered your blog… I stumbled across it late last night and stayed up past my bedtime rolling in laughter at your “Greatest Hits” posts.  As mascara streamed down my face, my husband came back to where I was sitting and asked, “You are still laughing, right?”  Needless to say, your book is on it’s way from Amazon.com.  And I am cursing my husband’s late work hours that he’ll be putting in during the time you’ll be in Washington, because I don’t have a babysitter for the munchkin so I won’t be able to attend.

I have not gotten into too many series yet to have a good answer to this question.  I adore Amanda Quick so I’m on board with her Arcane Society novels.  I get consumed with Kresley Cole novels and can’t imagine ever in my life not reading hers (I want to liquify them and pump them into my bloodstream all day long!).  The only series I’d like to break up with is the Dark-Hunter, and I’m only a book or two in.  Kenyon uses words and phrases that I am morally opposed to, like “holy guacamole” and “listen, buster.”  (Said in all seriousness, of course.  I could appreciate them tongue-in-cheek.)  But I guess I am still holding onto my interest in her otherworld, just waiting for that to end so I can summarily remove the series from my must-read list.

I’m a romance reader. If the author takes away the romance, that’s a definite breakup for me. But like others have mentioned, there are various degrees of breakups.

If the author kills of the HEA, I’m done. Done with the book, done with the series, done with the author. I will get rid of everything I own by that author and I will tell everyone about it. To me, that is the ultimate betrayal.

If the series starts to move away from romance, they drop in my priorities. I’m still holding on to the the BDB, hoping for an improvement. After Lover Avenged,  I don’t see that happening, so the next one will be coming from the library. Brockmann has reached the stage where I only buy her’s used.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s me. I usually manage 4 books in a series. After that all bets are off: KMM, LKH Anita, George RR Martin, BDB, Diana Gabaldon, Cynsters, Feehan’s Drake & Ghost series, the Bridgertons & the Dark Hunters. Often because they feel the same & there isn’t enough growth from book to book to sustain me, I drop off. Sometimes a writer’s voice will keep me going, sometimes it’s because I want to keep going with the overarching plot or world-building from the previous books (as opposed to enjoying each couple’s story).  I still follow a few series: any of LMB’s series, Skolians, Darkyns, Bastion Club, Carpathians. 

I enjoy several mystery authors: Laura Joh Rowland, Peter Tremayne, Ariana Franklin. Somehow mystery series often manage to simultaneously balance the recurring protagonist’s personal story and the unique puzzle found in each title. Now that I think about it, I follow mystery authors longer than most other genres. Food for thought I suppose.. :)

~Amanda

I break up with a series when:

- I can’t remember what happened in the series prior to the latest book.
- I can’t remember who all these flipping characters are.
- I don’t really care about the characters anymore.
- The story arc just keeps meandering along, and there’s no point to it beyond milking the sequel money.

What sells a series to me is when I’m intrigued by a situation or secondary character enough to want to know what happens next.  What loses a series for me is when I don’t care what happens next.

I stopped reading Anita Blake when the mystery element just disappeared and all that was left was the fucking.  The last Blake book I read was humongous, and had a mystery involving a giant pit and disappearing vampires IIRC.  Long-ass book, more new non-humans to sex up.  Anita goes to check out the night club and the pit involved in the crime, and then the issue is never mentioned again.  (Memory of details is blurry, sorry.)

In the next book, there’s a toss-off comment by another character mentioning that serial killer case that was so hard on Anita, and that was it.  No other information whatsoever about the mystery.  And that was it for me, I just found the books more work to get through than they were worth.

The Plum books are just going nowhere.  There are some really funny scenes, and I continue to get them from the library, but I don’t care if I miss one here or there.

I’m still enjoying the interaction between Kenyon’s various vampires and gods and demons, but they’re starting to have an apocolyptic feel about them that is turning me off.  I’m impatient with and contemptuous of apocolypses.  Also, I’m kind of feeling a need to start a chart to keep track of who everybody is, and why they know each other.  I hate that.

Ward is on the cusp.  I absolutely couldn’t wait for the last one, but for the new one, I feel no sense of urgency to read at all.

Re: LKH and Edward

I also stopped around book 9 for the reasons people listed here, but I still check back with people who have hung in there just to make sure the series is still going downhill.  I understand from them that Edward shows up less and less as time goes on, and I think that says a lot about what’s been going on in the series.  Edward is representative of what I *liked* in the earlier books, and the fact that he isn’t around is very telling. 

On the one hand, I’m with Lori S., and I really would *love* a book from Edward’s perspective where he decides Anita has firmly gone around the monster bend and needs to be taken out, along with her entire seraglio.  On the other hand, I live in fear of the day when LKH remembers Edward exists, and puts him in some kinky leather ensemble to worship at the holy v-jay of Anita-Sue.  Because that is one hook-up that should *never* happen.

@Lillie, I won’t rec Elizabeth Donald to you. She starts out with vampire murder mysteries with sex and romance, and eventually drops the sex. The love is there, but it all comes down to the horror novel in the last one of the series.

I broke up with Queen Betsy after book 3. Such a promising premise and so much of it spent just being a terror to her hunky alpha, when she wasn’t shagging him.  And vapid women never did do much for me. The snark carried three books, but I couldn’t be arsed to hunt the fourth.

LKH? I’m reading her in fits and starts. I’ve liked a couple, but her voice isn’t unique enough to try reading them in order or go much farther.

I wandered away from Nancy Drew by 12, and from Dragonlance when it started going all backstory.  I haven’t really liked anything of Stephan King’s since Needful Things.

Julian May, I never broke up with. She wrote 9 very good books, a pair, a trilogy, and a foursome. Edgar Rice Burroughs…he got weird around book 4 of Mars, redeemed himself with 5-8 and 10, but 9 and 11 were complete messes.

I’m waiting on S.M Stirling to FINISH his next trilogy. Because I hate reading and getting stuck waiting for the next book.

Anita Blake when it became all sex- Plum and Queen Betsy when i couldn’t tell if I had read a book before or not-

the Cynsters moved from buy to library when the sex overtook the plot- I do like the characters and want to see what’s happening with them, but not enough to waste my money and shelf space on

Castle/Quick/Krentz- Loved, Loved, Loved- the Arcane Society concept was interesting but the practical application has been awkward.  When we have the same words used to describe the same event/phenom/psychic spore in the past, the present, and on another planet I get bored. Language evolves and changes so do some evolving and changing, please.

Not romance but I’m not sure the last time I bought a Patricia Cornwell and I do still love me some Kathy Reichs, but have been feeling like she wants to quit the books in favor of tv.  If so, please do, and don’t leave the readers with only half of your attention.

I’m like Lori S up around post 12

I have a hard time breaking up with a series, so I’ve developed a scale to determine the strength of my addiction:

1 - I’ll buy it in hardcover, the day it’s released.
2 - I’ll buy it in hardcover, if it’s on sale.  If not, I’ll troll ebay for an affordable copy.
3 - I’ll wait until it comes out in paperback.
4 - Used bookstore (or paperbackswap.com) time.
5 - I’ll read the synopsis online.
6 - Done.

It’s hard to quit a series that I at one point loved. But it’s not hard to wait for a cheap used copy of the book.

Really, anything more than a trilogy is overkill.  I like how Jacqueline Carey did her Kushiel series books. Trilogy set in one time period with one couple of characters, then trilogy set in same world she built but different characters, and next month, Naamah’s Kiss, new trilogy, same world, 100 years later.

I’ve yet to really get to a point where I break up with a series in the romance genre, mostly because I follow authors, not necessarily series. There has been a few authors I’ve dropped, or at least some of their books (can’t read a historical Coulter anymore unless I want to make my eyes bleed, but her FBI stuff isn’t bad), but overall I stick with it. But I tend to rely heavily on the library, so its not a great loss of money either way. My favorite series, however, is taking a hit because the author is passing the reins over to her son (she’s in her 80’s, its only reasonable if it was to keep going), and he’s Gary Stu-ing the crap out of the books. Which is both sad and annoying, because I DO buy those books, and now I don’t want to. But I’m anal enough to want a complete collection. Sigh.

When it seemed like Anita and Merry were going to be manageable series, it was harder to contemplate letting go—weren’t the Anita books originally set for seven or eight or something? Merry at seven? When the impetus became production rather than resolution, it seems to have sapped something from the stories. I would rather have an end to Anita’s story and then, after a suitable period, a new series from LKH. Of course (see above) I can’t let go.
I am a bookseller and have recommended some of these series to guests (adult para-romance newbies looking for a post-Twilight read) with the caveat (for Feehan, Adrian, and Ward) “don’t read them all at once.” If they prefer less vigorous sexin, I send them to great YA series that have not gotten old, like Libba Bray, Rachel Morgan, the Casts. Maybe when these authors hit books eight and nine it will be time to move on.

I find it interesting that so many of these comments come down to
“the series changed” (Anita Blake, BDB, etc.) OR “the series DIDN’T change” (Stephanie Plum, Cynster, etc.)...

I dunno, Hapix, either way, there’s an underlying failure on the author’s part to serve either plot or character properly. 

In the first case, the character has been changed so radically (and generally for no good or believable reason)  that it totally undermines the relationship you’ve spent lots of time and money building up in however many previous books.  It’s like when they spend two seasons getting a couple together on a show and then break them up overnight over something so stupid and contrived that I want to pull an Elvis on my t.v. because they can’t be arsed to allow growth of the relationship to drive a story arc.  Or, say, when “the ardeure” is suddenly thrust (heh) upon us.

In the second case (JANET EVANOVICH, MJD, I’M LOOKIN’ AT YOU!) they are so stuck on superficial aspects of the characters that they refuse to let them develop, grow, change, mature or learn.  How can I buy that Joe and Ranger (yum squared) are so devoted to Stephanie when she’s so utterly incompetant and annoying?  Why should the big, bad, sexy alpha vampire remain obsessed with Betsy when she’s a brain-dead, clueless shrew?  Aren’t both of these authors capable of writing some funny AND some character development?

I’ve cut down on the number of new series I try because I become obsessed with them.  I’m still following a lot of the serie others here hate, namely LKH, because I love finding out what comes next!?

I’ve broken up with series for several reasons, though:

1.  When the world becomes so involved that you need an encyclopedia to keep up, I leave.  (Kenyon)

2.  When the main character NEVER changes and the jokes are the same, I leave.  (Evanovich)

3.  When the author disclaims writing a romance or having anything to do with romances I stop cold turkey.

My sad truth is that I’m a readaholic.  There are just not enough books published per month that I’m interested in reading.  So I always find myself picking these old aquaintances up from the library, or the ubs, whenever I find myself desperately short of reading material. 

Except for the anti-romance authors.

I dropped the Plum series at (I believe,) book ten. You know the one. We’d been waiting for Stephanie and Ranger to get together for, oh, TEN BOOKS, and it was a paragraph.

A PARAGRAPH.

Let’s see here: Janet Evanovich strings us all along over ten books, tantalizing us with the delicious, elusive Ranger, the completely inept Stephanie Plum, how great it will be when they finally do the horizontal mambo, and their night of passion is one paragraph.

Not only did I quit the series, I quit Janet Evanovich. Maybe I just take all of this too seriously, but I won’t buy a Evanovich book again. I’d prefer an author who actually might care what her readership might think about something like this.

Of course, this is IMHO.
-S

I forgot to mention that I broke up with Katie MacAllister last night. Both of her series (vampire and dragon) are interchangable, and her female leads are soooo TSTL. It finally drove me crazy enough to quit last night.

cc: I, too, like the Arcane concept, but I just CAN NOT keep track of which pen name is producing which book. It’s so hard to keep track of the Arcane novels that I have given up. Really poor marketing, IMO.

and seriously, the final LKH book should just read, “Edward returned and killed them all. The End.” hahahhaah.

across79: across 79 series, there are still some I read.

I have a problem with series which never end. I need to know that there will be a conclusion at some point in the foreseeable future, preferably after a set number of books.

I gave up on Janet Evanovich a few books ago due to lack of character development and recycled jokes. I also gave up on Brockmann. I’ve just finished J.R. Ward’s latest and although I enjoyed Rhev’s part of the story, I’m not sure about continuing the BDB series.

I’ve always avoided series like the plague. I’m too fickle to maintain an interest in the same characters over a long arc. Mercy Thompson is the first one to ever grab me by the throat and won’t let go. I thought for sure when it went to hardback it would suck, but it hasn’t. I have no idea how she does two series at the same time in the essentially the same world and keeps me fascinated with both, but there you are.

Not only did I quit the series, I quit Janet Evanovich. Maybe I just take all of this too seriously, but I won’t buy a Evanovich book again. I’d prefer an author who actually might care what her readership might think about something like this.

I agree Strategerie. I quit JE after A)she didn’t care enough to write a new book for me to buy at hardcover prices. It’s like she recycled the same ol shit and knew it would sell because she was an autobuy for so many people. I think that’s just wrong, and B)when she threw the little hissy fit on Center Stage over at B&N because people were buying and reading ARC’s. She’s obviously got enough of my money.

RE:  LKH.

So, am I the only one rooting for Edward to come back and put the entire cast out of their misery?

No, you aren’t.  I’ve said the only way I’m going back to that series is if every single person Anita knows* is killed and Edward comes back, slaps her around a bit, and then they go on a deadly rampage.

*or has had sex with.  at this point it’s the same number.

Some series I break up with entirely. With Anita Blake, “Narcissus in Chains” was the final straw. I drifted away from Queen Betsy after book 4 and barely noticed (after all, she’ acts pretty much the same in every book, which was funny in the first but tiresome after four). The BDB, well, Butch’s book was okay (his change was inevitable so I wasn’t surprised) but the ghost in the next one was just too much and I won’t be back.

With some series I just need my space, so the new entries go on my wait list at paperbackswap.com. I don’t mind waiting six months or longer for, say, the new Stephanie Plum book. AFter all, I’m not missing much. With the Eve Dallas books and Butcher’s Fury series, I wait until they come out in paperback. I know I’ll love it so I will gladly put up the money for my own copies but I’m not in a huge hurry to know what’s next.

Some series I remain faithful to, even unto hardcover. (All of these I have been reading since the day the first book came out and there have been lots of books and money spent since then.) Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series, Butcher’s Dresden Files books, Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series and Rachel Caine’s Rachel Morgan books are all on my “order the day they come out list,” regardless of the high cost. I’ve never regretted spending the money for any of them.

What it all comes down to, I think, is how much I care. Series I’ve broken up with I not only don’t care what happens to the characters, I’d rather not know and spare myself the horror. Series I need space from I have an interest in what’s happening in the characters’ lives but I’m not dying to find out RIGHT THIS MINUTE. The series I am faithful to I wait for, stalking online (hey, sometimes they ship before the release date) and finally getting that book in the mail makes my day, rather like visiting with an old friend you love but visit with too seldom. (When Ilona Andrews new Kate Daniels book came last month I was giddy all day. I made the kids go to bed early and read the whole book in one sitting, then reread my favourite parts the next day while they were at school!)

And finding a new series you love enough to add to that list of old friends? Oh, it’s a wonderful feeling, and it goes a long way towards mitigating the bitter feeling of betrayal when a new book comes out in a series I’ve broken up badly with. (Yeah, Anita, I’m talking about you.)

The first huge series disappointment I can remember is Thomas Harris’ Hannibal. And then I had to watch the movie too :(
That book was also provided the earliest dustup I can remember about author stewardship vs. fan expecatation.

I read an interview with Lois McMaster Bujold, who writes the open-ended, excellent, and always-intriguing Vorkosigan series.  She states about that series that it’s not necessary to read them in chronological order, or even in Miles’-point-of-view order, because they all work as stand-alones, and they do.  She makes it work.

The characters develop, you get to know more about the universe and worlds, there’s always something new and universe-shattering that the characters have to deal with.  There’s no backstory infodumping.  It’s just all excellent storytelling.

She mentions, in the interview, that really the only type of story in which you blow your wad, and cannot effectively re-visit the characters, is the courtship story, aka Romance.

If the courtship is having issues in a sequel, then it betrays the HEA in the first book.

What’s my point?  Can’t remember, I should probably eat some lunch…

average45—I could probably turn that into a pithy comment about the quality of books after an author’s pumped out 45 of them, but my blood sugar’s too low.
So I think Romance series are dangerous in that way.  You can’t have serious relationship difficulties in a sequel, because if a reader gets that one first, they can’t believe the HEA in the first book.  Thus the tendency to have Romance series of the courtship stories of people who know each other.

Um, yeah.  Sorry about the poor flow.  Did I mention low blood sugar?

A lot of people have covered my points pretty comprehensively.  The first series I was actually buying and broke up with? McCaffrey’s Pern series (the characterisation and plot both started to appeal less and less—I don’t think anything after Moreta was my cup of tea).  The second? Robert Jordan.

One seemed to be going through the motions, the other seemed to be drawing things out for the sake of it -  George R R Martin seems to be going the same way, which is a pity.

I haven’t broken up with LKH, because I read her from the library, and for something I do not pay for, and know what I’m going to get, it’s still nomalicious. Her fairy one more so, as plot does rear it’s head in between the bowchikawows.

I think I broke up with Lillith Saintcrow (oh what am I saying, of course I’ll read the next one). Well damn, I mean to. One day. I did break up with the werewolf ones from the Aussie chick ... can’t recall the name—not enough plot, too much sex, too stupid to live heroine.

Series I have NOT broken up with: Michelle Sagara’s “Cast” books, and her “Hidden City” ones (despite being a bit same-same); Carrie Vaughan’s Kitty series (although ... a bit light on plot!), Karen Chance’s clairvoyant one, and the Illona Andrews “Magic Strikes” series.  I am addicted to 2 of Kelley Armstrong’s series. Still reading Sookie (Harris), and also the Hollows series (Harrison). So, I’m not a series hater.

I’ll just be curious to see if these ones I like will have the sense to call a halt before the Shark Show Jumping event. Kind of hoping not!

For me, I break up with a series when 1) there’s no emotional growth or character development, despite the fact that the series goes on and on; 2) when I don’t like the main characters anymore; 3) when I keep finding things I’d rather do than pick up the book and continue reading—like dusting. 

For instance, with

LKH/Anita Blake

, our breakup wasn’t about the frequency of the sex.  Our breakup was about the protagonists’ (Anita, Richard?  I’m looking at you both) complete inability or complete lack of desire to change.  I take that back—Richard changed.  Richard changed from strong, hunky, sexxxy, with some angst but Good with a capital G into LKH’s favorite avatar of “I hate my EX”.  Anita changed into Necromancer Extraordinaire with the Mighty-All Powerful-Mink-Lined-Veejayjay-Of-Magical/Non-Human-Cat/Vamp/Wolf/Whatelseyougot-Nip.  Oh, and the policeman (can’t think of his name) changed into Just-Shy-of-Psycho-Bigot guy (I wonder which person in LKH’s life he became the avatar for—her dad?)  That said, however, neither of them (or any of the other characters to a less-annoying extent) ever managed to grow beyond their emotional and/or psychological shortcomings.  They would make noises about how they would do better and not be complete dick-heads and, then, in the very next book, they would be complete dickheads.  I’m sorry, if you KNOW that you are a fucked-up mess and that you have deep-rooted problems that cause you to treat everyone around you like shit—particularly the people you profess to love—at some point, you have a responsibility to those people that you claim to love to get better, with professional help, if necessary.  Having the same conversations (in each of the books) that consist of deep sighs, defensive posturing, and shameful appologies to everyone you love because you recognize, yet again, that you’ve behaved like the total dickhead you are is not emotional growth if you do not change.  In fact, if you are having this conversation, over and over, and yet are doing nothing to be a better person, then the conversation is just a half-assed, bullshit speech that you trot out to smooth things over and to make yourself feel better.  I’m talking to you, Anita-Sue.  After 10 books or so, of watching her kick people that love her (for god knows what reason) in the teeth on a regular basis, her disregarding and dismissing Nathanial for the umpteenth time (despite the regularity, ad nauseum, of the aforementioned conversation since before she became involved with him) just really bugged the crap out of me.  I realized after a good 10 minute rant to my husband about how the character had the emotional growth of a potato that I not only no longer loved the series, I was beyond ready for us both to see other people (instead of ever seeing each other again) and I took all of my LKH books to Half-Priced Books.

With

Stephanie Plum

, I lost interest in her incapable, inept, shallow ass after 4 books.  She has absolutely no real ability to do this job, yet by some nearly supernatural luck, she constantly stumbles over the appropriate bad guy whenever the plot decides she needs an encounter with the bad guy.  Stupid is, and always will be, annoying.  Leaving the house without your gun or without your taser or without charging your phone or without telling anyone where you might have been last if you never turn up again is beyond stupid for someone who is supposed to be a bounty hunter.  I only gave it 4 books because I thought, “Well, everyone seems to love this series—maybe she gets better.”  She didn’t.

With

Amanda Quick/Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle’s Arcane Society series

, I had a really hard time just finishing that last book (Third Circle).  (On the other hand, I did finally get the cobwebs down from that one corner.)  I haven’t give up on this series yet, but that book was a complete and utter disappointment.  I was so disappointed by this book, in fact, that I’ve decided to wait until the current one comes out in paperback.  The characters were simultaneously just like all the others she’s written and, yet, completely lacking in chemistry with each other.  All obstacles, no matter how great or small, were resolved so quickly and easily that there was little to no dramatic tension.  This was not the Amanda Quick/JAK I’m used to and, believe me, I have every one of her books and I’ve read them multiple times.

On the other hand, I still love

Sookie

, but I’m wishing that Charlaine Harris would realize that with nearly a year between books, I don’t necessarily remember all the details of what happened in the last book.  A small recap of some kind, worked into the plot, would be nice.  Oh, and could we have resolution of some of her romantic issues instead of the constant dancing around of The Men Who Love Her?  (And by resolution, I don’t mean, “strike him dead to permanently to take him out of the running”, btw.)  After all, I’ve found in real life that, while it can suck to love someone that doesn’t love you or doesn’t love you in the way you need, you usually move on and find someone else.  It would just be nice if Harris would simply acknowledge that the ones Sookie doesn’t choose somehow manage to move on with their lives instead of lingering about in her orbit for years, with their hearts on their respective sleeves.  Really, the unrequited (or sorta, but not really requited) longing goes long past realistic and straight into “And I-aye-aye aye-aye-aaaayyyyeee will always love you-oo-oo oo-oo-ooooooo”.  Still, I devour these books in a day, as soon as they arrive.  Love love LOVE them. 

Finally, I just LOVE

Jim Butcher/Harry Dresden

.  Flat out love them all, even the weaker ones.  I’m sure I could find something that I’m tired of after all this time, but since nothing immediately comes to mind, the series is still going very strong for me.

I dropped the Plum series at (I believe,) book ten. You know the one. We’d been waiting for Stephanie and Ranger to get together for, oh, TEN BOOKS, and it was a paragraph.

@Strategerie: I think this is one of the problems with the Plum books—-JE set up a situation where there’s no clear hero. Not all of the fans had been waiting for Stephanie & Ranger to get together. Some of them never wanted that to happen at all. So, if JE really pleases one group she ticks off the other.  In order to keep the series going she has to resort to this sort of lame BS. 

This is one of my major problems with triangles in series books. They almost always make me drop the series and they’re a major reason why I’m wary of UF series, since they tend to turn up in a lot of those. For me, if a triangle goes on very long it ends up making me dislike everyone involved. The person who is the “apex” of the triangle seems like a jerk and the other 2 seem either stupid or like doormats. Once I dislike the characters I’m out, not matter what’s going on with the plot.

Sadly, I am one of those who had divorced myself from Christine Feehan. And I am not just talking about her Carparthians. I can’t get into the Drake Sisters stories any more either. I used to run out and get her stuff the day it came out, now I get it from the library or PBS, if I read it at all.
Also I loved her Jaguar people series and was so excited she had a new one coming out this month. The series has only two stories in it. But when I read the new book, it could have been a Carparthian story without the vampires.

Oh and Heather Graham’s suspense/horror stuff. It is getting predictable and redundant

I don’t think I’ve broken up with a romance series. This isn’t to say I’ve never not finished a series but typically this is out of laziness more than a dislike of the series. If I don’t follow a series from the beginning and I have to work to track down earlier books in a series I tend not to do that.

I have quit several Star Wars series though. All of them because of the death of a favorite character. I will forgive a lot of bad writing in Star Wars novels but once you kill off 2 of my favorite characters and turn the series into something relentlessly depressing and leaving out much of the humor that made the earlier books fun then I quit.

The same rules would probably apply to a romance series.

I think I’m just not into following a series and overall I tend to prefer stand-alone titles.

I’ve never been able to get into Anita Blake or anything by LKH, or Kenyon’s books for that matter. The Plum books didn’t grab me. I made it through 3 books in Feehan’s Carpathian series and found them extremely tiresome and repetitive—there’s only so much of the “i’ll die without you/light to my darkness” storylines I can stand before I start to throw up. And the whole you-make-me-see-in-color-so-it-must-be-true-love-and-destiny thing was too pat.

I read 2 Cynster books and that was more than enough. I accidentally read 3 of Balogh’s featuring a family, I think the sister was Freya or Freida, I can’t remember (a lot of time passed between readings) and made a note not to follow up. I used to read Amanda Quick but I grew bored with her after a while so I haven’t read her Arcane stuff at all and none of her stuff as jayne krentz.

Like other readers I used to read Nancy Drew as a pre-teen but I left that when relationship drama of the cheating kind between Ned? and Nancy showed up in the books. And sweet valley high totally lost me when Jessica got involved with her college professor—that was not cool to 11 yr old me going to catholic school in the caribbean where all the male teachers were ancient priests—I put those down & never looked back.

For a time I read Paulo Coelho’s books when they came out but I got tired of him after The Witch of Portobello and I haven’t picked him up since. And while I enjoy Sarah Waters’ characters, especially in Fingersmith, I haven’t really been interested in reading some of her other titles. As for JK Rowling, I was totally into the world of Harry Potter, & a staunch Snape supporter, but she hit my I’ve-totally-lost-all-respect-for-you-and-look-at-you-askance list with her totally contrived plot point for The goblet of fire (*spoiler* really, voldy couldn’t have made something else a portkey & gotten Harry that way instead of going through the ridiculous tri wizard tournament, really?) not to mention Harry is totally TSTL at the best of times.

**

Overall, though, I think that I’ve fallen out of love with romance novels. I’ve gotten rid of all the ones I owned, and I don’t borrow or buy any more (at least not ones obviously marketed as romances). I can’t even tell the last time I strolled into the romance section of a bookstore. I’m waiting for Karen Marie Moning’s fever series to end (I get them from the library), and unless she writes something else after that that I enjoy, I’ll prolly be done reading romance altogether.

My defection came about mostly because I got tired of the paint by numbers heroines & heroes; the lame plots that were props for much overwrought and frankly boring, sex; the heroes that were alpha to the point of knuckle dragging (see feehan)—and the list goes on. I also got really tired of every romance hero and heroine being white and straight, or if not straight then gay male and white and so, I peaced out, I just don’t have the stomach for it anymore.

This site is the only thing still connecting me to the romance world, slender though that thread may be.

Really, the unrequited (or sorta, but not really requited) longing goes long past realistic and straight into “And I-aye-aye aye-aye-aaaayyyyeee will always love you-oo-oo oo-oo-ooooooo”.

BWA!!

That was AWESOME!

I can last forever with a series and it takes a lot for me to quit reading.  For example, I love KMM’s Highlander and Fever series.  I adore Sookie and loved the last book.  Even when a series has the third worst Mary Sue I’ve ever read (House of the Night, I’m talking to you) I can still be interested.  But what have I given up on?

Stephanie Laurens.  The books got boring.  It was the same book over and over and over and over.

And, of course, LKH.  It almost took me a 12-step program but I quit buying her books.  When Anita engaged in (essentially) bestiality in Incubus Dreams I was finished.  Anita has no redeeming characteristics and is a sociopath.

the cynsters, marauding horde of alpha male/female conquering heroes that they are, i’m still holding out for the prequels—sylvester’s brothers’ stories, which stephanie laurens will probably never get around to writing, untill she runs out of cousins and in-laws and nieces and nephews and long lost siblings (et al) but oh well. plus i’m interested to see if she ever gives what’s-his-name the big bad guy who died via loose bridge/waterfall (OR DID HE?) any kind of resolution.

the malory’s—ok at this point it’s more like the anderson novels, but…i think i’m done after her latest one, unless johanna lindsey decides to give percival alden a happy ending (which would delight me, though i hardly expect it). except for percy, i have no interest in discovering how the next hero in line plans to date rape/coerce/trick his bride of choice into matrimony/hot sexxorings. and the titles! i know they’re not the author’s fault, but “no choice but seduction”? really? plus, “the devil who tamed her”—he wasn’t a “devil”, and “she” needed therapy, not taming; “the marriage most scandalous”...wasn’t actually all that scandalous, really.

mary balogh, i just got bored of her books. it was at “simply…” actually i forget which one, but it had the green cover and the violet-eyed hero that i stopped purchasing that series. i used to absolutely *heart* her stories because the characters were so “real,” etc, but at this point it just seems overwrought, and i can take it for granted that there will be uber drama with a resolution that leaves everyone but the bad guy—if there is one—happy.

jacquie d’allesandro, i’m wishing i’d quit her “...at midnight” series after “confessions.” i bought all four on the strength of the first one (which i do not regret), but after the second one, they feel like…not even “wallpaper historicals”: “stencil historicals” is more the phrase i had in mind. i didn’t even bother finishing the third book because i had the plot worked out a third of the way into it. and the fourth one was just a “headdesk” that i read out of loyalty.

for christine feehand, “dark celebration” seemed like a good stopping point. family reunion, prince reveals his super powers, hilarity ensues. or whatever. i had devoured the rest of them and figured enough was enough. *shrug*

captcha word: sound38. 38 volumes sounds like a good place to call it quits in a series. i’m looking at you, piers anthony. wasn’t xanth supposed to be a trilogy? and then a trilogy of trilogies? and then a trilogy cubed? sheesh!

I love series in books, but I do relate to what everyone is saying.  For me I stop a series when I get too bored to get beyond the first few chapters, and if it sits on my bedroom floor gathering dust then I know it is time to give up, but I do that with authors who don’t write series also.

Anita Blake - Laurell K Hamilton
I still read the Anita Blake series, but it is becoming a close run thing.  Even when the series changed drastically I still found aspects of the books that I enjoyed.  I was disappointed in Richard’s character change, and Anita became whiny, but there were still the odd flashes of something good that kept me coming back.  Blood Noir was essentially a long therapy session for two of the characters and the storyline (of which there was extremely little) was relegated to the last couple of chapters.  I have Skin Trade on order.  I will reserve judgment until I have read it.

Mercy Thompson - Patricia Briggs
I love this series.  I read the last book over night and wanted more immediately.  This is still going strong for me.

Eve Dallas - J D Robb
I inhale this series.  If it were a drug I would have flunked rehab by now.  Everytime I read one of the books I have to reread the entire series.  Oddly enough I am going off Nora Roberts.  I like her one off books, but I am bored by the sets.  The last set (Blood Brothers, etc) boiled down to one book written three times with different names for the characters.  Very disappointing.  I don’t think I will bother with the new series that is coming out.

Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
I like this series also.  It took me a little time to read the last book because I had spent so much time waiting for it, but I enjoyed it and I have the latest ready to read. 

Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Finally, my first and favourite series I still read and reread.  I love every book and when they stop coming I will be very sad.

I am starting new series (some of which people have already mentioned - Sherrilyn Kenyon - Dark Hunter, Rachel Vincent - Shifters, Rachel Caine - Weather Warden).  I hope they will keep me going for a little while, but I don’t deny I have a short attention span!

One other thing about a series, and then I’ll stop (unless another thought occurs to me—I promise nothing!):  I like it when a series is building to an obvious conclusion, and the reader’s patience is rewarded.  An example is Mary Balogh’s Regency set Bedwyn Saga (the Slightly series).  Each book was very obviously leading to the story of the eldest brother, the duke, as the climax of the series.  She dropped little hints along the way showing that character’s development, and the reader was amply rewarded at the end with Wulf’s love story. 

I felt like the unwritten contract between the reader of the series and the author had been satisfied.

::sigh::

This should have been included in my post above.

I adore Kim Harrison and Jim Butcher.  Their series just stay terrific and I’m pretty sure they could start writing plotless drivel and I would keep reading.  I like both Rachel Caine’s series even though Joanne is a Mary Sue (the entire series spans about a month and she’s died and came back to life more than once).  Ilona Andrews is off to a great start—in my opinion, the third was the best of the series.

And I get angry when a series isn’t finished.  Brenda Joyce’s Deadly series, for example, was AWESOME and I will probably never know what happened.

Ack.  Nice little speech on how great the Kelley Armstrong Series is and it was eaten by the goblin of the net.

Still - excellent series, recommended by a friend in a hope to wean me off LKH.  Still going strong and I love her new Nadia Stafford series.

I think the Otherworld series is going strong because she moves around the characters - it never gets stale but you are still able to keep up with the characters you like.

Plus she named her kick-ass werewolf Elena.  It helps :)

I love the Otherworld books, as well.  Great treatment plan for LKH.

I think the most original parts of them (other than the kick-a$$ female werewolf) is that they aren’t really romances.  They do have a lot of romantic elements, but they don’t have to follow the conventions.  You don’t really know if the couple will get together.  Or they might be thinking about getting together and then pop up a few books later, having been together for a few years.  The romance is always just a little bit behind the scenes, so you have to pay attention to the little hints.

And of course the fact that I’m in love with both Jeremy and Karl helps, too.  *grin*

Oh, oh, can we chat for a second about Kim Harrison?

Oh, Kim Harrison. How I mourn thee. Another series I dumped. After how many books, and Rachel is STILL running around like a chicken with no head. I mean, ask some questions, ask for help, quit being so judgemental, stop living with a vampire! Dude! GROW UP!!! And that, right there, is why I dumped Harrison. No character growth. I got soooo tired of listening to Rachel whine and get in trouble, and not ask for help, and…well, you get the idea. And I had been buying in hardback since she went that way. But this last one? Phhhhttthhhhttt. I’m done. Off with you, Kim Harrison!

Well the only series I have given up on, so far is Antia and possibly Merry Gentry, mainly for the mentions above, but every time I think I’m done, LKH goes and dangles the Edward and Olaf character in front of me!!!!

I think its because I started on Obisdan Butterfly that I love these characters so much.  Though now I resist and just get them from the library.  I’m getting near the end of Kenyons books too.  I loved Acheron and still have a few early ones, but I’m not as avid on them as I was.

I’ve just started BDB so its early days for me along with Lyndsay Sands vampire books.

I love series fiction, because I love really long books. Reading a good series is like reading a really really long book. But it also has all the drawbacks of that: you may lose interest in the premise or characters, or the author may ultimately decide to take you someplace you don’t care to follow. With Anita Blake, Hamilton took the books someplace way too dark for me. For me, it wasn’t really the mechanical, meaningless sex that killed the series. In a sense, that made sense to me, because Anita had become so alienated from herself and was so self-destructive. The problem was, the author had a suicidal and arguably psychologically disturbed lead character, and refused to allude to or admit it. And when Hamilton started to introduce sexualized violence, incest and pedophilia as possible (read probable) future plot threads, it was way past time for me to bail. I wouldn’t touch those books with a ten-foot pole now.

The Betsy character just bored me after three books. The Plum books were still interesting until Evanovich stopped creating funny and started phoning them in, around book 11 or 12. I loved Acheron, but Kenyon’s books have long been a bit cookie-cutter for me for a while now. I really dislike Feehan’s couples. They give me the creeps, and it took me way too long to kick that habit.

I don’t mind the changes in the BDB series, although the heroine becoming a ghost thing bugged the shit out of me. I’m also still reading the JD Robb stuff too, although the last one or two have been less interesting. Roberts can still write rings around most other genre series authors, though, so I’m on the reserve list for her latest In Death book at the library. I still love Brockmann and I’m waiting anxiously for Julia Spencer-Fleming’s next. I also like Novik’s Temeraire series and Shana Abe’s last drakon book was pretty entertaining, just when my interest was flagging a bit in that series. Patricia Briggs skated really close with that rape-torture scene followed by happy ending in next scene, but miraculously I’m still reading that series.

I have loved each and every one of Feehan’s Seven Sister’s series and can’t wait for the last one to come out. I have read all of the GhostWalker series, I just thought some of them were really weak and look forward to the series wrapping up.

I read JAK Arcane series, just finished Sizzle and Burn and I didn’t. I think JAK needs a break and to start fresh writing like she used to back in the early 90’s.

I am still loving Car’s Virgin Series, but we are starting to skate on think ice as far as buying into the continuing saga.

Now Pamela Clare, Karen Rose and Brenda Novak still have me hooked and bated for the next books in their series to come up.

I broke up with Anita Blake after book four, although that was partially due to a friend of mine having an in person run-in with Ms. Hamilton, and telling about what a horrid human being Ms. Hamilton had become. 

I broke up with Janet Evanovich after 8 or 9, partly because they were starting to feel cookie cutter (which isn’t always a problem for me, I still love The Cat Who books and you don’t get much more cookie cutter than that), and partly because Lula is just one big fat joke that just isn’t funny. 

Because of those two experiences, plus a few bad SF/F series experiences, I tend to shy away from series unless a WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE tell me how mind-bendingly awesome they are.

Thank you for mentioning Richard +  Anita - I quit counting down the days to the “next Anita” when the Richard “I hate myself and what I am…wait, I accept it…no! I hate myself and what I am…accept…hate…” theme became too overwhelming. I think this is part of the problem I mentioned above: the production over resolution problem for some of these long-running series. When a story arc does not resolve and a character does not develop after oh, 12 books, it makes a reader wonder if there will EVER be any forward progress.

Wow! There are some good viewpoints in this blog about when to quit a series.

Recently, I have read the latest Sookie Stackhouse book, and I am ready to end reading them. Although I know we want characters to evolve, I also want the ‘core’ personality of the character (who I love) to be there. Sookie is someone who I tend to think about as a positve, spunky, funny, caring, and warm personailty. In the last book, her adventure was very grim for the most part - and at the end, she seems empty and drained. It’s a very depressing end to the book.
As a reader, when I go on the emotional journey of a book, I am looking to arrive at the end of the book, feeling that I got something uplifting from reading it. To read a very grim story, and then end on that grim note - without any resilience of hope or positive feeling - is just too depressing for me, the reader.

Also, about Patricia Briggs and her Mercy Thompson series - although I like these books for the most part - I almost stopped reading them after the scene about the rape of Mercy. It was way too graphic. Now, it seems the books are going to be about the details of Mercy recovering from that rape. I don’t know if I personally want to read the details of this. If I was a reader, that shared the experience of rape, then maybe I would want to know all the details on recovering. But, since that is not my experience, I don’t want to be dragged through the slow and hard process of recovering from that rape. It is too much emotional detail.  I hope Briggs ‘moves on’ and gets beyond that sorrow. (It reminds of those books, where a mother loses a child - and then the books are forever and forever colored by the mother’s deep sorrow for the lost child. )

death29 - if an author writes a series of 29 books, that will be the death of me. LOL

Re: Richard and Anita.

Back before the books started sucking, I re-read the whole series (up to Blue Moon, I think) in a weekend binge.  It seemed to me at the time that Richard was a stand-in for Philip from book one.  The whole reason Anita was attracted to him was because he reminded her of Philip.

I was totally okay with her breaking up with him, because it was never really him she loved.  And then the whole series went to crap and I gave up on them all.  Sigh.

Suze: You know, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that supposition about Phillip and Richard. While it’s pretty common knowledge that Richard was LKH’s first husband, and the lion dude (god, what is his name? the one that raped Anita in the shower) is LKH’s second husband, I wonder who Phillip is (her dad? a former boyfriend?) Very interesting suggestion, Suze.

If it’s a historical series as in Stephany Lauren’s Cynsters, I’ll stop reading them when they all start sounding the same… same characters, plots, love scenes, etc… same book, 7 times… no thank you.

If it’s a paranormal/UF, as in Ward’s BDB, I’ll stop reading it if the world building is so full of holes that I don’t know what the heck is going on with it, and questions are left hanging left and right with no answers.  Plus, in the BDB’s case the characters are built up and by the time their books come around they are basically de-constructed—as in V and later Phury, who I didn’t even recognize—so that was the break for me.  If I only enjoy 1/3 of a book, or skim most of it, then I’m not enjoying a book or the world.  Time to break up with the series, the crack is not that good.

Darlene,

different strokes and all that.  I loathed one of the Slightly books (if I were into that I would have burned the book, I hated it so much) and thought Wulf’s story was stupid and boring as hell;  the whole series was full of cartoon slapstick characters and the fact that 5 out of 6 ducal siblings committed mesalliances was just too damn much.  I didn’t care for the Simply books either, especially the last one.  Poor Joseph deserved a much better story and heroine.

Nevertheless, I bought and read the 3 Huxtable books as soon as they were out.  The first one was much better than any of the Slightly and Simplys.  The second one was awful (shades of The Double Wager which Balogh obviously stitched together from about 5 different Georgette Heyer plots, talk about plagiarism!), but the 3rd one was really good.  Not as good as some of her old stuff (The Secret Pearl, A Precious Jewel) but trying to come close. 

I won’t be buying the 4th one although I’m really interested in the story because it’s in HC and I won’t be manipulated by this bait and switch of publishing 3 in paperback and the 4th in HC.  Since our library isn’t buying anything till fall, I’ll either have to wait till Stephen’s story comes out in paperback next May, or, most likely, I’ll end up not reading it because I lost interest by then and the same goes for book 5 which is supposed to come out in paperback in 2011.

There may be status involved in going to HC and an increase in royalties for authors, but as far as I can see from my own and fellow reader reactions, the loss of goodwill is not insignificant when they do things this way.

As a series writer, this is scaring me. But it’s also a good tutorial of pitfalls to avoid!

GrowlyCub:

There may be status involved in going to HC and an increase in royalties for authors, but as far as I can see from my own and fellow reader reactions, the loss of goodwill is not insignificant when they do things this way

You know, WHAT is the point of a hardback, anyway? In all seriousness, if there are publishers reading this, why even go the hardback route? What benefits are there, really, by having a hardback and a paperback?

serious63: this thing really *is* psychic.

I’m not wild about long series to begin with, so I’ll give up at the drop of a hat.  I’m always looking for something fresh and exciting.  Finding a new favorite author is like falling in love.  And I can’t help it—I’m fickle.

Why I might quit a series…when my fellow reading partners in crime tell me they hate it and to never mention it again (Anita and Merry). Granted I agree with my friend’s objections (and the ones posted here) but twinkie-reads are fun—not filling. I stopped reading LKH a few books ago when I couldn’t remember/tell them apart; plus, no woman can have that much sexing without some personal problems that require a drugstore visit.

We still read Sookie as a group but she almost got shelved a few books back (the Memphis trip) , and now the bandwagon readers in the group are like a bunch of untrained puppies.

I only read the first two Feehan psychic warrior series (sorry forgot the names…and glad of it), found it too cookie cutter for me, let my mom read them (who told me they weren’t “nice” books), and donated them to the Lib.

I agree with Smart Bitch Sarah: the setting plays a huge part in the “love affair” with the series. Plus, I don’t mind the characters growing and changing, just not the kind of change that requires a lobotomy. All good blog/comment points and they even help me to avoid and/or be forewarned about some of the series out there.  Thx.

Until34…I wish I remembered 34.

I agree with a lot of the break up reasons listed above. Which is why I really enjoyed Colleen Gleason’s Gardella series. I knew that there was a finite number of books being written, so I had the expectation that although we had a great triangle going, we would eventually have a WIN-NAH. Which was a wonderful pay-off, unlike Ranger and Joe who seem to be flip-flopping every book.

Also, by having only so many books per series (in Gleason’s case, 5) she was able to have real character development and arcs.
And it never got old, and I never thought about a break up. Not once.

I understand authors wanting to cash in on the world they’ve built, but I really like the finite numbered series.

I stop reading a series when I can come up with a better story and or ending than the author does.  I finish the book then I think I would have changed such and such.

ANITA- which I stopped buying two books ago and told myself repeatedly that I will not read the one coming out in June (it is just a exercise in frustration nothing will change)

MERRY (LKH’S other series)- is quickly going the way of Anita I don’t know how much longer I can read just to look plot points or events that interested me but the author has forgotten she wrote or never completed a thought on.  Also LKH recently said on her blog that she felt free to play in Merry’s world now that she didn’t have to stick to a plot point. ( this scares me and I wonder if I should jump ship now)

Kim Harrison- I stopped reading about the time they went to HC just wasn’t worth it to me

Ward-  I thought I was through with Phury’s book but Rev’s book re-hooked me so we will have to see

Kelley Armstrong- LOVE HER but with her Otherworld series you don’t have to read all of them to have a clue what is going on so I pick what sounds interesting to me

Keri Arthur-  Please give me a HEA ASAP before I get tired of waiting around for it and stop reading you

Fever series - I really like them so far but read all three together

I will break up with a series if the romance side of the plot become a love triangle. I hate them with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns. Whenever I give it a go and grit my teeth to get through it, I always end up liking the guy not chosen and that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. And if it’s not resolved at the end of the book, I’m gone for good.

Generally, I avoid romance series (or series with strong romantic elements) that stick with one narrator since every one I can think of turns into a on-off-on-off-on-off ad infinitum and/or love triangle. I’ve heard great things about the Mercy Thompson series, but a quick skim tripped my OH CRISPY CRACKERS NO response, so they’re on my do not buy list.

My favorite on-going series currently are Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld and Meljean Brook’s Guardian novels.  I adore the world building—so I want more stories set in that ‘verse—and I love the characters the authors come up with. Plus, rotating narrators. Win-win for me.

One series I haven’t seen mentioned here is the Aimee Leduc detective series by Cara Black. I’m a bit of a francophile, so I was psyched about these books: half-French woman P.I. in Paris! And each book centers on a different slice of French cultural life!

I quit after the third, I think. Aimee was running for her life in heels. 2 and a half books of getting attacked and chased and shot at and god knows what else, and she still wears HEELS out on a case?!?! TS to fucking L. So put that in the category of ‘character doesn’t change or learn from their experiences.’

I recently quit The Dresden Files —I read the first one expecting to love it, read the second hoping I would fall in love soon, and forced myself through the third one. I just didn’t like the author’s voice or Dresden’s. It was disappointing because I thought I would have this yummy new series to work my way through. Oh well.

The Mercy Thompson books work for me because each book has its own action/mystery plot as a focus and the romance plot has been stretched out over all of the books. And Mercy changes a bit in each book because of her experiences. I hope I don’t have to quit her—those books are awesome.

LKH - I made it to book 12 I think. I kept hoping she’d get back to the core of the series that made me love it in the first place. I was half way through, realized she was looking for yet another guy to take to bed and pulled the whole series off my shelf and sold the whole damn thing. I occasionally miss the first 8 books, but not enough to make me regret my decision.

Betsy - So tired of her treating her guy like crap and just being an airhead. I think book 4 was my last one.

Stephanie Plum - I’m ready for this series to be over. It’s relegated to library status with me and I’m just ready for the end already.

Series I read: Sookie, Harrison’s Hollows, Karen Chance’s Cassie Palmer, Ilona Andrews’ Magic series adn Patricia Briggs.

Let me also say here that one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to series are when an author starts a series and doesn’t finish it and then starts writing other books while I’m just waiting for an ending to the original series and then finally like 3 or 4 years later they’ll write another book. I totally understand authors wanting to write something different, but couldn’t they do it in addition to the series or after it or something.

Oh! I forgot Frost’s Grave series. I love that one.

There’s a couple of other series that I was reading and enjoying and then they pulled that not writing books thing so it’s been a couple of years since new books have come out. Not sure I’ll still be interested when they do since I’m pretty ticked off about it right now.

Anita Blake?  Oh. My. Gawd.  There is no series out there that inspires so much rage among people I know who used to read the books.  Mostly when someone stops reading a series it’s mainly boredom or disinterest.  But that one?  I have at least 5 friends who, if I would like to seem them go off on something, all I have to say is, have you read the latest Anita?  The answer will always be no, but then comes the diatribe about WHY they didn’t read it.

That’s hilarious.  :-D

  LKH didn’t get rusty or run out of ideas; the woman needs a therapist and is instead taking her issues out on her books.  I think the biggest problem was, they were good once.  And then from book 9 to book 10 they quickly went horribly, horribly wrong.  I believe that authors should be able to do what they want with their characters, but really, there should have been an intervention in her case.

Very well said.  If I recollect correctly, LKH said on her blog that she has a therapist.  I just wish Anita would get one.  Richard has one, so why not Anita?

But tbh, at least she is still writing and people like it enough for her to be a bestseller.  There are authors would make me spittin’ mad just thinking about how long it’s taking them to supposedly write the next book in a series.  I’ve waited 16 years for one series. :-(

I can only think of one series that I really broke up with (I did stop reading another series but I hadn’t been reading it very avidly in the first place). And it’s not a romance series, but I think it fits the criteria. I quit reading the Wheel of Time series because each book just seemed to get bigger and bigger and less and less happened. And the endings got less and less satisfying, because every time they thought they killed the Dark One, it wasn’t really him and bad guys kept coming back from the dead and it just felt like. . . why the hell am I still reading this? One of my friends who read the series said, you could read the first book and be satisfied. If you read the second, you had to read the third, but then you’d be satisfied. If you read beyond that, you’re stuck reading forever ad nauseum because nothing is satisfying after that.

I might get the rest of the books when they release all of the final trilogy and then reread the whole thing. But I doubt it.

I have to admit to growing weary of Ward’s series… V and Phury’s books were way underwhelming… But mostly I’m tired of the guys being the only badasses in town.  I much prefer Kresley Cole’s style of making the heroines as powerful/hardcore as the heroes, and that’s something I can get behind.

I’ll keep buying BDB, though, until it jumps shark… Which seems like it’s coming up quick.

I only have a couple of series that I am still following.  Sookie Stackhouse hasn’t lost me yet.  CJ Cherryh is on her 10th Foreigner novel without losing my vote.  I wasn’t interested in any of Rachel Caine’s other series, but I still look forward to the Morganville vampire series.  I like T. A. Pratt’s Marla Mason series.  I gave up on Kinsey Milhone back at D is for Deadbeat and lots of mystery series I have enjoyed have given up on me—the Jill Smith mysteries by Susan Dunlap for example.

I think that Cherryh keeps me from losing interest by writing the series as a set of trilogies with an overall story arc and a conclusion.  I enjoy visiting her world and I enjoy visiting her characters. 

I don’t like series where the point of each book is a HEA (although I have nothing against happy endings) because that leads to the dreaded sequel book, and a bunch of characters standing around waiting their turn as if they are in line for an amusement park ride.  If protagonists from one book appear in others I would prefer that they show up with something to do and that no big production is made about it.  And OMG no big epilogue with all of the characters from all of the other books showing up.  I hate those.

I think I can sum up all our mutual problems in three words: the author’s craft.  If you love a story or characters, it doesn’t matter if the author is retreading a bit, makes little continuity errors, or has weird phrasing or dialogue.  But if we can’t connect with the story or characters, we notice every little thing the author does wrong, and it drives us nuts!  For instance, I never did get past book one of Queen Betsy because I was already annoyed with her character.  Some of you enjoyed the story enough to keep reading.  When the story/character got repetetive, people lost interest and couldn’t help but notice the author’s flaws. 

What we want is to forget ourselves in a story so completely that we forget we’re reading it instead of seeing it firsthand.  If I get jarred out of a series too often by an author’s poor craft, I will put the series away.  If I can still enjoy the characters and stories despite those flaws, I will keep coming back. 

That’s how it seems to me, anyway.  I teach English, and when I read for pleasure, I really want to forget I’m an English teacher.  I really get turned off a book when I feel like a book critic while reading it.  It seems like series writers are more likely to get trapped into making the same mistakes by inattentive or complacent editors and the sheer popularity of their books.

The first author I recall breaking up with is Anne Rice;The Witching Hour was her last good book(I couldn’t beyond the first five pages of Lasher)and all of her vampires caught Louis’ ennui,making that series over and out for me.

Anita Blake,I stuck with for a long time but when I was in the midst of a chapter where Anita was being hit on by a vampire mermaid succubus who wanted her to bring her sons into their latent incubus power via sexing(I know this sounds like a bad joke,but Anita readers know what I’m talking about), I said to myself"Yeah,she just humped the shark there.”

I did read some of the Merry books but the rampant sexification took over way too soon. Still like Sookie,especially since True Blood had a great first season on HBO(just taking my time with those books),had enough of Betsy for now and totally digging Kim Harrison.

I’ve been finding new authors to enjoy such as Carrie Vaughn’s Kitty series(read all six of them in a row),Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth(due to watching Legend of the Seeker),Sherrilyn Kenyon(been reading them out of order,so right now I’m giving Acheron a whirl)and just read the first Mercy Thompson book and wanting to check out the others.

I think that it’s part of a healthy reader’s diet to put aside an old series to make way for a couple of new ones-keeps the mind light and lively there.

While I haven’t broken up with any of the series mentioned and I keep meaning to read the JR Ward series (I’ve been under a rock in Iraq and actually just learned about them), I have broken up with series in the past.
Most of the time, when i stop with a series, it’s because I stopped caring about the characters or an author took a series somewhere that had nothing at all to do with the core series. Character offshoots are fine, but I have to have some emotional investment in the character before I continue to plunk down money on a series for the series sake.
Another issue when I break up with a series, as others mentioned, is world building. I’m an absolute fan of Anne McCaffrey’s but I was crushingly disappointed with how one of her series turned, and haven’t picked up another one since.
Sameness is something I worry about in my books but I’ve stopped reading a NYT Bestselling author because all of the books ended up with a let down and they started to feel pretty much the same. It’s not that I won’t read them, I’ll just wait until I can pick it up at the library.
As a writer myself, I’ve written books in a series but I try to remember that each book must stand alone and if I don’t care about the characters, how can I expect my readers to?
Ultimately, it’s the thrill of discovery and journey that has me picking up a book. If I lose that, the series is a goner for me.
Jess

I’m glad somebody brought up the Discworld as an example of doing it exactly right.  While technically a series, each book is a standalone in the same world, and the few stories with continuing plot lines (the Vimes and Sibyl relationship, for example) have progressed in a logical manner without a lot of needless will they?/won’t they? angst to try and prolong things.  (And is it completely pathetic that I thought Pratchett was incredibly ballsy to treat Vimes’s drinking problem seriously instead of brushing it aside or treating it as a joke?  In comic fantasy?!)

A couple of mystery series that have kept me engaged for several years are the Falco books by Lindsey Davis and the Fools’ Guild mysteries by Alan Gordon.  Each book is a standalone and you don’t really have to read them in order (though it helps) but the authors have both done an excellent job at treading the fine line between keeping things fresh and different and keeping things sufficiently the same so you don’t think you’re suddenly reading a completely different series.

I break up with authors (pretty much all the ones that people have mentioned to this point, actually) when I feel like the author stole my time and money and I was used to gain sales and bestseller status without getting anything in return.

Sometimes I see the break up coming—I can sense that authors are starting to believe their own hype.  But too many times, it’s all come as a surprise—the trying on boyfriends like trying on shoes for Sookie, for example—and there’s a mourning period.

Patricia Briggs is an author who tanked fast for me.  I guess gratuitous rape doesn’t work for me.  Too bad since I was really starting to get into her mechanic’s world.

I just wish all of this were sweet sorrow.  But mostly it usually feels like betrayal.

Tammy, the book cost me AU$55. And I agree with you that the rate at which books are being written and published is not sustainable for a lot of these authors. Not everyone can be Nora Roberts (plus, she’s been writing for yonks).

Lady T, good call on Anne Rice. I was a devoted little reader of her Vampire Chronicles in high school and college. I decided to give her Mayfair Witches series a try, but was so pissed about the way she ended The Witching Hour that I refused to continue. She basically ended it in a cliffhanger, so you HAD to go out and buy the second book. Fuck that. I’d like a little closure after slogging through 1000 pages, please.

And I think I finally gave up on the Vampire Chronicles at The Vampire Armand. My boyfriend at the time got me the hardcover for Christmas since I was a fan and I couldn’t get past the second or third chapter. It had just become incredibly redundant boring to me.

I started to lose interest in LKH’s Merry series after Seduced By Moonlight and formally gave up at Mistral’s Kiss, because it was turning into All Porn No Plot.  I mean, seriously - when it takes you some 500 pages to cover only three HOURS of plot, and none of it moves outside the heroine’s BEDROOM…no, thanks.  I ditched Star Wars when the Legacy of the Force series turned out to be little more than Lucas-approved fanfiction, although really I bought most of those and the New Jedi Order books because, hey, Star Wars. They’re now in a pile headed for either the used-book store or the library.  Queen Betsy I mainly get either at the library or used now.  I refuse to pay $25 for a book with only 300 double-spaced pages.  Bertrice Small hit my “Not Interested” list awhile back, because all her books from about Wild Jasmine on are the same plot with only marginally different characters, and the sexual slavery plotline gets really old really fast.  Same deal with Jade Lee’s Tigress series - yeah, yeah, sex is the Greatest Force In The Universe and Solves All problems and is The Path To Enlightenment.  Whatever.

OTOH, I loved the newest JR Ward, mainly because I’m really enjoying the switch to Urban Fantasy.  I was hooked on Lover Avenged - even took it into a high-school dance concert with me and read it during intermission because I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.  New Dresden Files books are always on my “must have NOW” list, same with Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels books.

I used to love series, but I’ve pretty much given up on all of them.  I don’t have the attention span anymore. 

There are a few series I still read if I happen to find one at a book sale or whatnot, but I prefer to have books that end their storylines after only one, or are very loosely connected to any books that follow.  I’ve found quite a few of the very loosely connected variety at epubs, and that’s a lot more to my liking than trying to remember tons of characters and storylines.  I guess I’ve gotten lazy, and busy.  Sigh.

Oh, how unpopular I will be. I hesitate to even post this.

I still read LKH. I don’t mind the sexification (aside from the fact that her writing of said sexification is horrifyingly mechanical). I still dig enough of the characters and the plots are still interesting enough that it keeps me engaged.  Maybe that’s tolerance built up from writing/reading a lot of erotica and erotic romance.

Ward’s Brothers, though. *sigh* i’m not buying this one full price in hardback. I just can’t. I’ve been too disappointed recently.

And Feehan. Am divorced from the Carpathians because it was just the same story with the same alpha males over and over. ugh. And her newest jaguar people one? That cover. I simply cannot do the animal print mantitty.

I never got into Sookie, or any of a number of other series mentioned here.

La Nora’s JD Robb books are still must-buy-immediately-you’d-better-not-get-in-my-way.

Still digging on Briggs, meh about Armstrong.

I have a real hard time breaking up with series.
A few of my sick relationships are with:
Sherrilyn Kenyon- Although I must admit, I still read them- I just don’t buy them anymore.  The library is a saving grace during these hard economic times.  I have to say I wanna know what happens to Nick and that’s about it.
Stephanie Plum- they still make me laugh but your right.  No growth same old song.
Stephanie Laurens- wow, the first bar cynster were cool but the family members.  Ok… another library pick for me.
Anita Blake- I really got sick of the ardor amore, whatever it is that makes boink everyone.  I haven’t bought the last 3 but I’ve read them thru the library and it seems she might be getting a clue and bringing the STORY/PLOT back which gives me hope (I don’t know if it’s false or not).
Ward- U know I have to say L. Avenged brought back more world building not the same as the ones b/f Butch but I still think they have potential.  I like them.  I had to get it at the library but that’s b/c I can’t afford to purchase it.

The series I’m still looking forward to:
JD Robb
Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series

The Rachel Morgan series (the author eludes me at the moment)
The Meredith Gentry series by LKHamilton
  I think its b/c it has given end.  I think there are only 2 more left b/f the series is over.  But if LKH decides to extend the series I think it will become a library pick for me.

Teh outrage! Teh outrage! I luvz it.

RE:  LKH.

So, am I the only one rooting for Edward to come back and put the entire cast out of their misery?

No, you are most certainly not the only one! Gah. Now I get the Anita Blake books from the library merely for the train wreck aspect. (“Holy crap, Batman, that 450 page book only covered two hours of elapsed time, 5 minutes of which was spent outside of a bed!”)

I’m not sure I made through more than three of the Betsy, Vampire Queen, books before I got too bored to continue. Sookie’s starting to bore me, but I’ll reread the Eric’s amnesia book over and over…

I’m hoping the BDB pulls out of the Phury death spiral. It’s really hard to make it through a book about the whiniest vampire evah. And the Lessers? Bore me. Moving on.

I think it’s sometimes easier for me to keep reading certain series, because I’m such a devoted library user. It’ll take a lot for me to buy a hardcover. A LOT.

oh wait let me add another must read although the series sometimes requires post-it notes or a referrance book on the past characters.
SUSAN BROCKMAN. 

Another good one is Nalini Singh
Lora Leigh,- I like her Beast series.  (And I think *rumor here* it might be ending soon?).
Ok those are the only other ones I can think of now.

RE:  LKH.

So, am I the only one rooting for Edward to come back and put the entire cast out of their misery?

Ahahahahah, that’s a great thought!  Even though I still read the books, I’d be all for it.

I agree in general with what most people have said about series and the specific series mentioned.

But a series-killer for me is when the politics gets too complicated—all the different factions to appease and manipulate in LKH bored me and has me rolling my eyes in Sookie’s world (I’m still reading to see if anything will resolve with Eric, but I don’t love enough stuff about the series to keep going much longer if relationships don’t outweigh time spent on politics). The Dresden series is bordering on too much politics and so are Kim Harrison’s books. I was dismayed when I heard she got a contract for three more books (though normally I’m happy for writers who get contracts). It’s already feeling as if she’s dragging out plot points. (And a big AMEN to the person who pointed out how irritating Rachel’s whining and ignorance is. How many times already has Rachel made a decision by throwing up her hands and saying “what else could I do?” Ugh.) At this point, I’m pretty sure I have the strength to not read any more in that series until its DONE and I can read the rest of the books in one fell swoop to see how everything turns out. 

Having to wait for each installment makes me much more impatient with a series. Cliffhanger endings are BAD and WRONG and CRUEL when the next book is going to be a year in coming. And my expectations are higher for a book I’ve had to wait for. I’m still reading Evanovich because until now I’ve been able to zip right through and they’re still making me laugh, even though I know I’m laughing at a lot of the same things (and if she keeps going with the series, Evanovich needs to get Stephanie in the sack again with Ranger—that triad is getting on my nerves). Bottom line, I really prefer starting a series that has a few books already available. I just read Toni McGee Causey’s first two Bobbi Faye books. They are hysterically funny (along the lines of Evanovich humor but with some voodoo thrown in—go read her *now*), but as much as I love them, I am praying that Causey keeps the series relatively short. The romantic triangle there is more developed than the Stephanie-Ranger-Morelli one, and I will resent it big-time if Causey drags it out.

I’m most willing to stick with a series when the books can be read as stand-alones but reading them in sequence reveals more about the characters, rather than simply rehashes character points.

My series likings and dislikings are probably not the same as most of the people who post here. Yeah, I still read Anita Blake and Meredith Gentry, and enjoy them for the sex, but I concede that the story is lacking. I thought the Harlequin one brought back some story into a plot which had become straight-on sex, but I’m not done with them yet. Apparently I have a boundless appetite for soft-porn… who knew?

BDB I gave up after book 4. I wasn’t in to the whole “street” slang stuff, and when characters are going “You feel me?” my response is “I’d rather not, actually.” I was only mildly interested in the series to begin with, and I just lost interest/

I also still read “The Dresden Files”, which I absolutely love, and Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson series. And Laura Anne Gilman’s Retrievers series, which is still being published by Luna. I recently picked up Kresley Cole’s Immortals series, and read 4 of them while trying to recover from Sciatica. I liked them so far, and, well, I read many series- too many to list here.

I hit my limit on the Carpathians, and Acheron just made me hurt inside, and not in a good way, either. I will occasionally still read a Sherrilyn Kenyon, but the recent one told from the point of view of one of the series Big Bads just made me go, WTF? Even a villain needs an HEA, apparently.

I didn’t have a problem with the Lynn Viehl Darkyn series, though I liked the one with the female protagonist best- it certainly made me laugh in spots. I’m not sure I’ll pick up her new kyndred series, though.

I’ll pick one more series of series to rat myself out on: Linda Winstead Jones’ series that started with “The Sun Witch”, “The Moon Witch” and “The Star Witch” i enjoyed. I just picked out the last two of the third trilogy set in that world, “22 Nights” and “Bride by Command”. They look good and I look forward to reading them.

Spamword: Example 69- Anita Blake and Meredith Gentry have given us plenty of examples of 69.

1. When it seems like the author is focusing more on rushing a book through to meet a deadline for a contract/paycheck

2. Can’t remember what the hell the series is about and have to re-read the previous books out of necessity.

3. Marketing. If it says romance, is promoted by the author as romance, it DAMN well better have a HEA.

4. If a series is open ended. If book 15 is being published with no conclusion to one or several story arcs….its time to move on.

5. When you have to buy a GUIDE to help navigate the series (Ward, Kenyon)

5. If an author has an introduction that warns the reader about something major-that way they can say “it’s not like you weren’t told”....bullshit.

Karin Slaughter-Beyond Reach’s ending was a deal breaker
Stephanie Plum-9
Anita-3
Kenyon-9 (but I did buy Acheron, and will probably get Bad Moon Rising used simply to have a conclusion to my favorite story arcs. )
Carpathian-2
Frost’s Grave-1 (too religious and preachy)
Riley series-1 (just a new LKH series from a new author cashing in)

I’m still going to shell out the $$$ for Brockmann, Moning, Briggs

I meant 6-not two 5’s. :)

@ Maritza: I would like to see how Nick’s story ends too, but Kenyon totally lost what little respect I had left after she announced she was doing a prequel series for Nick.

RE: Cliffhangers:  They aren’t deal breakers for me, as long as they’re done right. I didn’t necessarily agree with Moning’s major ending to Fae, but it still left me wanted the next, and despite the size of her fever series (and also, didn’t that book only cover like a week-if that???) eager to shell out the $ for the hardcover. Whereas Slaughter’s Beyond Reach which featured the death of a major player left me slack jawed and empty handed (wall banger).

I gave up on Stephanie Plum when I noticed I no longer laughed out loud while reading book #10. Prior to that each book was good for a few outbursts in a sitting. I will always remember introducing my friend’s mom to the series: she sat on the porch and devoured the first 6 books in a few days laughing a lot! Gave up on on Hamilton & Briggs after a few books each—too dark for my taste.

I do luv me some:

—Moning’s Highlander & Fever series. Although I do agree with other posts re: the cliffhanger in Fae—not cool at all!
—Ward’s BDB: agree that the last 2 books fell below the previous 3. Happy to note from postings here that the new Rev book seems to have put the series back on track for the time being.
—Robb’s Death series: Eve & Roarke forever!
—Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress: Cat & Bones the paranormal Eve & Roarke :)
—Novik’s Temerarie series: an amazing love story that has grown and endured thru 5 books and Napoleon!
—Kresley Cole: just finished the first Immortals and it definitely won’t be the last!
—Gabaldon: Yes, the last 2 books were long and drawn out. But will I be there when “An Echo In the Bone” comes out in Sept? You betcha!

First of all, series and even trilogies annoy me. Unless they’re really brilliant like Harry Potter, they’re a transparent attempt to draw readers in and get our money over a period of years rather than a serious attempt to write good books.

I loathe picking up a book within a series and feeling as though I have to struggle through a boring info dump to understand what’s going on, and I will NOT buy the previous books of tfe series so I can “get it.” Each book should stand alone.

If I have a moment of stupidity and allow myself to be drawn into a series, I’ll stop reading for a variety of reasons. If the author does something so ridiculous I can’t accept it, I’ll stop, i.e., <

>> the way Patricia Cornwell killed and then resurrected Benton Wesley.

Others have mentioned the boredom factor. I, also, stopped reading Evanovich for this reason.

The Bridgertons simply were too perfect for me, or perhaps the author kept telling me how wonderful this family was….enough already. Thank God they’re all married off.

Gabaldon…again, enough already.

I actually have a ‘three strikes, you’re out’ policy with authors.  If I think they’ve made me spend $8 on three losers in a row, they are off my reading list forever.

I’ve broken up with series, so I completely understand the rant here.  I didn’t even get through the first JR Ward book (I bought the first three at once) and returned the books to B&N and got my money back.  Yeah, I said it, I’m not afraid to return a book because it sucked.  Even if I read the whole thing, I’ll take it back and get a store credit…

I think the Anita Blake series got crazy when Anita got more monstrous than the bad guys she was fighting.  I still read the Plum books because there is generally a belly laugh somewhere in those pages.  I believe I have KNOWN old ladies like Grandma Mazur.

Breaking up with a series is not hard to do… there are always other series.  I completely agree with your point about the world being a character… but I tend to like more plot driven than character driven books anyway so maybe some of that flies past my reading brain.  spw

It’s a real shame when you find yourself hating a series you formerly loved, isn’t it?  It feels like a real betrayal.  For myself, all of the things mentioned above do the trick, or even just the overwhelming sense that the writer was enacting something like a Dame Sally Markham scene while squeezing out the story does the trick of turning love to hate. 

Or maybe resentment is the better word - when I get to a point where I want to know what’s going to happen next in the series and resent the hell out of the answer once I get it (and that I PAID for that knowledge) that the tide turns for good.  And like Mr. Darcy, once my good opinion is lost, it’s lost forever, so I’ve been getting a little more sensitive lately to the notion of trying to stop before I get to that point.  I’d prefer to break up when I can still hold some respect and positive feelings in my heart, though of course that’s not always possible when a series takes a sudden nosedive as opposed to a slow leaking of air out of the balloon.

The only series/author that I’ve deliberately broken up with is LKH for reasons stated in so many other posts as well as the fact that she is a complete and utter *insert nasty word here* towards anyone who doesn’t fall down and worship at her feet.

I still love the Dresden Files, the Rachel Morgan series, Sookie, Ilona’s Magic series, and Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld series.

I think its b/c it has given end.  I think there are only 2 more left b/f the series is over.  But if LKH decides to extend the series I think it will become a library pick for me.

I wouldn’t hold your breath on Merry’s story stopping after two more books. From what I’ve read on her blog, it sounds like she’s going to milk this as long as possible just like the Anita books.

I recently quit The Dresden Files —I read the first one expecting to love it, read the second hoping I would fall in love soon, and forced myself through the third one. I just didn’t like the author’s voice or Dresden’s. It was disappointing because I thought I would have this yummy new series to work my way through. Oh well.

The first three books are the weakest in the series. They should have been rewritten and polished a lot more before being published. Whenever I rec these books I always tell people to start at book 4 because that is when Harry really starts to shine.

I’m codependent and OCD enough that, once I start collecting a series, I feel compelled to have a complete set.  And if I like the series enough, I want first editions. Preferably signed. So it’s a big decision when I finally pull the pin and walk away from a series and ruin the set.  I have signed first eds of the first 10 or 12 Plum books, though they started losing me somewhere around 6 or 7. When the secondary characters are more interesting than the primaries, it’s problematic and most likely past time to end the series.  The most recent books have begun to improve marginally, but they are still nowhere near as good as the first 5 or so. The main characters less likeable, and the plots have become interchangeable. I know I read the last one, since I’ve read them all, but I sure couldn’t tell you what it was about. (Well, general plot points that haven’t changed in 14 books I can tell you. Specific capers or bad guys or who did what, whether she’s with Morelli or Ranger at the moment or why either would want to be with her anyway, and which cars got blown up this time… no clue)

As many said above, JE definitely seems to be phoning it in these days.  With each additional book it seems like the font spacing and the margins get a bit wider, the page count goes down while the price of the book goes up.  Actually, conspiracy theorist that I am, I’m not convinced she even writes them anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if she gives a ghostwriter the idea, the GW writes the draft, then she takes it back and adds a few zingers and embellishes here and there during the edits. That would, to me, explain why the books are so ‘meh’ most of the time, with the occasional flash of former greatness or a LOL moment.  I also get the impression that there’s an alarm that goes off in her word processing program once the contracted minimum word count is reached. I say this because I’ll be reading along in the book and all of the sudden it’s as if she said, “Whoa. 230 pages. Time to wrap this up,” then she abruptly ties it all up in a tidy little bow and ends the story within four pages.  Very disappointing, and not remotely cost-effective at HB prices.

I still buy the books and read them, but I can wait for the remainders these days.

Another thing that irks me is more of a category series phenomenon – when HQN will pick a theme or a general plot (same hometown, college reunions, all work in the same hospital, etc) and then have several authors write connecting stories over several months or years. While technically the books can stand alone, in reality so much of the book is spent on back story or setup for the next book that I lose interest.  Besides, I think it’s almost an insult to my intelligence when the publisher assumes (hopes? expects?) that just because I like Author A, I’ll pony up for the next three books by B, C and D just to keep the set symmetrical, even tho I don’t like some of the other authors.  The fact that I fall for it more often than not REALLY pisses me off, too! Did I mention my OCD tendencies? :oP Yet obviously this type of marketing is incredibly successful, to the point where it’s hard to find a stand-alone category.

It’s like in the old days of three or four television channels, pre-cable, pre-VCR, when the networks began showing miniseries like Roots or The Thorn Birds. The first one or two were unique and interesting and everyone dutifully stayed home to watch. When the networks decided to cash in and minseries became a common event, it was almost insulting.  As if they assumed (knew?) that we had no life, and nothing better to do than stay home every night for a week and watch their silly miniseries.

A great series is a wonderful thing, but they are few and far between. Sometimes what separates the good from the bad is that the author knows when to continue and when to end the series and move on to the next tale.

For the most part, I’d much prefer a nice stand-alone single story. Not every plot idea needs to be continued. 

\rant

Diane :o)

Oh man I wish I could quit.  I’m still reading the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry books, but usually from the library.  When I come home this summer, I’ll be playing catch up at my local library.

I don’t know what it is that I can’t seem to stop reading series, even if they bore me (Kim Harrison’s Hollow Series - the last one I barely made it through, mostly b/c without Kistin I just stopped caring about it I guess)

I only read the first Stephanie Plum book and I just couldn’t get into it, so I never really started.  Same thing with Sue Grafton.

I got bored with Stephanie Laurens, Catherine Coulter and Johanna Lindsey.  I guess if the series bores me, that’s what makes me put it down finally. 

My husband refuses to even start reading a series until it’s finished.  Hence, he’s still on Book 4 of Harry Potter.

Wow, DeeCee, I had forgotten about that Karin Slaughter thing. That was a total shocker for me, too. I’ll probably read her next book from the library, just to see how she deals, but I can’t imagine the series hooking me again without that character.

And thanks, Anaquana, for the tip on the Dresden files. I liked the first book enough to go out and buy several more in the series. But the third book just stalled me totally, and they’ve been gathering dust for many moons in my TBR pile. Even though I’m totally anal about reading a series in order, maybe I’ll skip to book four just this once and try to re-engage. Give my OCD a workout, LOL.

Forgot to mention Elizabeth Moon’s series. Not romances, but one of my current favorite SF series. She writes interesting military space opera: strong but flawed female characters, complicated good guys, and plenty of twisty bad guys.

One more post.  All of the above are the one reason I ask one question before I start reading anything these days.  Is this a series? Is it open ended? If it is, I don’t even look at it, I don’t care how much I love the author—sorry!

If I’m going to read a series, I look for ones that have a certain amount of books allotted, a trilogy—love trilogies—or 4 or 5 books.  Besides, what is wrong with a stand alone book?  One where ALL the characters are well developed and the plot resolved by the end?  Nothing like a GREAT stand alone.

I haven’t read all the posts, but one thing that emerges from a fair number of them really surprises me.  Just as many people seem to read through to the bitter end books that they are not really enjoying, some of you will apparently carry on with a series even after it starts to get on your nerves.  Why?  Life is too short to spend time on books that are supposed to give pleasure but which are not delivering that any more.  When reading for professional reasons, it may be essential to keep going even if the book is poorly written and deeply boring.  That would apply to fiction if one is a literary critic or teaches ‘the novel’, I suppose, because it is then an essential text, but if one is simply reading for leisure and relaxation, it seems to me that only a masochist would keep going if he/she is not deriving any enjoyment from the book or series any more.

I don’t know many of the series mentioned here, but in two cases that I was unfortunate enough to encounter myself, the (?) Davidson ones with that breathtakingly silly, half-witted vampire woman, and the Evanovitch Stephanie Plum books, I am fairly stunned that anyone read even a second book.  I didn’t finish the first Plum one, and only finished the first Betsy thing because it was such a quick read (reading age for about an 8-year-old, I would guess), and I was knitting at the same time, so at least I wasn’t totally wasting my time.

:-)

I’ve given up on quite a few series:

JR Ward - her series bit the dust when the heroine became a ghost.  Done…Done…Done.

Davidson’s Betsy after book 4—books are too short and too silly for hardcover price; plus she always has a lot of errors (date of birth makes the daughter older than the mother, wrong character speaking, etc.)

Kenyon’s Darkhunter series after book 5 - enough already; I wanted Acheron’s story, but by the time it came out (what 4 years after I stopped reading the series?) I didn’t even crack open the book at the book store to check it out.

Anita Blake’s series—stopped after LKH lost her mind and became totally obsessed with writing porn.

Catherine Coulter’s FBI series - stopped after book 7 or 8 when she became so careless with her writing that she changed the name of a character from “Fast Eddie” to “Malcolm” (or it could be the other way) and didn’t even know she did it.  She had a lot of errors in the previous books:  changed Sherlock’s eyes from green in first book to blue in later books; had Savich’s parents babysitting in one book but then his dad had been dead for 8 years in another book, etc.  Just couldn’t take the fact that she cranked the books out without any regard for previous books or continuity within the current book.

Karen Marie Moning’s Fever Series - returned the last book when it ended on a gang rape.  Seriously??? You’re going to end book 3 of a 5 book series on a gang rape and expect the readers to wait a year for the next story. Buh bye! If I see anyone looking at the series I warn them about book 3’s ending.

I was getting close to giving up on Suzanne Brockmann’s books, but now that she stopped being so preachy about gay tolerance since Jules had his own story…I’m enjoying her recent books more.

Like others, I will NEVER give up on Robb’s “In Death” series —some are better than others, but all are better than most other books that I will read in the year they come out.  Love the relationships and the way Eve keeps on developing/improving.

Lizzie and Lady T: OMG, I had totally forgotten about Anne Rice; that’s how long it’s been since I broke up with her. hahahaha. I read up through Pandora (which I really liked). But then Armand came out and I was like, “I already know all about Armand from Queen of the Damned. What the hell do I need another book about him for? How Gabrielle? Or any of the myriad other interesting characters she introduced in Queen?” Plus, when she intersected her Vampire and Witch series, it was shark jumping, imo. Anyway, I could go on and on and on but I won’t. Needless to say, I believe Anne Rice was my very first break up. aw.

through55: I would NOT be able to make through 55 books on Lestat.

That should have read, “How ABOUT Gabrielle…”

I understand people hating series in romance because they are easily avoidable.  But hating series in urban fantasy?  That I don’t understand.  I’ve only read one excellent stand along UF (Sunshine by Robin McKinley).  And I’m glad that most authors don’t have set numbers of books they are writing.

And the Betsy books are a bit too silly for me.  Those have fallen down the list to borrow and read.  The last straw was when I noticed how ENORMOUS the margins are in her trade paperbacks yet they are still $14.  You are paying $14 for essentially a novella.  No thank you.

There’s no one reason, I think.
Laurens - because her plots are the same. But I re-read “Devil’s Bride” and enjoy it.
Ward - I was never completely invested, but I have two unread Ward books on my shelves, and I doubt I’ll read them now. Jane’s fate really appalled me, and her world got more and more illogical.
Kenyon - I’ll still look, and I still take note of the releases.
Brockmann - I’m still fully invested in the Troubleshooters, and thinking about it, it’s because she’s a great writer. Her mastery of her subject, her total immersion in the world and the way she depicts it gets me every time, even if I don’t like the hero of a particular book.
Feehan - still reading the Ghostwalkers, more or less given up on the Dark series. I love her earlier books, club-me-over-the-head and all, and although her writing definitely improved in the later books and she’s made great efforts to change up her world, it doesn’t pull me in like it used to. I think it’s the superman syndrome - her Carpathians are more or less indestructible, so enemies don’t stand a chance.
Balogh - I’ve found that she writes two or so really good books and three meh ones in a series, at least for me, so I’ll keep reading, but I’ll wait for the blurb and reviews.

My disillusion or just boredom or whatever with long running series made me rethink the way I approached my own, so yes, I think this will have a knock-on effect with a lot of writers. I’m now doing shorter story arcs, no more than 5 books, set in the same world, and the newest world (STORM) is set to change as it goes on. What’s more, it’s more fun to write.

No-one’s mentioned why authors keep going with series so long.  I suspect there are two reasons: either the author’s only got one good idea, and wants to milk it, or the series has been sufficiently successful that it’s worth the author and publisher trying to make as much out of it as they can, rather than risk losing the readership with a new series.

Janet Evanovich lost me when Stephanie broke off her engagement with Morelli for apparently no good reason except the continuation of the franchise.

My only current “waiting impatiently for publication date” authors are Kelley Armstrong, Patricia Briggs and Lee Child.  And one TV series (and I don’t even have a TV) - Supernatural.

@ Faellie, do you feel that Reacher has just about reached his time limit? or that the stories are starting to feel the same? I just recently finished Nothing to Lose, but didn’t feel that is was Lee’s best work. I still tend to turn to the older stuff to reread of his, Tripwire or Persuader or even One Shot for a great read.

I don’t read a lot of romances, but I do read a lot of series.  The ones I like best are the 4 book series (pretty much every YA series that Tamora Pierce has written) and the slightly longer series by some SF/F authors.  I have a pretty high tolerance, but like many people I stopped with the LKH around Narcissus in Chains.  It just took an abrupt change from ballsy woman to all sex.  I’ve read a couple since then, but only borrowed from friends or the library.

I don’t think that I have ever “broken up” with a series, but I am coming close with the Kay Hooper SCU books.  I admit that I did not start with the series, but once I got into it I made sure that I read them all.  The latest book really held nothing different for me, and since the next book is a continuation of the first in the new trilogy I doubt there will be anything different in that one either.  The last one reminded me a lot of one of the earlier books, and that is one of the biggest no-nos in my opinion.

One of the problems that I have with series books is that as the series progresses, there is less to write about.  Its the same way with some television shows that have gone on too long.  I used to watch Alias religiously, but once they jumped into the future and gave Vaughn a wife I started to think there was nothing left for me anymore.  For awhile I thought that I was going to stop reading the “In Death” books because it seemed like the plots were getting worse and worse.  However, the book that I decided would be the last one if it didn’t get better, did get better, so I’m still reading and I can’t wait for the next one.

Sarah: Considering this post spurred 160 + people to comment, I don’t think you should have been surprised that we got slightly away from BHB! I do think a discussion of what makes a series light a fire and what an author does that is the equivalent of putting out a birthday candle with a garden hose, was awesome and tied in nicely with our discussion of romance.

I am still working my way through all the comments, but I realized after seeing Star Trek on Friday night (*AWESOME*), that unlike movies or television shows, series can go stale due to a lack of fresh perspective. How many authors take their work, hand it off to a group of new writers and say “Hey, I’ve done all I can with these characters in this world. Why don’t you give it a go?”

That said, I’m done with Kenyon (maybe around book 7?). Sarah, I know you saw me standing there with my hand hovering over the Acheron paperback, but I’m going to read a synopsis, ‘cause I don’t thing I want to devote the time to it. Feehan (somewhere around book 5), the Cynsters (book 9, although I still adore Devil’s Bride and will keep it until the spine separates), Stephanie Plum, Catherine Asaro (I just haven’t read the last two…maybe because they’re so involved), and Diedre Knight’s Parallel series (whoa…too many intersecting storylines - and I’m GOOD at that kind of thing, so you know it was confusing).

I’m still hangin’ on with Lara Adrian, and have the latest in the series. I still derive enjoyment from Gena Showalter’s Lords of the Underworld series. I remain enthralled with Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark, Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling Series, and P.C. and Kristen Cast’s House of Night series.

Series I’ve actually completed: Rowling, Piers Anthony’s Incarnations of Immortality, Angela Knight’s Master series (if another comes out I’d read it). That not a lot considering how many books I read. I hope that doesn’t say something about my attention span!

Lastly, I know it’s totally cliche, but I just can’t quit you Black Dagger Brotherhood. GAH!

spamblocker: trying73
and I will keep doing so!

I think the question of why people continue to read books or series that they aren’t enjoying is one thing and asking why anyone reads a particular book is another. The first seems to me to be a legitimate question about how people relate to stories. The second seems to imply a judgment about other people’s taste, which is rather unfair.

And I’m not Faellie, but I’ll chime in on the Reacher books because that’s one of the series that I still read. IMO the books have not all been great, but there has been no consistent decline. I didn’t like the last one that much, but I’m still looking forward to the next one.  I won’t start to think about bailing unless Child puts out 2 or 3 duds in a row. IME a pattern of decline is the sign that a series is coming to the end of the road, but the occasional less than fabulous book isn’t.

Just wanted to chime in again with total agreement on the Dresden Files series: it gets good with the fourth book.

While I read the first of the BDB I was too appalled by the, oh so awkward, word choices she used. I also had a major problem believing that men who wear “shit kickers” have an easy time falling in love with women like this.

I don’t know if any one has seen this but, JR Ward published an Insider’s Guide to the BDB.
http://www.jrward.com/books-ig-1.html

I’m a little miffed about this. I feel like if I need a manual to be able to understand all the pieces of a book or series, then maybe I should be playing Dungeons and Dragons instead of reading a romance novel. Not only that but, is she really that popular to need it?

Not only that but the excerpt she has written, makes me shudder, such as this part:
“What follows below is the last interview of Tohr and Wellsie together which I conducted it during the short time span between LOVER ETERNAL and LOVER AWAKENED. I’m reproducing it below in Wellsie’s memory…”
Read it, its worth the LULZ.

I am a true read-a-holic, it takes a lot for me to walk away from a book much less a series. For me I think when the author does not seem to have a clear end game in mind you can see it in the story. The plot line does not develop, there is no flow from one story to the next, the charters become stale. For example…

Janet Evanovich’s Plum series lost me after the characters acted as if events that happened in previous books had little too no bearing on the new book. There was no growth, no change. When the books took off in popularity and the book contract was expanded, I do not think Janet put any thought into how the series would end. She just kept spitting out a Ranger book, then a Joe book…rinse and repeat.

JR Ward’s Brothers book are not a total loss for me yet but I am not running out to buy her newest book. When it come available at the library I’ll read it but she used to be a must buy author for me. In my opinion when she shifted in focus from PNR to UF, she got lost in where she wanted to story to go. I enjoy both genres but it seemed like she was just tossing a book or two out while she redefined her storyline.

I also think when you have an ongoing story having an update to date website and author interaction is essential. For example, I love Keri Arthur’s Riley Jenson series but after book 5 I was left feeling a bit blah about the series after checking out her website I could see that she had plan for Riley. I have loved the last two books and I am dying for the newest release this fall. I follow a lot of series so having the author keep their website or blogs updated with current information makes the waiting in between book a bit easier.

I find I’m becoming blah about series in general - it seems that too many of my favorite authors are entering into never ending series, I want closure for some of them already.  I gave up on the Brotherhood series after Phury’s because his was the one I was most looking forward to and then I didn’t like a single character in the book - after liking them in others! It was weird. 

I’m not sure if a spoiler warning is necessary, but just in case, spoilers ahead:

A major disappointment for me was Jacquelyn Frank’s Nightwalkers series, which was supposed to be five books (now, I’m told, there will be sixth, but forget it, I can’t stand the character it’s about).  Loved the first two, enjoyed the third, felt the fourth was back and forth and the fifth was a major WTH? for me.  All series, there’d been a ‘big bad’ that they were against and she’s not even in the fifth book!! She’s barely mentioned towards the end! Instead, the book just seemed to harp over and over on how the ‘heroine’ couldn’t have children.  I honestly could not figure out how it got published - why wouldn’t the publisher say “hey, why aren’t you wrapping up the storyline here?”  It didn’t feel like a romance at all, it was depressing to read.  Such a downfall for me because the first three were great - the characters, the world, everything.  The fifth book didn’t seem like it was written by the same author, let alone part of the same series. 

Feehan’s a mixed bag for me.  I enjoyed the uber-alpha Dark series even through the repatition until the one where it was decided that the women could go chant and heal the earth instead of fighting vamps and other evils because having them in fights distracted the men.  Really?!?! I mean, really?!? You’re so kick ass that the little woman can’t fight beside you?  That was it for me.  I couldn’t get into the Ghost Walker series, but kept trying.  I think it was book five when there was the heroine who had been raped by her ‘friend’ as part of some experimental breeding program and that was it for me.  I really felt that all of the rape stuff was glossed over, which is not ok in my book. 

I still like Kenyon, though I prefer the actual books about the Dark-Hunters, not the Dream Hunters or others, and I do feel like the romance has been missing in the last few.  I only buy in HB if I’m going to a signing though. 

I don’t read Brockmann anymore.  I really liked Jules’s story, but I can’t remember much about any of her other books anymore, so I don’t pick up the new ones. 

For new series, I wait until a bunch are out.  If the series has a pre-set number of stories (such as Moning’s Fae series) I’m waiting until the last one is out.  Though I will probably skip hers because of the rape scene.

I am a repeat burn victim of series. seriously, lillith saintcrow’s dante series… dante should have died. really. TSTL. ugh. i just deleted 2 paragraphs of rant.

Harry Potter is really the only one I have read through completion that I was satisfied with (that and patrick obrian’s aubrey and maturin series, not too much romance but plenty of swashbuckling)

Someone mentioned the Wheel of Time and that cracks me up because my sister and i went through the whole high fantasy epic phase and were committed to that series for years… I would see a new one come out seriously 12 years later and couldn’t IMAGINE what he was still writing about.

Ilona Andrews’ Magic series I love- but I am so scared when I recently read that there are to be 7 in the series. as far as i can tell she could wrap up every plot point in the next book and it would be oh so satisfying. I know she’ll screw it up. they always do.

Also, can someone recommend a nice book written in the third person? I havent seen one of those in a while.

Response57- i tried but i couldn’t make that dirty.

I hate series that appear in collections - Feehan & Kenyon do it a lot - I haven’t read the series, don’t know the world building, and there’s not enough space in the novella/short story to develop it. That alone has put me off bothering to read them in the first place.

In general - once a series gets past book 5, I think seriously about it. I, too, bemoan the lack of stand-alone books. I have to read a series in order and I HATE coming across a book, start reading it, and realise that there’s other, earlier, books in the series. It’s not always that obvious from the cover.

Seriously, series books are taking over the world. I’m a judge for a competition for an unpublished children’s manuscript in New Zealand - and some of those are book one in a series. For God’s sake! You’re not even published yet!!! You are NOT JK Rowling! They’re either fantasy or horse stories. Ick!

I own most of the Pern novels. But didn’t read the last one, written by Anne’s son Todd. Oh, and The tower & the hive... and Doona... and Freedom and the first in the Powers that be - eek for the next set, with the children.

David Eddings - some - Elenium, Tamuli and the stand-alone Redemption of Athalus.

Betsy: I think I managed only one-and-a-half books before I was tempted to throw her across the room. The only worthy thing out of the series? The saying rat bastard. That’s it. And she keeps popping up everywhere! The mermaid book - less than half of it. Undead and please stay that way.

BDB: I’m new to the series, so read them all in a row, and am waiting for the latest.

Anita - I think I got to book 3. Merry - I’m still ok with.

I work in a library, so get all my books there. They have to seriously rock my world for me to buy them. I have more important things to spend my money on (and new bookshelves aren’t on the list).

Nalini Singh - I’d even think about buying these.

Oh, yeah, and Harry - all of them. No to Princess Diaries (bk 2, I think).

number39 - please, God, let the series stop before then…

Like everyone else:

(a) quit Anita Blake once I gave up hope on the books ever having a plot again rather than sexin. Merry Gentry was given up on after book 3, ditto.
(b) quit Queen Betsy after “the book that changes everything” didn’t. Also, the whining got old and the funny got lost.
(c) Stephanie Plum is designed to be a static universe and there is no point.
(d) Morganville Vampires because Claire is TSTL. I love the other characters and hate Claire, but she is the lead and I can’t get around her stupid.
(e) Outlander: When Roger got damaged so badly, Claire got raped, Jamie had a near-death experience for no reason at all… too much, depressing, ugh, done. It felt like she was upping the shock value for no reason somehow.
(f) Weather Wardens books made me feel physically exhausted after reading the never-ending changes and drama. I am not even invested in Joanne and David after all of that.

I am still in it with Sookie, though I started having issues midseries when I counted her having six love interests. Thank the gods CH weeded them out to a reasonable number, because I did not want to read Anita Blake Round Two. (Whether or not they still pine doesn’t matter so much as Sookie not wanting to date Calvin or Quinn. And not going there with her boss, thanks.) No complaints about Harry Dresden or Miles Vorkosigan or Discworld. Still read Troubleshooters (sporadically), though they’re a casual read and not a must-buy all the time. Otherworld books I have liked, but I just cannot get into “Living With The Dead” and the third person narration of it compared to the other stories. I hope that doesn’t kill the series for me. Katie MacAlister is circling the drain with the TSTL and I don’t know why I have stayed in so far.

I am now worrying about my favorite series now (Cal and Niko, Kitty Norville, Hollows, etc.) that are starting to go over the four book mark. I really don’t want them to start sucking! I am worried about the new Glass trilogy by Maria V. Snyder because the main character of it had an Idiot Ball moment that just pissed me off. I know it’s hard to live up to the original premise, but…argh.

thing64: Anita’s boinked that many series by now.

@ KeriM There are still things to learn about Reacher that I’m interested in.  I agree Nothing to Lose was a bit predictable, but I liked Gone Tomorrow.  One Shot, which you mention, is good, and is about No. 10 in the series.  Some of the earlier ones, like Persuader, I think are heartstopping even when re-reading.

OK, not a Lee Child thread, so shutting up now.

@ Faellie, Oh I admit it I am not willing to give up on that 6’4 of hunky alpha manhood just yet, I just wanted to see your take on the series.
:-) 

Also an agreement with an earlier shout out for the next Julia Spencer-Fleming, but One Was A Soldier won’t be out until the fall of 09 or winter of ‘10, that is too *&^$#@ long!

I want to read series when the author has done with them. I’m talking about Melanie Rawn who hasn’t yet (!) come out with the 3rd book of the Exiles series. I’m leery of starting George R R Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series coz he hasn’t come out with Book 5 when it was supposed to come out since last year. (And then there’s book 6 and 7 to wait for) 

I think an author should stop at book 3 for a series. From book 4 onward, the books that I’ve read started to get wierd. Like recently, I’ve been reading Susan Wiggs’ Lakeshore Chronicles. Books 1 to 3 are still okay, since they talk about the Bellamy family. But Book 4 is…um… let’s just say I wanted to throw the book across the room. But since it’s not mine, I restrained myself. When I read the blurb for books 5 and 6, well, let’s just say I’m not interested.

Sarah,  on a forum I moderate, we have a “hide” button like your html buttons above the post window. It puts the post in brackets and when it goes on the board, all you see is a little box with the word “Hide” in it. That way, people can post away and when they want to post any kind of spoiler, they put it in those brackets.

Nice way to help people who would rather not read them. They just don’t have to click on it.

However…there are some who look at that button the way a kid drools over a chocolate bar at the store…

If I’m not entertained and loving the books, I break up. Clean, harsh, cold. I just leave. I’m never mad or irritated- after all ‘dem early books hooked me and will still be enjoyed! I just walk away.

If they still work for me (Plum comes to mind) then yep- I stay in. If they’re loosing hold (Sookie) then I wait for the paperbacks or wait a book or two and see if it comes back to a good place…

@colleenlaughs: Oh yeah, Dante. After book two, it was a struggle to read. I made it through the first half of book five. I’m super bummed about it, because the worldbuilding and premise are oustanding; I mean, really really good. But Dante…oh TSTL is an understatement. I just want to slap her up side the head. Now you’ve gotten me all riled up….

I broke up with one long running series because I feel that the author violated my trust and commitment as a reader by randomly changing the rules of the world and legend she’d built and not staying true to what we knew of characters before they got their own books.  The legend and world drew me into the series.  She introduced characters in earlier books in the series and our anticipation grew until we couldn’t wait for the hero to get his book.  Then, when the book arrived, the hero acted completely out of character.  Total disappointment.  I gave the series one more shot after that, only to find additional rule and character changes.  So, no more for me.

I stopped reading another series because it felt like the author got lazy with her writing and not only repeated character types but repeated phrases, metaphors and descriptions book after book after book. 

Mystery series where the same character is the star of every book can be tricky.  I still love reading the Stephanie Plum books perhaps because I have different expectations.  All I want is a good laugh, a crazy series of events, and healthy doses of Ranger and Morelli hotness.  I don’t care whether Stephanie has an epiphany that helps her grow as a person or whether she takes classes to improve her bounty hunter skills, or whether she learns to carry a fire extinguisher in her car so she can save one of them from burning.  I’m in it for the slapstick entertainment and the books deliver that for me.

Mary Stella, above, has made the important point that there are different kinds of series.  Some of the classic detective stories belong to the category in which each book is a separate, self-contained story, but always with the same protagonist - a different case for Holmes, Poirot, Roderick Alleyn or Guido Brunetti, for example.  Even though there is an overall chronological timeline, the issue of the central character’s personal development is not directly relevant:  each book is totally free-standing, and they certainly do not have to be read in order.

Then there are those that have a background world or setting and characters, but each book is, again, a separate story featuring different central characters.  Some of the best romance sub-genre series obviously fall into that class, like Jayne Ann Krentz’s various linked books.  Again, the books do not have to be read in sequence - each is independent, though they have places and characters in common.

The problems, as I see it, tend most often to arise in the type of series in which a single hero/heroine is featured within what amounts to an ongoing story arc, and it is important to read the books in chronological order.  These are really multi-volume single novels.  This is why readers, reasonably enough, expect the heroine, the Stephanie Plum or idiot Betsy, to change and grow, and if she doesn’t, or if she grows in unwanted directions, they are likely to be disappointed sooner or later.

Finally, there is the soap-opera type of series (I don’t know if there is a literary term for them) in which no single book has an overarching story arc, but rather, a series of interconnected everyday events and little sub-plots.  The apotheosis of this form of fiction is Alexander McCall Smith’s No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books, now up to book no.9.  He is an exquisite, deceptively simple, writer, with the skill to draw one into the world of his characters, a real Jane Austen de nos jours.    I find it so gratifying that this outstanding writer of fiction is by training and experience an academic.  As long as he goes on writing about Mma Ramotswe and her life, I’ll go on reading.  I can’t imagine that I could ever tire of the stories, because the characters (which include the country, Botswana) become friends whose doings are always of interest.

Dante is an idiot.  If I hadn’t been in Japan for a summer with a set amount of books (::ahem:: a lot of books but still a set amount) I would have never passed the first one.  I don’t understand how wings can look like a coat.  A cape, maybe, but not a coat.  And she was obnoxious.  Like Rachel Vincent’s main character, who is violent and psychotic—if she was male, she would have been a major villain.

Like Rachel Vincent’s main character, who is violent and psychotic—if she was male, she would have been a major villain.

@jessica- funny you should say that.  One of things I like best about Faythe is that she is often more of an anti-hero. lol

Kim Harrison: WWBC took me awhile to get through because there wasn’t a very interesting plot. I don’t think I can take any more angst with her and Ivy. I bought it in hard copy I won’t make that mistake again.

J.R Ward: I enjoy all the different characters. I like following them from book to book. These books are so silly but I’m so addicted.

Sookie: I still love this series but every guy falling for her gets on my nerves. A love sixangle.

Jim Butcher: Great series but some books I’ve liked more than others.

The only series I can say I’m 100% happy with at this point is Ilona Andrews. Magic Strikes was great. She’s only 3 books in though and I hear she has planned 7 in the series so I’m sure my pleasure won’t last long.

It seems these series start off strong but continue way past their prime. Perhaps authors need to set a cut off date.

I’m not much for finishing series. Mostly I get distracted by something else. Things that will stop me from finishing however (this goes for books not just series):
1. characters acting out of character
    1a. Rampant Mary or Marty Sue-ism
    1b. Historicals where people don’t act like they would during that time period.
2. Disappearance of plot and good sense
3. Breaking of world rules without reason or at least consequence
    3a. Major Historical Inaccuracies.
4. Prolonged angst of a main character (longer then two books)
5. Out grown the series or grown bored with it
6. The author undermining the story by making the story about the message not about the characters or by making it all delusions of crazy.
7. “Sorry if you liked the first trilogy where they saved the world because it gets destroyed -I mean completely and total gone- at the end of the second” (sorry little bitter about that one).
8. Incest (DO NOT WANT)

1-3 only if it gets annoying or near constant. 4 if there is no sign of improvement in the near future or I don’t really like that book all that much anyway. 5 I might finish the book I’m on, but I won’t bother getting the next (I might look up synopsis online). 6 - 8 pretty much automatic deal breakers.

My overall opinion is that people stop reading series, books, whatever because of a betrayal of expectations based on what the author has supplied in the past and our own conceptions as to what makes a series/book good. Sometimes the author is doing everything right, but the reader thinks the book was going to be different then it is, so they don’t bother reading the next book. Sometimes the books just suck.

Like Rachel Vincent’s main character, who is violent and psychotic—if she was male, she would have been a major villain.

I just think she’s just a spoiled brat to the Nth degree.  I still like the series, weirdly enough.  However, I wish Marc would dump her permanently and get on with life.  She really doesn’t deserve him.

The one I dropped cold, and took the books to the local used bookstore: Anita Blake.  I like plot in my novels, thank you.  Mind you, if she wrote a “And Edward came back and killed all of them” novel I’d read that one!  Never even tried the Merry Gentry ones - they didn’t look like my cup of tea from the outset.

Have not dropped Stephanie Laurens per se, just am not always quick to get them these days. 

I am still enjoying the Temeraire novels, and Stephen Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa books (though the most recent one I read had a WTF ending).  Also like the Maisie Dobbs books.

My father has been steady-dating Robert B. Parker’s Spenser books since, oh, 1978.  And is still buying them in hardback.  Though we joke about Susan nibbling herself to death.

The only series I can say I’m 100% happy with at this point is Ilona        
Andrews. Magic Strikes was great. She’s only 3 books in though and I hear    
she has planned 7 in the series so I’m sure my pleasure won’t last long.

Well she’s up to book 3, so four more books where she gathers up enough strength and enough people to kill her bad guy father doesn’t sound like a stretch.   

  It seems these series start off strong but continue way past their prime.   
Perhaps authors need to set a cut off date.

I think it has to do more with the authors getting famous and their editors/book publishers will allow any drivel as long as it becomes a major bestseller.  LKH, David Weber and Robert Jordan are perfect examples.  Heck, RJ is DEAD and the ghostwriter can’t finish the last book on time!  They are breaking it up into 3 parts!

I forgot about Anne Rice. I made it through tale of the Body Thief and couldn’t be bothered.

Also, I broke up with Louis L’Amour after Jubal Sackett.
(with exceptions for The Day breakers, Orlando and The Sackett Brand, because I actually listened to them first)

Only the Love Interest, out of the several female characters, had a name. None of the women had a personality.
The Rampant Plot Device (no spoiler) was the last straw.

normal95. Yes please. “Plot Devices” have no place in westerns

Ditto most of the comments about LKH. I was a *rabid* fan until she took a character I loved, even with her flaws, and turned her into, well, what she is now.

And honestly? The sex scenes? LKH writes the exact same sex scene every time. It’s just the names on the other end of the dicks that change. So basically, you’re reading the same sex scene multiple times across multiple books, for hundreds of pages. Horrible.

I love Kim Harrison but thought this last book weak, and also thought Kelly Armstrong’s last book was weak. I’m willing to give an author an occasional “less than spectacular” if they come back with a solid followup though.

Still love Patricia Briggs. Loved the first two Fae books by Moning but Faefever, so not. And if the trope is what I think it may be, (i.e., think Bobby Ewing from Dallas) I’ll be severely pissed.

I tend to quit authors rather than specific series. Took me a long time, but I finally quit Amanda Quick/Jayne Anne Krentz because she just kept writing the exact same book and inserting slightly different characters in them. Lazy and boring.

I second, third, and fourth the Janet Evanovich comments. It’s really sad, because the last few books have been written completely slapdash. It seems to me she’s spending as little time writing them as possible and instead devoting all her time to pushing them just so she can make more money.

The author who is brilliant at very long series books is Terry Pratchett (as I know at least one other person has already mentioned). I think he keeps his series fresh by a) being an incredible writer, and b) switching around his world and using different characters as the main protagonist. So we have several books starring Sam Vimes, and several with Rincewind, several with DEATH, Moist von Lipwig, and some one-offs too.

The series I’ve loved best this year is probably Sarah Monette’s Labyrinth series, and I guess the publishers didn’t renew her contract, which is a huge bummer because I find myeslf not yet ready to let Felix and Mildmay go.

Carol! OMG! I thought I was the only one who read and loved the Exiles series. I wish there was a third one, but she seems to have abandoned it entirely (and apparently gets really angry with fans who ask whether it will ever come out). It kills me, because that’s my fave of her series.

BDB hit a nadir for me with Butch’s book, but picked up with V and Phury’s books. Probably won’t buy this one in hardback, though.

Anita Blake, man. I have the same problem everyone else does. She’s just accrued so many abilities that nothing can possibly harm her. And then there’s the sexin’. And the psychopath-ness.

On the other end of the spectrum, I was doggedly reading through Susan Kearney’s SF HEA series, because the first two books had the seeds of really good novels in them, and she’s really hit her stride with the third. I’m looking forward to the fourth.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned Marjorie Liu’s “Dirk & Steele” books. I like them an awful lot, and they’re a series I won’t give up anytime soon.

I can’t say that I’ve ever read a lot of the series everyone keeps talking about, however,I’ve broken up with quite a few to start another one.  Okay, so I’m a series slut! 
Anyway….I usually break up with a series when:
1.  Another comes out that looks more interesting.
2.  The hero is a total angst-ridden wimp and can have sex with our plucky but troubled heroine, but can’t have a “relationship” with her because of his past, but….he can control her impetuosity and protect her so she doesn’t hurt herself.  Of course, the adrenaline rush of all that protecting and controlling her pluckiness makes him hot and he just has to have sex with her! 
3.  When the heroine is so WTF crazy that I feel the need to throw the book in the trash to save someone else’s time and money
4.  When the heroine is intrepid.  I really, really can’t stand an intrepid cow who insists on getting out of the car and running her crazy butt into a dark building even when she’s told that there is a mass murderer in there.  (This usually happens when our heroine is a reporter, social worker or a worried big sister, mother, daughter, etc out to find the person who killed her little sister, daughter, mother, etc. )
5.  When its any of the Lora Leigh Breeds series.
6. When an author creates a world that changes from book to book.  I have a hard enough time trying to figure out the world I’m in!
7.  When a secondary character that I like gets his/her own book and turns into either a complete ass or a idiot.

Okay, this list is not even close to done, but I need to stop. I’m still on the clock! :0)

I started reading romances in my teens, and lets just say that was when Madonna was prancing around in a wedding dress…I kept quite a few of those books and if my memory is correct the first series I read was Diana Palmer’s Long Tall Texans.  Remember those!?  Was there ever a stringer-on!  I think if it was possible a story would have been written about the farm animals! 

There are certain sick attractions into series, you get sucked in and sometimes it’s hard to get out, no matter how predictable each subsequent page and chapter becomes.  But if you are lucky, once in a while you do claw your way out!  Ones I was able to remove the shackles from were:

- Linda Lael Miller - another long series queen…she herself got bored and took a detour to writing suspense, when that wasn’t successful she went back Romances with Montana Creeds - I was able to avoid being sucked back in, thank goodness!
- Christine Feehan - I don’t give a rat’s ass about that darn Carpathian male finding his HOE and if I have to suffer through another claiming and the cheesy declaration I am going to hurl blood voluntarily.
- Amanda Quick - same bad boy, same stubborn girl, same maniac bad dude, I am wasting away with boredom.
- MaryJanice Davidson - Betsy should have just gone on an extended shopping trip and never returned, the only way I will read it again if her roommates turn on her and kill her for good. 
-  Karen Marie Moning - I quit reading her after the first Fever book came out!  Stone cold sober! 

Ones I still am addicted to for no reason but I am hanging on for something different to happen are Kenyon’s DHs and her pseudo historical half McGregor’s BoS, Ward’s BDBs and Cole’s IADs - for however long, depends on how much they piss me off for wasting my precious free time reading them!

At least now I buy ebooks so it’s cheaper than hardcovers and easier to store!

I just read the first of the Dirk & Steele series (Margaret Liu); I’m reserving judgment. I picked it up because I realllllly liked two short pieces of Liu’s I read in collections—the tone was great, the way she handled the relationships was great. But a lot of cliches and melodrama show up in the Tiger Eye. I’ll keep going with the series, at least for a book or two to see if the books get better, craftwise. I can stand only so much of the “she suddenly trusted him after knowing him, like, only two hours because he was the first man who truly…” kind of stuff. 

Along the same lines, I liked Catherine Coulter’s The Cove, but found her second book in the series, The Maze, so poorly written I ended up skimming it (because even in the worst books, I want to find out what happened). There are so many good books, there’s no point in spending time reading bad ones. Since the books did manage to get published, I end up bidding a series goodbye with a sort of “it’s not you, it’s me” feeling.

Just a small point.  I am rather bothered by the blunt accusations of ‘laziness’ that some people make against writers whose work they perceive as failing to evolve.  I think that all the professional writers here will agree that it is pretty difficult to complete a whole book at all - good, bad or indifferent - if you are lazy, because the process of writing is actually hard work.
What is happening is the writer and reader drifting apart:  the writer moves on to something different, but the reader wants more of the same, or the writer provides more of the same, and the reader moves on, wanting a change.  It is about the fit between creator and consumer.  Accusations of laziness seem, at the very least, discourteous.

@Lois Baron: The Dirk & Steele books definitely get better!

Just a thought, how about Joe and Ranger decide they prefer each other and leave our Steph in the lurch. That would make me read and I gave up on Ms Plum a long time ago.

word: found55, found 55 reasons not to read LKH!

Now THAT would be HOT.

This is not really a comment but a thank you.

I’m working on my first series for Sourcebooks. I was offered a four book deal but had my agent negotiate it down to three. That may sound bizarre, and it wouldn’t be the first time I was accused of oddness, but I was unsure about my ability to make a fourth book relevant. As it turns out, three won’t break the contract, but if a fourth (or 5th) comes out of me, it’ll be a nice bonus. I wish all publishers were that flexible.

It’s really good to see what readers have to say about the long series. What I don’t like in any book or series is a predictable pattern. If I know what’s going to happen from chapter one, why should I read the book? To me, surprises are important to hold my interest.

Therefore, I’ve vowed not to become that “serial killer” whose books sound so much alike, the fun fades.

Right now, I’m plotting book two with an eye to what I did in book one—and doing it differently. (So, Ashlyn, your last heroine changed her goal. I guess this one should hang onto it until the bitter end. And your last hero didn’t have a dark side. Let’s give this one a very dark side. And just for fun, let’s disillusion your heroine and make her question whether or not human nature can ever be redeemed. 

Now I have stuff I can work with and it’s simply by saying, “Okay, I already did that, so I can do anything but that now.

One of the reasons I was put off a certain NY publisher for a while (no need to name names and ruin my future) was the predictability of each book.  Even different authors were beginning to sound alike.

I understand the idea that if it was successful once, it will be again…but IMO there’s an expiration date on successful formulas.

I really love stuff that’s fresh and original. It seems as if I’m not alone! So, thank you for sharing your thoughts here. I feel vindicated somehow.

Ash *who loves her world, but knows there are always more worlds to create and love too.

P.S. Hi Sarah! It was great to meet you at RT and I’m thrilled by the success of your book!

@ Lois Baron: I’m right there with you with Liu. I really liked the Crimson City series and I think Liu had two books in that, so I went out and got Tiger Eye. I’ve only made it through 1/2 the book and I’ve been “reading” it for several months, now. Chris said they get better so I’ll push my way through Tiger Eye-but I don’t expect it to be much fun…;)

comes39: amazing, but also exhausting.

@Randi, @Lois Baron: read book 2, Shadow Touch. I haven’t read Tiger Eye, so I can’t speak to it, but after I got through the first, ooo, 20 pages or so of Shadow Touch, I could not put the book down and stayed up until 2:30am to finish it. Something I liked about both that and Soul Song is that the characters wind up with really solid reasons to trust each other. (Also, I really like that, in many of her books, either the hero or the heroine is a person of color.)

CAPTCHA: moving39…I guess this means we’re buying a house next year!

Just a thought, how about Joe and Ranger decide they prefer each other and leave our Steph in the lurch. That would make me read and I gave up on Ms Plum a long time ago.

I would buy that book in hardcover—and I gave up on the series several books ago.

@rednikki: I’m guessing, then, that one does not need to read Tiger Eye to read the rest of the series (because, here be an, ‘I MUST read the series from the beginning’ person.)?

woman25: hell, that was a decade ago!

@Randi - I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve been picking them up at the used bookstore, and they’re standalones enough that reading them out of order has been no problem. I first read #5, then #2, and now I’m reading what I think is #7 (which, conveniently, features a character introduced in book 2 as the main character). I don’t think I’m missing out on a darn thing not having read Tiger Eye. Perhaps someday I will go back and read it just for completeness’ sake, but it’s not like the BDB stuff (which my brain keeps translating as “Big Damn Brotherhood).