# "10 Book Series So Addictive, You Never Want Them to End" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 24, 2013, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-book-series-so-addictive-you-never-want-them-to-end/674680 "2013-11-24T17:15:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-book-series-so-addictive-you-never-want-them-to-end/674680/81 "2013-12-03T04:10:48Z")
> [@Tinker\_Grey](#): > > I may have missed it, but I didn’t notice anyone speaking up for Octavia Butler. > > All of her work is intriguing. At the risk of being labeled racist and as a white person, I don’t think a white person could have written her stuff. Her characters are incredibly resilient yet passive or subtly active. Her protagonists are unlike anything I’ve encountered in sci-fi. Butler died much too young. And I think that you’re right, a white person probably couldn’t have written her stuff. Ever noticed how her human and especially female characters are used as breeding stock in some stories, like slave women were used in the US? I’m thinking of Bloodchild in particular here, and the Xenogenesis series. The aliens sometimes attempt to seduce the humans into breeding, but sometimes use force. The Clayark organism also takes over humans and forces them to become breeders. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-book-series-so-addictive-you-never-want-them-to-end/674680/82 "2013-12-03T12:35:46Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > @ **Smeghead** - I shan’t get into a big argument, but suffice it to say: Those weren’t wild dragons. But yes, it’s true, she put more time into the societal impact of dragons than the biological one. But strangely, I have found that I don’t tend to read my fantasy for their detailed representations of modified biomes. Do you do this sort of thing everytime you run into a fantastic creature in a book? I’m a biologist. It’s not like I spent hours analyzing it - to me, it’s like if someone wrote a plot that centered around the fact that two plus two equals six. It’s just very clearly _off_ to me. But the elephant thing was only one example. The whole world’s societies, economies, and biology should be radically, drastically different from ours, and they’re not. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-book-series-so-addictive-you-never-want-them-to-end/674680/83 "2013-12-03T14:14:01Z")
> [@Dioptre](#): > > How about “The Laundry Files” by Charles Stross? Hopefully hasn’t ended, but would be very disappointing if it did. > > For those who haven’t read it - think “IT Department” meets “Call of Cthulu”. > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > …Stross’ Laundry Series I just read, and enjoyed very much - it’s about a secret agent of the British government who has to deal with soul-sucking eldritch abominations like Nyarlothetep, Human Resource departments, and PowerPoint. Funny satire, but built on the bones of strong, interesting stories. (Anyone else think they’re starting to get a bit dark, though?)… They are really dark, but then again, so’s the material they parody. Just wanted to tell you both that he has a new [novella](http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/09/equoid) in the Laundryverse. Readable for free, at [Tor.com](http://Tor.com). It’s pretty dark too. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-book-series-so-addictive-you-never-want-them-to-end/674680/84 "2013-12-03T16:54:47Z")
While I certainly want an actual END to GRRM’s **A Song of Ice and Fire** , I’d love to get more stories in that world, along the lines of his **Dunk and Egg** series. There’s so many freakin’ stories, histories, and myths that have been mentioned in the books that I’d love to read more about. Ideally, I’d want several collections of short stories, and maybe a few full-length, but stand-alone, novels and novellas. A good mix of things from long, LONG ago (i.e., Age of Heroes…it would be great to see what ACTUALLY happened vs. how the story is told,) more recent history (the few hundred years before the War of the Five Kings started,) and some “contemporary” stuff (random stories of people we only heard of in passing, or not at all, during the main series.) ---
**Author:** ![Marion\_Wormer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-book-series-so-addictive-you-never-want-them-to-end/674680/85 "2013-12-03T21:13:42Z")
> [@Truman\_Burbank](#): > > Agreed, but this thread is mostly people geeking out about Fantasy/SF, rather than mysteries, so non-SF observations probably won’t get much traction. I’ve got Connelly’s \*\*Black Box \*\*sitting on my desk now, about to be devoured. To go away from Fantasy / SF, I’d like to recommend the \*\*Tale Of Genji \*\*(Wylie translation). Although it’s published as a single thick book, it’s really a series in modern eyes. There are several translations, but I think the Wylie one is the most accessible to modern readers. Sadly, it ends rather abruptly without a ‘good ending’. The author probably died and never finished. We’ll never know–unless a time machine is invented. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-book-series-so-addictive-you-never-want-them-to-end/674680/86 "2013-12-03T21:53:01Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > I’m a biologist. It’s not like I spent hours analyzing it - to me, it’s like if someone wrote a plot that centered around the fact that two plus two equals six. It’s just very clearly _off_ to me. But the elephant thing was only one example. The whole world’s societies, economies, and biology should be radically, drastically different from ours, and they’re not. Actually, most of them are. Though I still largely disagree about the biology. The book ISN’T about the premise that two plus two equals six. As far as I’m concerned, this is closer to you doublechecking the math on how spaceships hold together at high sublight speeds. Oh well. One man’s nitpick is another man’s Important Topic, I suppose. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/10-book-series-so-addictive-you-never-want-them-to-end/674680.md?page=4)