In this thread, people discuss book series that have started to flag as they went on.
Well, duh. I’m sorry, folks, but I flat out don’t believe that any author can sustain a series for 10, 20, 50 books and maintain its quality. The premise gets trod into the ground, the contrivances pile up, the plots and incidents begin to repeat themselves, the main character turns into a steaming pile of clichés.
The ones that have held up the best, IMO, are those with a large and rotating series of protagonists. Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series are examples. Even so, McBain went into a long decline when he hit bestseller status that he was just beginning to come out of when he died. And Pratchett doesn’t seem as fresh as he once did.
Anyone have any candidates they want to put forth as counterexamples?
Warning: you may be subjected to ridicule by those who have given up in disgust.
Pratchett is still fresh; he’s just evolved. Less comedy, more wry observation of the human condition. He’s had a few weaker books (Moving Pictures), but he’s still able to spin them out.
But he’s the one counterexample I can think of. All authors writing a series of novels tend to lose steam as time goes on.
Michael Moorcock’s Multiverse setting held up, IMO.
The pinnacle was the Elric Saga (6 books), and while the rest of the series’ weren’t sequels or prequels, so to speak (they detailed the adventures of various incarnations of the same being[s]), they did maintain the continuity with one another and even referenced each other on occasion.
Maybe I’m just a fanboy, but I don’t feel that any of the series ever fizzled, and all told there are quite a lot of books.
I’ve never heard anyone who was a fan of the early Travis McGee series (John D. MacDonald) say that they took a downhill turn and weren’t worth reading after book# ___.
I guess you could say the series fizzled out when the author did, but The Lonely Silver Rain stands up well to A Purple Place for Dying and the other early stuff in the series.
I’ve only read the first two and one-half installments of Steven Erikson’s fantasy series, but people who’ve read five or six (of a projected ten) are saying it keeps getting better.
It appears that Erikson isn’t just making it up as he goes, and that has to make a difference in quality.
I put Zelazny’s Amber series in the fizzled thread and said I’d argue the other side here. The first five books of the series were uniformly strong and had an epic scope and sweep to them. The last five featuring Merlin were also decent but lacked the epic feel of the first five. In some ways I wonder if that was intentional. Merlin is a lesser character than Corwin, who in the first five books is involved in an epic struggle to literally control the universe, to the point of possibly creating a second one. Merlin’s books are more personal stories, focusing more on revenge initially and only later incorporating a power struggle of a much smaller scope. Even though the scope of the second five books is much smaller, the story holds my interest all the way through. Zelazny had the foresight to die without continuing the series, although there are some prequels written by someone else and I refuse to read them.
Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series was written over 40 years and stayed good to the end. The last book in the series, A Family Affair, ends the series quite nicely. Then again, it may be easier to sustain a good series when writing mysteries rather than science fiction.
I’ll also second Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.
Willard Price’s ~~~ Adventure! series kept an even pace throughout, but that’s mostly because they were all exactly the same plot, just with different scenery.
The Hornblower series. Pick up any book at random and it stands by itself as a nice read on the airplane. It deserves its cult status, but does not reply upon it.
Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events are on book 12 (only one left in the series!) and still very good. In fact, I’d argue that the 12th book is better than the first one.
Pratchett’s are also getting better as they go on.
Maybe that’s the secret- the authors are not trying simply to recreate the things that people liked in the early books, but are instead working to make the books better, even though that means significant changes.
Good OP, it really is rare to find a series that maintains the high standards of the early books. ‘A song of ice and fire’ is looking a little precarious in this regard after Martin’s latest. Hopefully it is a temporary plateau.
Has anyone read Proust? Seven books make up ‘A la recherche du temps perdu’. I’ve only read the first one, Swann’s way, and thought it was amazing. Easily one of the best classics I have ever picked up. If the other six are anything like as good (and the scholars say they are) then you’re looking at a series of monumental quality.
The three investigator books were uniformly boss, and they were up to #50 when I were a nipper. Jupiter Jones etc. I am not 100% sure that they were written by the same person, IIRC there was no author credited on the front?
E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s Lensman series. Each book is virtually identical in look and feel. Each is a good read (if you like that sort of space opera read). None was “weak” compared to the others. Early science fiction at its best.
As a kid, I remember reading all the John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs without feeling let down. Tarzan, though, had weak points, as did the Venus and Pellucidar books.
G.M. Ford’s Leo Watterman mysteries were always quite good. I think there’s about 6 in the series, and I haven’t seen any new ones in a while. (He started another series, so he may be concentrating on that instead.)
