By my count, Tony Hillerman has written 18 books in the Jim Chee / Joe Leaphorn series. Although some have been better than others, I still find myself looking forward to each new addition.
I’ll second Aubrey/Maturin and Hornblower, and I want to give an honorable mention to Cornwell’s **Sharpe **series. Yes, I know the last few are not great, but they’re still readable. And he kept them going for such a long time before they started to putter a bit.
Margaret Frazer’s Dame Frevisse mysteries are consistently good.
Also John Mortimer’s **Rumpole **books.
Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm series was good to the end. The later novels (after about 1985 or so) weren’t as good as the earlier ones (since Hamilton apparently succumbed to the trend towards bloated word counts IMNSHO), but they were still genuinely good and well worth reading if you like action/adventure fiction. I heard two or three years ago that he was going to write a grand finale to the series, but I haven’t seen it yet.
His new character is Frank Corso. I really liked the Leo Watterman books, but the new ones are more serious and, I think, better.
Another author that made the same transition is Harlan Coben. His Myron (the sports agent) books were pretty good. But when he left them for new characters, it’s like he became twice the writer.
And yet another writer whose books seem consistently good: George Pelecanos. Very cool.
I haven’t read the last couple, so maybe I’m speaking to soon, but I’ve enjoyed reading Carol O’Connell’s Mallory books.
I’ve always thought Tim Dorsey’s books were consistently funny, as well. They may not be in the same league as Faulkner or Hemmingway, but I like 'em.
I’ll third Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series. He was the only author I’ve been saddened by his death knowing it came to an end.
Some of my favorite mind candy is John Stanford’s Prey series with the detective Lucas Davenport. Every one is pretty predictable but fun for an afternoon.
You’d think Dorsey would run out of weird ways to kill people, but he hasn’t so far.
Chris Bunch and Allen Cole’s Sten sorta count, although they were concieved as one big million-word novel, broken into 7 books.
This reminds me of yet another author whose works I’ll miss: Ellis Peters and her Brother Cadfael books. I saw absolutely no diminishing of quality with each of her 21 books.
Going old-school, the Sherlock Holmes series is pretty strong, back to front. There are a couple weak stories, but there wasn’t any general decrease in quality as the series progresses.
It’s shown up in the other thread several times, where I’m the voice of dissent, but I think Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books have continued to be good, although not as good as the first couple.
–Cliffy
Glen Cook’s Black Company books. The first two are still the best, but I think they’re all pretty excellent, follow a nice broad cast of characters, and give the opportunity for different POVs/narrators in different books.
Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr series has had consistent and even improving quality. I do feel his Matthew Scudder series went downhill as it modernized and yuppified.
I’m not too surprised at the answers given here. I knew somebody was going to mention John D. MacDonald, but I’ve never gotten into him so I can’t comment. Rex Stout mostly wrote the same book over and over but except for The Doorbell Rang the last dozen books are on autopilot. The Bernie Rhodenbarr books are so interchangeable that I can no longer read any of the new ones in the series. And I knew somebody was going to mention Sherlock Holmes, but nobody on this earth can make a convincing case that the last book or two were as good as the first couple, and Conan Doyle felt exactly the same way.
Same with Unca Cecil. :rolleyes:
You can’t compare series that run less than a half dozen books, especially those conceived of as a whole, with decades-long strings of independent novels. Harry Potter doesn’t have a place here.
Still, I’m glad that some other series that I haven’t read have their defenders. It’s every authors dream to have a series become a lifetime annuity, but as Oscar Wilde said: There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Entirely fizzle-free book series:
The Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy Sayers
The Smiley novels by John LeCarre
The Frances Books by Russell Hoban
The Hoke Moseley books by Charles Willeford
A la recherche du temps perdu
Kristin Lavransdatter
The Lord of the Rings
The Chronicles of Narnia
What did I just say?
Well, personally I think the Dune series (the ones by Frank Herbert, not his son Brian) was great. The last two books are excellent.
I’m going by childhood memory here, but IIRC, Robert Arthur started the series and wrote the first nine or ten or so, which I thought were the best: all the neat recurring ideas were invented by him. After that there were three or four other writers who continued the series, with mixed (but still pretty good) results.
I came in to second the mention of Tony Hillerman’s books. Some are, indeed, better than others, but I too enjoyed all of them.
How about Walter Mosley’s? I’ve only read the first of his; how were the others?
The first two of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy were better than the third, but I kept reading anyway. Same for Barry Hughart’s 2 after Bridge of Birds.
As for “classic” series that didn’t go downhill (IMHO): the Kristin Lavransdatter books by Sigurd Undsett; Paul Scott’s India books; Marcel Pagnol’s books; and Galsworthy’s Forsyte books.
Narnia’s 7, actually.
And it fizzled in the last book, anyway.
–Cliffy
You had no minumun requirements in your OP, and you should allow for the worst case of a casual reader who merely skims the OP and ignores all of the replies. I came in here to offer some suggestions but have none that meet your revised request.