This series remains my personal model for how to sustain a story arc across muiltiple books and bring it all together.
Also agree with the above poster about Gene Wolfe’s Urth… books. Interestingly, I disliked the protagonist and much of the actual action of the story, but found the writing itself consistently fascinating.
The Saint never fizzled, at least while the original author was writing.
After Chateris retired, the ones ghost-written by other authors weren’t nearly as good. Most of them seem to have missed the point. Should we count series continued by other authors like this?
I’ve just finished Sharpe’s Prey which is one of the latter books and found it just as enjoyable as the rest. I find no diminishment of quality. I’ve also enjoyed the Books about Starbuck and the Civil War, only been 4 of those so far and no new ones for quite a long time.
I feel that there’s been no loss of quality in the Vorkosigan books by Lois McMaster Bujold. The only problem with this series is that there hasn’t been a new one for a few years since she’s writing the Chalion books instead. Those are excellent but I prefer her science fiction.
I also feel that C.J. Cherryh’s current series about Mospheira and the Atevi has remained high quality (**Foreigner, Precursor ** etc.)
Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books are all high in quality. I’ve just purchased the most recent and am looking forward to reading it. I haven’t indulged in his new fantasy series yet.
Raymond Feist’s Krondor books are always worth spending time on. I just started the first book in his most recent trilogy. Feist isn’t as great a writer as he thinks he is but I’ve never put down one of his books in disgust.
I’ve always enjoyed the Flashman books. I haven’t read the newest one yet but am looking forward to it. I think Flashman has mellowed a bit, unfortunately. Flashman and The Angel of The Lord lacked the real impact of the earlier books and the anti Sherlock Holmes short story in the book was unworthy of Fraser.
Rumpole remains completely readable. I hope there will be more installments.
I felt Thud! was a resurgence of sorts for Discworld. The ones before it felt flat (Monstrous Regiment and Going Postal). Maybe it was just that this book concerned the Watch and that’s always been my favorite subseries.
I’m assuming you mean the “Easy Rawlins” books (there are ten).
I just finished Cinnamon Kiss and it hasn’t fizzled.
(/hijack) When I saw the movie of Devil In A Blue Dress, I told people, “They really did this book justice. And I don’t know who the actor is, but that guy they got to play Mouse was COLD, just the way he’s supposed to be. Easy always described Mouse as ‘a stone killer’ and this guy is!” The unknown actor is Don Cheadle. (/end hijack)
Okay, I love Dorothy Sayers too, but are you really gonna say the one with all the train schedules is as good as Gaudy Night? I don’t know if it counts as a “fizzle” because her last ones are the best ones, though.
Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books made this sort of dipping motion. The first ones were great, middle ones were okay, then the last few were wonderful. I haven’t read the latest one, put out by her son? so I dont know how well that one was.
Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series is the one that really comes to mind as a series that fizzled. The first few trilogies were awesome (Arrows, Last Mage, Black/White/Silver Griffin, exc.) Once it got into the mage wars though, they just dropped. Now she is going back and filling in holes in the series. How about something new? I don’t even reread the newer books in the series anymore, they aren’t worth it.
Stop writing new series and put out something good for valdemar!
Besides casting another vote for Discworld as continuing to improve, I would name G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown series. It last seven books or six or eight depending on how you count. They are not novels, but collections of related stories. All were published in magazine format before being collected in book form.
Yeah, Cornwell’s very consistent: twenty-odd Sharpe books so far, and no real duds. I liked the way he went back to Sharpe’s early career in India and filled in the backstory a lot - I was expecting potboilers, but they turned out to be some of the best in the series. He’s a busy little author, too: the Civil War series {which I didn’t like}, the Grail series {which I did}, a couple of stand-alones like Gallows Thief, and the second in his King Alfred vs. the Danes series has just been released. The guy’s written something like forty disparate historical novels in about 25 years, and the writing quality and standards of research, as well as the “ripping good yarn” factor, have never wavered. Hats off.
The latest one, Flashman On The March, is a disappointment: the first half is OK, if a little repetitive - Flashman’s on the run for rogering some girl, accepts a seemingly innocuous task in order to get swift passage out, finds himself sucked into a desperate and hair-raising mission among loony savages, beautiful and deadly warrior queen falls for him, etc. etc. - and then in the second half he does nothing, just stands around and observes. He even does his duty with no shirking, skulking, rogering or backstabbing, or even much in the way of complaint. Alas, Flashy is not the cad he used to be.
For another continuing series which hasn’t flagged, I’ll nominate James Lee Burke’s ‘Dave Robicheaux’ series: consistently excellent writing, superbly atmospheric setting in the Louisiana bayous and New Orleans, always a strong social conscience, and he’s not afraid to vary the formula - a little magical realism even creeps in in the later books. Best of all, major characters die. Frequently. Just as you’re getting used to Robicheaux’s latest wife, pop! She’s gone!
Unlike say Robert B. Parker’s ‘Spenser’ series, no-one is safe, particularly Robicheaux’s nearest and dearest: I like Spenser, and Parker’s writing is always strong, but the series settled into comfortable somnolence long ago - good comfort reading, but Spenser will always be tough, wise-cracking, and invulnerable, Hawk will always an inscrutably lethal black lovin’ machine {who’s oddly willing to work for free}, Susan will always be smart, beautiful and mischievous, and I will always hate that bloody dog. Just once, I’d like to see Hawk shoot the dog, kidnap Susan and post bits of her through the mail accompanied by taunting notes written in jive, and Vinnie Morris, Captain Quirk and the whole merry band of unpaid helpers tell Spenser to get stuffed, he’s on his own.
There is no conceivable definition of the word “series” that includes a single long novel broken up into multiple volumes for publication purposes.
Nor can “series” be meaningfully applied to a small succession of books that were conceived of from the beginning as a whole with an definitive ending.
And no discussion of whether an author can keep a series going over decades can include a series of just a few books.
Except for the possibility of Dorothy Sayers that’s your whole list. And Sayers wrote 11 novels over 14 years, not many or very long for a major mystery writer, and actually tired of her character herself before the end.
I was going to suggest Gregory McDonald’s Fletch and Flynn serieses, and Steven Brust’s Jhereg series, and Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni serieses, and Sharon Lee & Steve Miller’s Liaden series, but I’m guessing that they don’t meet the OP’s continually revised criteria…
I came in to mention Cornwell and his Sharpe books. Of course you have to suspend your disbelief and ignore how improbable it is for Richard Sharpe to have been at every important event during his lifetime. He even gets to visit Napolean on St Helena. His son even shows up in the civil war series. Despite that I think the series is good from front to back. I wish they would do a movie that could do it justice. I liked the TV shows but the lack of budget hurt it. The cast was great.
Sorry hit submit too soon. I think Thud and Monstrous Regiment are the only ones I have not read yet. I will soon. I have to disagree about Going Postal. I just finished it recently and I thought it was one of the best. I loved Lord Venetari’s part in the book. He had the best lines.
First result:
"similar things placed in order or happening one after another; ‘they were investigating a series of bank robberies’ "
Another result:
“Group of separately published works, usually related to each other in subject, each of which bears, in addition to its own title, a collective or series title which applies to the group as a whole. The individual items are issued successively by the same publisher and may or may not be numbered.”
Another result:
“Separate works related in subject or form that are issued successively by the same publisher, in uniform style and with a collaborative title.”
Another result:
“Writings that are similar in character and are issued in sequence.”
The simple fact that a single work may be split up and published in series pretty much makes it a series according to the definitions I’ve provided. Enjoy your thread.
P.G. Wodehouse published a long series of short stories and novels about Jeeves and Wooster over a period of 58 years*, and I would argue that their quality is extremely consistent.
OTOH, I would certainly not argue that they were consistently innovative. There is a certain sameness to the situations and plotlines of most of them. But if you like Wodehouse’s style, it would be hard (IMHO) to point to any that are significantly worse than the others.
Oh stop being snarky. Sure LoTR could be counted as a series. But it is really just a book split into three. If it ended badly would it count as a Fizziling Series or a book that ends badly? Doesn’t really fit the OP. If there are two books written about the same character could it be considered a series? Sure. If the second one was bad does the series fizzle? Not really. Not enough there to fizzle. It seemed pretty clear to me that the OP was about long running series that went well for a long time then fizzled out. Enjoy all your threads.