What is the plural of “series”? Lookie, I’ve hijacked my own thread in the first sentense. Anyway, I was thinking about… more than one series… that I really like, but that don’t necessarily start out great. I was actually writing a list of fantasy recomendations for my new roommate, and I had a whole section of “these get better”:
Discworld- it’s a common but tragic occurence. Someone hears about how awesome Terry Pratchett is, picks up The Colour of Magic, and can’t understand what the fuss is about. If they read on in order, The Light Fantastic is slightly better than TCoM, but still nothing to tell all your friends about.
Dresden Files- it turns out I’m not the only one who wasn’t impressed at the first. Honestly, the first two or three books are pretty blah. He gets into his stride by book four. By book seven you’ve got the zombie t-rex incident which has got to be the single most awesome battle against the forces of evil ever.
Raven’s Strike/Raven’s Shadow- not that well known, but I was talking with my roommate about them earlier. It’s a duology by Patricia Briggs, and I have no idea why she split it into two books. Book One (I forget which one) is utterly conventional cookie-cutter fantasy (the heroine is named Raven, for crying out loud). It’s not really a spoiler to say that the good guys defeat the bad guys, endangered loved ones are rescued, and everybody goes off to live happily ever after, more or less. Book Two, it turns out pretty much everything they know from Book One is wrong, or not what it seems, and it would be a spoiler to say what happens next. Let’s just say it’s not a cookie-cutter fantasy after all.
Order of the Stick- after the obligatory “Do you know anything about role-playing games?” comes “It starts out as a joke-a-day spoof on D&D, then around strip 100 it developes a plot.”
That’s the whole list I gave my roommate, IIRC. All fantasy books- I’m a one-genre girl. So what other books are out there that you have to warn people they get better?
I bought them when they first came out. Yeah, nowadays they are overshadowed by other fantasy works, Pratchett’s and other authors’, but at the time they were a real breath of fresh air. Adams had sent up science fiction with Hitchhikers, but his works didn’t really hang together as SF, they only worked as parodies of SF. Pratchett’s stories work both as fantasy and fantasy parodies.
And Briggs never writes anything that’s really cookie cutter. I have no idea why the books were split up, either, unless maybe the combined size would be too unwieldy for a paperback.
Tons and tons of series have the “stop reading at book ___” disclaimer, which is the other way around. Banner holders here are Stephanie Plum and Anita Blake.
The Next Generation: Skip the first few seasons, pick it up when you get to episodes like “The Drumhead” and, of course, “Chain of Command” parts 1 and 2.
Schlock Mercenary: Pick it up at the first plot arc where the art is tolerable for you.
So it gets better, then? That’s good. Mind you, even getting past the artwork I’d still have trouble with the character Der Trihs. I mean, I know our Der Trihs is named after that one, but still.
The Wire is probably the greatest TV drama ever made, but you have to give it at least 4-5 episodes in order to get to know the characters and for everything to make sense. I’ve been quite frustrated at friends giving up after only 2-3 episodes.
The first Harry Potter book isn’t bad but the second book is definitely better.
Several people have recommended skipping the first season of Babylon 5. Personally I think you should watch it because it sets up a lot of things for the later seasons.
Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series: The first book is fantastic. Each subsequent book takes that fantasticness and reduces it by an order of magnitude. Please stop by book 5, because your wall won’t look good with a hardback shaped indention in it.
I was thinking about this with respect to Robert Parker’s Spenser novels the other day.
It’s been a long time since I read my first one, which was not the first he’d written. When I read the first couple, they didn’t do anything for me. And the last six or so mostly made me unhappy for various reasons. And even in the prime of the series, they are a little formulaic and repetative.
But I love Spenser, and Susan, and Hawk, and . . . most of the rest of the recurring characters.