Has there ever been a series of books written that was an unqualified success from start to finish?
To try and define what I mean a little, I’m looking for books that fit the following criteria:
Novels. So no historical fiction etc. Needs to be a series - say 6+ books for the sake of argument. Maybe 5+ at a push. Not 4.
Quality - Can be anything from refined, high brow literature to Star Wars novels, but must be recognised as being really good within its genre.
Structure. Needs to have a clear, overarching narrative pathway across the series to produce a coherent story. So not anything like ‘The adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ say, no matter how brilliant.
I’m looking for something that really works as a feat of sustained writing / overall vision of the author. If there’s 6 books then there needs to have been 6. Not 5 and not 7, so no excessive verbiage or rambling prose. At no point does the reader think the author’s making it up as he goes along, there’s a sense that the author is in control of the series as a whole and knows where they’re going with it.
Pretty strict criteria I think! So feel free to fudge a few of the points if it means suggesting really good literary series.
Your third criterion will rule out an awgful lot of whatr most people would consider a “series”, and it isn’t the way the rest of the world defines “series”. To me “Sherlock Holmes” is definitely a series, even if you think that this doesn’t fit the definition. But, as commonly used, a “series” requires a set of stories about a common character or setting, not that the entire collection combines to make one connected story.
Robert H. Van Gulik’s Judge Dee stories form a well-written series, in the usual sense that they form a collection of narratives over time involving the same central character and his associates. It also could qualify by your more restricted definition, since (as you can see in the final volume) there is an overall structure, and hints placed within earlier volumes that dconnect to things in later volumes. But is that enough to make it a “series”, by your definition? I strongly suspect that Van Gulik originally wrote the five five, similarly-named books, and would have ended it there, but there was further interest, and so he wrote the other volumes (which didn’t come out in any sort of chronological order).
Cecil Scott Forester’s “Horatio Hornblower” novels are well-written. They arguably form a series even by your more restrictive definition, since they tell the naval career of the central character from Midshipman to Admiral of the Fleet. But do they form a connective whole? I don’t think Forester had the entire series in mind when he wrote the first three volumes, which can stand alone. Indeed, things in those first-written volumes are inconsistent with later books that he wrote.
I think thagt the book publishing industry and its working militates against the sort of as-originally-intended multivolume storytelling you seem to be holding up as your ideal. J.K. Rowling couldn’t have known that her books would be the spectacular sellers they were going to be, and so couldn’t count on selling or publishing an entire series I’ll bet she didn’t intentionally plan the whole shebang from the start. Only if you’re an incredibly popular author from the start, or have your own publishing group that you can count on to see your complete series put into print can you count on your type of “series”. And I don’t see ceven their fans holding up Stephen King’s Dark Tower or L Ron Hubbard’s Mission earth as “best written” series. Certainly people who aren’t fans don’t think so.
The Ripliad by Patricia Highsmith may just squeak into the OP’s requirements, though the amount of time it took to write the five books may preclude a predetermined story arc.
That said, it does hang together as a whole, and the writing is absolutely first class.
I think your final requirement sinks this thread. Of all the wonderful series of books that meet the first two requirements, I doubt that many were conceived as a piece from the beginning. The author may have an overall sense of how it is going to work out but is unlikely to know all the twists and turns on the way.
The Hornblower books are a good example - I would not be surprised to learn that Forester knew that he wanted his hero to rise all the way through the navy but each book stands by itself and - as far as I know - was written by itself. Same with what, to my mind, is a better series in the same vein, the Patrick O’Brien Audrey/Maturin novels.
But why the insistence on so many books? Many series are conceived as tetralogies, trilogies, or even diptychs. With your restriction, you’re forcing us to consider such drek as the Battlefield Earth dekalogy!
That is the motivation for the thread, though. I can think of many superb trilogies, and plenty of great ‘The adventures of X’ series. I’m looking, though, for the more unusual sequence of books I described in the OP. It’s possible that they really are vanishingly rare - there must be 1 or 2 examples though.
I just finished Erikson’s 8th Malazan book, which probably put me in mind of this question. It was fairly shite, sadly, and the first major stumble in a series that had been pretty tightly written up to that point.
I say tightly written - given most of the books are 1000+ pages that’s probably not the right term. But the nuts and bolts of the writing, plus sense of an overall vision are pretty good for such a long series.
Still not clear what constitutes a “series”, or why you’re so restrictive. Does Colleen McCulloch’s Makers of Rome series count? But they can each stand alone. The only reason to consider them a series is that they’re historically contiguous, by the same author, and share characterizations of the same people across books.
George R.R, Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice argfuably fits better than anything I’ve named, but I don’t think I’d award it a “best-written series” banner on that basis.
If you would allow a four book series to be it, I believe the Lonesome Dove series would be my pick. Besides that, I’d say the Flashman series, although it’s historical fiction and I’m still not quite through it.
Why aren’t you including historical fiction? and no trilogies? The 3 Kristin Lavransdatter books are masterpieces! How about the Jewel in the Crown series? also a masterpiece.
The Forsyte Saga books are stilted - but that fits the subject matter so well.
but they don’t fit all your criteria either.
The best fit I can think of for Scissors’ criteria is P. C. Hodgell’s God Stalker Chronicles series, though it’s not yet complete. It currently stands at six novels, following the adventures of a disaster-prone young woman from her amnesiac arrival in an excessively holy city through her first year at her people’s military academy. It definitely has a strong arc that it’s following, and the destination was established (cryptically) in the climax of the first book. It’s brilliantly, vividly, and densely written, leavening the rather dark material with considerable humor (both wry and surreal).
The only real stumbling block is that it gets very little recognition. Everyone seems to agree that it’s good, but it languishes in obscurity. It’s probably at least in part due to the rate at which the early novels were released–they were years apart, due to the author’s other obligations. They’re coming at a faster pace now. Hodgell also seems to have had rotten luck with publishers; the first two went out of business, leaving her stranded until Baen picked her up.
It may fail a number of your criteria (historical fiction?), but the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brien is beautifully written and reasonably cohesive (modulo that he died before he finished the last one).
