Being a fan of the high fantasy genre, I frequently end up involved in discussions about the Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth series. In both cases, I hear a lot of opinions that sound like this: “I don’t like this series , and I think that the author is just dragging it out as long as possible just to make more money, but I’m going to keep reading them just to see how it ends up.” This seems to be the attitude taken by a lot of the fans, not just a small number of them. There are a couple of things that I don’t understand about this.
First of all, the purpose of reading is enjoyment. Except for stuff that I read for school or work, I always pick up a book with the expectation of having fun, and of being able to look back on it in the future and say that I liked it. I don’t see any advantage to wading through a huge pile of bad literature. It’s not like there’s a prize for doing so. And besides, time that you spend reading a bad book is time that you could have spent reading a good one.
Secondly, like it or not, what we buy to read influences the publishing companies. If people continue to buy a string of crappy series, the publishers will believe that that’s what we want and respond accordingly. There won’t be a serious effort made to search out talented and original new authors unless we send a clear message that we’’ buy them.
So what gives? Why do people buy these books, or any other lousy series that you might be aware of?
My policy on books is, I give a book twenty pages to grab my attention and make me want to know what happens next. If a book fails to do this in twenty pages I put it down and move on, even if its a book I paid good money for. I read for entertainment and life’s too short to waste on books that aren’t entertaining.
While I can certainly understand the need for completion that drives some to keep reading series that have gone astray and no longer enjoyable (I’m still watching Buffy every week even though I haven’t enjoyed it since season five.) I can’t really sympatize with someone who slogs through a 500+ page book they aren’t enjoying, then puts it down and says, “Well, maybe the next one will be better.” The next one won’t be better. How could it possibly? When it gets to the point where an author is obviously padding a series to sell more books it’s time to stop, no matter how much time you’ve invested in the past.
I’ve started quite a few very long running series and so far the only one I’m still committed to is Discworld, and the main reason that series remains so fresh is it has multiple casts of characters that only occasionally intermix, with plenty of room for stand-alone tales or new groups of characters to be introduced. A 12, 13 or 14 book series all following one ongoing storyline is almost guaranteed to take a major dive in quality before the series ends.
I know for a lot of the Wheel of Time people (and most of the Goodkind people), they just have to see how it ends. They know it is awful and complain all the time, but they have to see how it ends. But “Crossroads of Twilight” and “Soul of the Fire”, respectively, totally destroyed the remaining enthusiasm I had for both of em.
I’m a completist, and the first bvooks in the series were good, but it’s gone downhill. Nevertheless, I’m going to read ALL of them because if I don’t, I might miss something, or I won’t be able to say I read them all, or something.
I have to second GMRyujin:
After spending THIS MUCH time debating with my friends developing theories as to how Wheel of Time will end, I’d really like to know how it actually does.
Alas, I also am bored to tears by Mr. Jordan’s latest efforts, can’t remember most of the characters anyway and guess I’ll have someone tell me how it ends. If it ever does. Which seems highly doubtful at the rate it’s going.
I saw it not too long ago at a used bookstore. I remembered hearing good things about it. Bought it. On the way home I noticed the blurbs on the back seemed familiar. I checked the summary inside. “Holy Crap, I read this piece of garbage before!” It was so bad that I had nearly blocked it out of my mind. (I never forget good books.) But I went ahead and read it again to verify that it was a total loss.
So I deliberately read an awful book for the second time.
Although I’ve never slogged through a book series I think was bad, I have picked up a couple books and read them because they are so bad they make me feel better about my chances of getting published!
As far Jordan goes, I lost interest in that series around the 5th (or was it 50th?) book. For the first few books, I liked it, but then the one note characters and overly convuluted happenings got to me.
<geek>For good, epic fantasy, check out George RR Martin </geek>
For all the Jordan fans who “just want to see how it ends”…
I’ve given up reading his convoluted rubbish, but if you really want to find out how it ends (and I do), just read the last 3-5 chapters of any book until he publishes the finale. Trust me, you won’t miss anything…
I am a survivor of the ‘Mission Earth’ dekology - “A literary work so epic a new word had to be created to describe it”.
Bleargg!
My one excuse is I only bought second-hand after number 3, hence hopefully not encouraging anyone to print more.
Heck, L Ron Hubbard was dead already anyway.
For 11 years it gave me a perverse reason to pretend I knew what I was looking for when browsing the bargin bins, which was fun, only once found, I had to follow through.
It was some sort of ‘good money after bad’ dilemma. I’m stubborn about finishing what I start.
The funny part was finding the style turn over half-way through book 8, and realize, Oh, this is where Hubbard died - the rest is a ghost writer!
Overall, bothering with the whole mission is one of the oddest things I’ve ever done (as judged compared to my own priorities at least). Where’s my T-Shirt?
(And when I was 16, I thought 'Battlefield Earth was damn good)
[Basil Fawlty]Don’t Mention the Movie[/Basil Fawlty]
It actually took ~450 pages into A Game of Thrones for me to be hooked. I mean, I didn’t hate the first half of the book, but I was sort of going through the motions of reading, so to speak, because I had time to kill. But, boy, am I glad I stuck it out as long as I did! I can say now that the Song of Ice and Fire series is one of the best fantasy series I’ve ever read.
Based on this experience, I think the first 20 pages is too little to go on. Well, unless it’s clear that the book is utter crap…
There have also been a few times (reading The Fountainhead, for example) when I was all set to put a book back on the shelf and a friend said to me, “Just keep reading until you get to page 317…” or “read until happens…and then see if you aren’t hooked.” That’s very helpful.
Sometimes I fall for that, “You can’t argue for/against something unless you’ve experienced it” falacy … which has forced me to read Dianetics, The first Wheel of Time book, and Battlefield Earth. Sadly, I was right on all accounts that they were complete crap.
On a completely different front, I tortured myself with James Joyce ‘Ulysses’ for, um, way too long.
I kept thinking “there must be something in it - what am I missing?”
but it was an awesome bedside book, just three pages would tire my brain out so much it really helped me sleep.