This isn’t so much about the specific series as it is about series in general that aren’t written.
I just picked up a book by Melanie Rawn. It’s the first book in a trilogy, and was written in 1997. I was assuming the whole trilogy was done, but no. The third book has had multiple false release dates but has never been released. There’s no evidence it was ever even written.
Would you read the first two books, put it on a shelf for the time it may eventually be a complete series, give it away to a band of roving literati, or something else?
I know a lot of dopers have been burned with long-awaited series in the past and I’ve managed to avoid those snares so far. Do you have a policy? Should you?
Although I have read things that have ended up as a series I am put off by anything that up front claims to be, say, “Book 1 of the Somewhereorotherland Series.” Under those circumstances I don’t start reading it at all.
What kind of trilogy is it? Is it, like LOTR, supposed to be a single long story published in three volumes? Or is it, like more traditional trilogies, supposed to be three novels that are complete in themselves but related in some fundamental way.
David Gerrold’s Chtorr series is notorious for this reason. It’s supposed to be a seven volume series. The first four books were published in 1983, 1985, 1989, and 1993 - a reasonable schedule. But Gerrold is supposedly still working on the fifth book. As recently as 2007, he was telling people it was almost done. And he says he’s going to complete all seven books and has published some excerpts of the future books as short stories.
If you wait until an entire series has been written before you start reading it, you’re going to spend a long time waiting. Just as fans of Richard Jordan (not it).
However, I wouldn’t buy it new; from what I recall, her books tend to be of the larger variety and I’d just check it out of the library.
There was a 12 year gap in the publication of Jack Vance’s Demon Princes quintet.
The first three came out from 1964 - 67 but the 4th didn’t appear until 1979, with the final volume a couple of years later. As I recall, DAW were re-issuing a lot of his books and wanted some new titles as well, so he decided to finish the series.
The final two are usually considered a cut above the earlier ones, enjoyable though they are.
I found it on Amazon. According to the customer reviews, (1) the second book ends in a cliff-hanger, and (2) the author currently has no intention of writing the third book. So no, I would not start reading the series.
Diana Wynne Jones’s Dalemark Quartet had a gap of about 14 years between books 3 and 4; but each book was relatively self-contained.
I was burned by a couple of those when I was younger.
If it’s something that’s presented as a longrunning series - like Dresden Files or Dexter or those A is for… things, then yeah, whatever. Most of the individual volumes of those are pretty self-contained.
If it’s a trilogy, the middle book often ends on a big climactic cliffhanger or plot twist, and then if the last book never happens (or happens 10 or so years later) then that gets really annoying. Likewise for sets of 5 or 6 or whatever - it often gets through the first “trilogy” or “duology” and then sales are so low that the publisher won’t approve further books to answer all the loose threads and plot hooks the author left dangling for later books to get into. That is less annoying, but still not the best situation.
