Yes, an Author Can Write Too Many Books

I love a good series, in fact I read series over "one-offs" almost exclusively. I think it may be because I become attached to the characters and the story and constantly crave more. The end of Harry Potter was a devastating moment, I experienced a minor period of depression while I searched for a new series to cling to. So yeah, I guess that makes me a stage 5 clinger.

For these reasons, it strikes me odd that when I'm reading a series, I eventually get bored with it. I'm not talking eventually as in 8 books, or 10 books, but there are some whoppers out there. Laurell K. Hamilton writes the Anita Blake series which now spans some 20 volumes (as of June '11). I stopped reading a few years ago and just can't seem to want to start reading again. I loved the series, I was enthralled by it for some time. However it seems toward the end where I'd stopped reading the series began to dry up, the plot seems to get tired. You can only fill so many pages with sex before it starts to feel repetitive and like it's there to fill space. Another author, Christine Feehan, has done the same with the Dark series, which I really enjoyed at one point, before it grew past 20 books and started to bore me.

I love these authors, and their stories, but as much as I hate to admit, I think book series do need to have some clearly defined end point where some major event happens or a bad guy is defeated and the series stops. Perhaps leave room to spin another series (like Tamora Pierce did with the Circle of Magic series, and even that came to a close, though she continues to work in that world), but I'm of the opinion that series do need to end, preferably before they're 30 books long and counting.

I know I say this now, and I do mean it, but I know, too, that when I'm about to finish the next series I'm invested in I'll be longing for more, wishing it didn't have to end. I think though, that's the magical part of a series, that they do usually end. It will take you on an adventure to unknown, faraway places where you can battle mythical creatures with magic and crazy weapons. When it's over the story gets to lay fallow, allowing us to recommend it, allowing it to gain a certain following, allowing the fans a chance to re-read and learn all the little details we missed the first time.

I think that's what I miss most about those incredibly long series, the inability to re-read. At 20 books, at a book a week (I do a book in a day when I have a full day, but that rarely happens anymore), it could take almost 6 months to re-read something that large. Further, after so many installments details and facts and names and places start to jumble, I have a great memory and yet I have a rough time remembering some details after the 10th book.

Since I can't stop authors and publishers from over-writing, I guess I'll have to simply enjoy a series for as long as it keeps my interest. If nothing else, they're great clingers between Paolini's long spans of time between books.