Hacker News Reader

Comment by seren | Hacker News Reader

I used to have a similar stance, and I agree on most points. Long series tend to become less and less interesting, and weirder as they go along (Dune, Gormenghast, Hyperion, ...) Maybe it is the novelty that wears off, the author has used his most powerful ideas first, or the last book is written because of children's college tuition. Moreover, even if I enjoy reading, I think that if the author hasn't managed to enclose a proper story in 500-1000 pages, there is probably something that is off.

However, I have recanted my previous position because if every series tend to go downwards, why not reading the first few books? I'd rather enjoy the journey even if the final destination is a bit underwhelming. In the worst case, if the latter books are absolutely atrocious, I can live with reading a quick summary on Wikipedia.

View on HN

> I think that if the author hasn't managed to enclose a proper story in 500-1000 pages, there is probably something that is off.

I really don't agree with that:

1. a series can be way more than a single story, The Dresden Files is 15 volumes of 300~500 pages each (let's call it 6000 pages), each story is mostly free-standing but they follow chronologically, it's a very episodic format if you will. Discworld has similar thematic subsets.

2. some stories just don't fit in in 1000 pages. Malazan Book of the Fallen suffered from a lack of editing at times and could probably have been a fair bit shorter, but not 10000 pages shorter, not by a long shot, the depth and breadth of the subject just wouldn't allow it.

> a series can be way more than a single story, The Dresden Files is 15 volumes of 300~500 pages each (let's call it 6000 pages), each story is mostly free-standing but they follow chronologically, it's a very episodic format if you will.

Heck, while ASOIAF has an overarching story that is, as yet, incomplete, it has a number of complete and compelling (and, in some cases, overlapping or parallel) complete stories within it, some of which are neatly contained in particular books, some of which are not.

Its one thing I think that makes ASOIAF more satisfying (despite the delays between volumes) than WoT.

This is OBVIOUSLY my 2 cents...

Re: 1. I think this is a different thing. If you want to tell a bunch of stories that are linked, that's fine. If you want to tell one giant story then at least have a plan. There's no indication that Jordan had "a plan". (I think this is the point the great-grandparent is making)

I seem to recall when the first book came out, that it was planned as a trilogy. After the second book, it was going to be a double trilogy. I don't think Jordan's overall plan reached his final 12-book estimate until book 8 or 9, and Sanderson couldn't even fit the final material he picked up into two books, so it hit 13 by the end.

Now, there's nothing wrong with that in general. Sometimes you write an outline, and in the process of penning down a quarter of the story and fleshing out the characters and setting you come up with more and more ideas. There's two ways out of that: either you let the story get control of the writing, resulting in a historical-feeling narrative with no clear overall plot, or you take the time to edit and revise what you have into smaller, self-contained stories.

I vastly prefer the latter, especially if there _are_ hints to an overarching plot. 13-book meanderings like Wheel of Time don't do it for me these days, but Dresden Files (15 books and ~20 short stories) or the Honor Harrington series (13 books, plus 18 spinoff short stories or novels)? I will chain-read those like crack, and still feel satisfied almost regardless of where they stop.

> I think that if the author hasn't managed to enclose a proper story in 500-1000 pages, there is probably something that is off.

I think there are 2 different complaints here depending on how you interpret "proper":

A) It takes too long to get to a conclusion of a series long plot.

B) The series long plot is bad because the author did not plan ahead and just cobbled it together after the fact.

masklinn gave a good response to A.

> Long series tend to become less and less interesting, and weirder as they go along

Malazan Book of the Fallen. ~3.325.000 words (200-400k per book) and the best series I've read in my life. Not the easiest to read with pretty complex story lines, somewhat weird timelines (see the Chronological order [1]) and certainly not the easiest book for a non-native speaker (never did I have to look up that many words) but rewarding and gripping until the very end.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/sXBYA.jpg

Dune, sure, I get it (especially when his son took over). Hyperion though? If you count both parts as one series it's 4 books. Even at pretty respectable page contents, they don't compare to a series with 11 (? or more) books, many of which came pretty close to 1000 pages!

It did get a little weird there at the end, but still pretty good books. And nowhere near as bad as WOT, or hell, not even as bad as the Sword of Truth series.

Hyperion is mostly OK, and should maybe not be in the list, but the third book, Endymion, is basically a giant chase, and I found it weaker than the first two.

For my defense, I have not read WoT or Sword of Truth because of their terrible reputation. But I have read the Belgariad, I can't really say it is getting worse, because it was not really good in the first place.

Totally agree with your impressions of the Belgariad. I had a friend that just loved it and it was kinda... meh. I'm also with you on Endymion, the second part of the series was seriously lacking the same quality of the first two books.

Also, for whatever it's worth, I've never read ASOIAF, though I've tried a couple times. Never could get into it. I kept getting the whole WOT vibe from it too (too many characters, too many subplots).

In the case of ASOIAF, it seems like in spite of the mortality of the characters, GRRM has simply built up too many plot lines, too many characters to follow. The many narratives made the first few books compelling and full of perspective on a complex event- but the scope of the event continues to grow...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com