Why it is ok to give up on a book series

For the last few months I’ve been working my way through Phillip José Farmer’s The Dungeon, a shared-world fantasy series that was published from 1988 to 1990.

Let me go back a quick step here:

1) A shared world fantasy series is one where different authors continue the story forward from novel to novel, think of it like an elaborate, and book series length, game of telephone.

2) I started reading this particular series because one of my favourite Canadian authors, Charles de Lint, wrote two instalments (Volumes 3 and 5)

3) I tend to be a sucker for series, whether the 50+ books in the Dragonlance series, the expanded Universe Star Wars Novels, or the increasingly depressing, but always engaging Wild Cards series (edited by Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin)

So a series really has to let me down for me to decide to jump off during the last book...

Strongly influenced by pulp magazine stories of the 1920s and 30s and involving everything from dimension hopping to dinosaurs and spaceships, The Dungeon, at first glance seemed pretty tailor-made for me. I've read a number of series with different contributing authors and when done correctly,, shared world series can be fascinating and exciting for a reader who wants to get different perspectives on the same world.

The Dungeon series starts out all right, and then with each new author just seemed to get better and better, yes de Lint was a high point for me, as he found ways to make the stories move faster and also came up with some very interesting plot twists and great character moments.

The problem actually came when I hit about page fifty in the final volume. Author Richard Lupoff (who wrote the first book in the series) seems to have either not read the rest of the series or simply decided to ignore it - he comments about the adventures of the protagonist, Clive Folliot by going into in-depth description of his adventures in book one, and then simply mentioning there were other adventures as well.

The book seemed incredibly dismissive of the rest of the series and as each book ended on a cliffhanger, also managed the ruin the one presented at the end of book five by IGNORING THE ENTIRE THING! Seriously, I could have finished the book and had worse things to say, but after being figuratively slapped in the face by the first few chapters, I decided it would make more sense to state the following.

It is ok to put down a book you don't like - even if you've read everything else in the series and this book promises to give you all the answers you've been craving since you began. The best part about any entertainment medium is that as the consumer (reader, player, audience, etc.) you have the right and the ability to simply say

"No Thanks".

Sorry for my rough words (as a Canadian they may be less rough than yours, but trust me, they're pretty bad here).

Things I've Noticed: Catching up with your old hobbies can be strange

We've all had it, that bizarre meeting with an ex you dated way back in your childhood - I'm talking about elementary or possibly as late as junior high before dating got really complicated, someone who you haven't really thought of in years and then bang - there they are with kids, a husband and a life all of their own. The same thing just happened to me, but instead of with a girl, it was with the world of Dragonlance.

Back in grades eight and nine, I was into role playing games. I played Dragonlance (pictured right) or Robotech with my friends every weekend, watched the Dungeons and Dragons animated series (thankfully I went through my D&D phase well before the movie came out), and read a lot of sword and sorcery books, my favourites being the Dragonlance series.

Basically, for those of you who don't know, Dragonlance is a shared world series of books that follow many adventurers through a world called Krynn. There are elves, dwarves, wizards, etc., and for a time, these were my favourite books in the world. I had just come out of a big horror movie phase and my junior high kept all of the Stephen King books on a hidden shelf behind the circulation desk so for the time being, Dragonlance was all I had.

But, as with many things, I got older, moved to other books and Role Playing Games and didn't really think of Dragonlance that much after the fact. Sure it got mentioned in some of my posts as a nod to my childhood, but that was about it.

A couple weeks ago, one of my book clubs selected the book Ashes and Amber by Margaret Weiss as our February selection, so I sat down to revisit the genre equivalent of one of my childhood sweet hearts.

The book is pretty darn good - the world is fleshed out nicely and the adventures are fun, plus this specific novel is a sort of merging of horror and the Sword & Sorcery genres, which appeals to me a lot. I was so impressed by how this book was going, that I thought to my self that maybe I should give Dragonlance another try, I read at least 20 of the novels when I was younger, it should be pretty easy to catch up.

So I went online and asked, How many books are there in the Dragonlance series? The answer brought me to this page which gave me this answer:

[There are] well over 100 at the time of this writing.

Wow. That is a lot of books, so I went to Wikipedia, where I learned that Dragonlance is one of the most popular shared worlds in fiction (right up there with Star Wars and Star Trek). It was at this point that I realized that my childhood hobby had not stopped when I left it 20 years ago, that for the last two decades it had had a life all of its own. The heroes I loved had gotten married, had kids and now those kids were the ones adventuring across the world.

So, in the end I'm happy for Dragonlance, we had a good thing for a few years way back, and I feel pretty good that the series continues to thrive. I have fond memories of our time together, and sometimes I like to think back to the original main characters, the Heroes of the Lance (pictured below), and wonder what they got up to.

Things I've Noticed #6: 80% of Fantasy series are pointless

Growing up in the Prairie Provinces of Canada with bad asthma and where winter lasts more than half the year, I spent a lot of time indoors. While the other kids were skiing, skating, and having snowball fights, I spent most of my time doing a lot of reading, and although Horror and SF where my favourites growing up fantasy series definitely had a special place with me.

Both of my parents loved fantasy books, so you could say I have the love of Fantasy in my blood (True fact - my Dad originally

wanted to name me Conan - the fact that I ended up with at a career in libraries would have ended me). The Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, and The Xanth Series were huge favourites of mine, and when I say huge I mean those three series alone took up most of my bookshelves.

Now, just to clarify my complaining, I am not talking about episodic series, where the main characters go on different adventures (Farfhd and the Gray Mouser or Conan the Barbarian). I like these books and many of them are still favourites of mine.

The Fantasy series I really have a problem with are the "Quest" series, which basically cut and paste from other, better books. This quest fiction, wherein some evil takes over a world, and a band of plucky youths my travel the land collecting parts of a fantastic treasure to ultimately defeat the villain is repetitive and pointless (The Sword of Shanara is a complete rip-off of The Lord of the Rings - I liked the rest of the series, but that first book shamelessly steals from Tolkein). Author Neil Gaiman actually calls this cut-and-paste process "plot coupons" and explains it very nicely here.

I think that unless the author actually has a story that MUST be told in more than 10 sequels they should go out and try something new. Heck, I would even be happy if they told other stories in their own world - I'm a huge Terry Pratchett fan, but if you break down his Discworld series into books about each character, the numbers are actually pretty conservative.

In the end, the best fantasy stories can still use the standard plots, but they do it from a new angle, or bend the rules to dazzle the readers (Fables, by Bill Willingham is a wonderful example). As of late my favourite Fantasy books are definitely stand alone ones (Neverwhere), or series that seem to be going somewhere - but in their own unique way (Percy Jackson and the Olympians).

You owe it to Yourself #2: Genre Hopping

Like most teenagers, I was pretty opinionated.

Horror fiction was awesome, Romance fiction was not. Movies with explosions were cool, movies with emotion and dialogue were not. Dragonlance was awesome, Forgotten Realms was not. The most important thing of all was this... Stephen King was cool, Louis L'Amour was that western writer my mom though was cool, and therefore definitely, definitely was not.

And like most teenagers, I was not shy about saving my piece. Picture me in Grade Eight, wearing my Coke (TM) T-Shirt, blue jeans and sneakers. Kind of a scrawny kid with freckles and dark hair that stuck out at all angles. Most days I'd be holding some Role-Playing Game manual (D&D or Robotech were my favourites - more on those later), as well as whichever novel had most recently grabbed my attention. At that point it was probably something by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman, as the Dragonlance series was just beginning to blow my freakin' mind.

Now if you were looking for an opinion on a western writer, isn't this exactly the kind of kid you would ask?

"Louis L'Amour?" I'd say in my know-it-all thirteen year-old voice, "why would I read something written by Louis the Love?" Yup, I was full of witty statements backed by my knowledge of junior high French.

Fast forward about a decade. I'm now 23 years old, married, and working at a video store. I've spent the last ten years of my life reading horror, SF, fantasy and comic books and am looking for a change. So one day I ask my mom if she's got anything good to read.

"Well there's always Louis L'Amour." She states. My mom has his complete works in her basement. The collection is massive, I mean this guy wrote nearly a hundred novels, more than a dozen books of short stories as well as a couple non-fiction books and books of poetry. For some reason I decide; Why not? I'll give the guy a try.

And let me tell you something. Louis L'Amour is the MAN! This guy's books are filled with action, adventure, romance, and some of the coolest guys I've ever had the pleasure to have read about. Two quick examples:

Tyrell Sackett, a lawman in the 1860's who when called by another man to draw, walks right up to him, guaranteeing them both certain death if they shoot and slapping the other guy across the face!

Mathurin Kerbouchard, a twelfth century runaway who in one novel become a galley slave, pirate, scholar, doctor, and alchemist and travels from England to Alamut, the assassins fortress in Persia.

I'm not sure which way I most benefited from reading the works of Mr. L'Amour. My reading horizons were widened, It was the first time I read all of an author's works in publication order, and I was able to show myself that my mom can pick some pretty great writers.

I guess I'd have to go with the last one. So here's what I'd like you to do this time; step outside of your comfort zone, pick a genre you are not necessarily familiar with and give it a chance. You might just find that some of the books you've turned your nose up to may actually end up being your favourites. Come on, you owe it to yourself.

Thanks Mom.