Today’s question: Series. Do you collect any series? Do you read series books? Fantasy? Mystery? Science fiction? Religious? Other genre? Do you use the series feature in LT to help you find new books or figure out what you might be missing from a series?
I love a good series. According to LibraryThing, I have at least one book from 296 series, covering 544 books in total. That’s nearly half my library. I think that this is probably due to my somewhat large collection of fantasy – almost all fantasy books come in series and I quite like it that way. I also have a fair number of historical romance novels, most of which come in series form too, although each can normally stand alone. I’m impressed by the amount of knowledge people have contributed to the series feature on LibraryThing; there are many books that I own that I didn’t even realize were part of any series, like Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. Who knew?
I like to read series because they allow me to form a greater attachment to characters I can revisit over and over again. In fantasy novels, I like that the complexity of the story can grow with each book, but I only like that if the series is going to end someday. I have one in particular that has left me hanging for a while now, which is George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. He’s still alive, which is nice, but he still hasn’t finished the fifth book of the series, which was supposed to be imminently published after number four. At the rate he’s going, it’s easy to worry that he won’t finish it and even more so that the final books will never live up to our expectations. He hasn’t got it all planned out for the wondrous Brandon Sanderson (or someone like him) to take over like Robert Jordan did. This is a shame because the first three books of the series were probably the best I’ve ever read in fantasy.
So I guess that’s the only pitfall. I want a conclusion! Otherwise, series are a yes for me.
I have the same feelings about series – the same reason I like watching TV shows rather than movies. I like developing attachments to characters.
Wow! You do have a lot of series books. Most of the series I follow are mysteries.
I love series for the characters too! I am so attached to Edward, Bella, and Jacob right now from the Twilight series. I will surely miss them when I finish book 4, which sill be soon as I’m 300 pages in.
I’ve resisted the urge to read GRRM precisely because of the whole incomplete ending thing. I’ve heard fantastic things about A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, and I definitely want to gobble it up someday, but I’ll be waiting until all the books are available.
Like you have said, I like to be able to follow the characters from book to book!
Here’s a link to my first Tuesday Thingers post:
http://wendisbookcorner.blogspot.com/2008/10/tuesday-thingers.html
Thanks for stopping by my blog! I’m sad to say that I have not started The Baroque Cycle yet. It’s not the reviews (I have a lot of friends who are huge Neal Stephenson fans), but the size. I have such a stack of books to be reviewed that I just can’t seem to get started on something quite so weighty. Eventually, though.
WOW – I think you must be the winner
That is also why I love series…you get to know the characters so well and live their life with them.
Wow! touching almost 300 series in your library?! That’s the highest stat I’ve seen in reading these TuesdayThingers posts this week.
I only have a few series (partial or complete). If I start one, I have to read in order (and usually read the entire series, even if I don’t own the books)