Next in a series

Sometimes a sequel is not called for.

For reasons we may talk about eventually, our consultant with the large library is sorting through and organizing his books.  Ignoring, for the moment, considerations of what will best fit where and what needs to be easily at hand, he is concentrating first on collecting the same subject together and especially on sorting novels by author.  He has a much larger set by certain writers than he remembered, which is gratifying, since they are of course writers he enjoys.  But he has noticed a certain division in kind among his many-book sets: there are those with different characters, plots and background from one novel to the next (though science-fiction authors, especially, tend to maintain a particular universe) on the one hand, and those who describe the adventures of the same character or group of them on the other.  The former group includes famous names like Dickens and Sir Walter Scott; the latter includes C. S. Forester’s Hornblower series.

Of course authors could do both; for the moment, we’ll just divide the books themselves into series and one-offs (the latter including most trilogies, as being one story that wouldn’t fit into a single volume).  We assert, based on our experience, that there are very few stories that do well in both formats.  That is, something that will work well as a series of adventures happening to a single character (or stable, small set of them) in a variety of situations won’t be as good as an isolated novel.  Conversely, very few novels are actually suited to a sequel, much less a whole set of them.  The novel and the series are just different genres.

We have been disappointed more than once when taking a book from the middle of a series, not having read the others.  The flashbacks can get tedious, or the references to previous events can leave us feeling like we’re not actually part of the group.  Indeed, some actions may be inexplicable or some events unintelligible.  The best, however, will be at least an acceptable read.

More annoying, and more prevalent, are the sequels that should not have appeared.  Most bright ideas and wonderful conceptions that are successful in a single book just get old and uninteresting if repeated.  What, is our unlikely hero saving the world again?

But there are very strong forces acting today to press an author to bring out a sequel to a successful story, and then a sequel to that, until we have a full bookshelf of The Rat-Tail Squad (a name we made up on the spot).  Publishers love it, because they know they have something that’ll sell.  Readers buy it, because otherwise they have to work out what’s worth reading among the stacks of indistinguishable books facing them in the bookshop.  And having found something the public likes, an author with any concern for income is strongly tempted to give them more of it.

It takes a conscious effort to break away from the all-right, but not really good, series.  Are you ready to make it?