(Ha ha, I guess I’m writing a series of posts about series fiction.)
Hello, Saloners! I hope you had a great week. I’ve been miserable with a virus that went through the entire family. I have a feeling it was swine flu, but whatever.
Anyway, I’ve been continuing to think about reading series. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure any of my favorite books aren’t in a series! Childhood favorites, certainly (as Kate pointed out in her comment). And adult favorites, too. But I can also think of many examples of series that just peter out, where later books don’t fulfill the promise of earlier ones. Movies, too. It’s a rare sequel that’s as good as the original, and an even rarer sequel that’s better. (Can anyone think of an example besides Aliens?)
I’m sad to say the Sir John Fielding mysteries are starting to peter out that way. I was really excited about Watery Grave, especially because it has Age of Sail stuff in it (the murder victim was a captain), but it’s starting to get on my nerves and I probably won’t finish it. The problem is, now that the orphan-typesetter-narrator has a secure place in Sir John’s household there isn’t that overarching “what will happen to Jeremy” question to keep me going. And since that suspense isn’t there, I’m better able to read critically and notice anachronisms (especially, I think, with regard to attitudes about sex) and dubious plot twists. Furthermore, the characters aren’t really changing or growing that much. There needs to be some kind of forward movement, some kind of growth, something more than just another murder to solve.
So, extrapolating from that, let’s say that for a series to be sustainable it has to have plot arcs and/or character developments that continue beyond the individual books. Otherwise it just becomes formulaic and boring. For example…
- Narnia books: The main character, really, is Narnia (or Aslan). In fact, I’m not sure I’d even call the books a series. More like a big novel broken up into seven volumes. I know C.S. Lewis didn’t anticipate that there would be sequels when he wrote the first one, but you’d never guess that, would you?
- The Dark is Rising: Like the Narnia books, the protagonists vary from book to book. The main “character” really is the good vs. evil theme, the Arthurian legends, and the idea of Old Ones. It too feels like a single plot broken up into five volumes.
- Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter: I’m not a huge fan of either of these, but the principle holds. Both series have one overarching goal (destroy ring/Voldemort) and it just takes a few volumes to get there.
- Laura Ingalls: Well, in some ways these are a series within a series since most of the books are so episodic (i.e. individual chapters read like short stories instead of part of a larger plot) — in fact, this is why I never caught on to them as a kid. However, there is plenty of character growth, and I think that’s at the root of their appeal. Same with Anne of Green Gables, Betsy-Tacy, etc.
- The best mystery series have overarching plotlines too. I mean, the Lord Peter Wimsey books don’t really get good until Harriet Vane gets introduced. And admit it, you keep reading No. 1 Ladies because you want to know if she’s ever gonna actually marry Mr. Whatshisname, right?
- I can’t write a post about series fiction without mentioning my beloved Aubrey-Maturin books. They have overarching plotlines galore (Ledward & Wray, Capt. A’s financial difficulties, Dr. M’s love for Diana Villiers, just to name a few), and plenty of character growth as well.
What do you think? Can you think of examples one way or the other?
11 Comments
Even as I was reading it, I thought the fifth book of the Harry Potter series had been inserted into the series. J.K. Rowling had her overarching plot worked out ahead of time, I thought, but the pressure to add another book to the series must have been so great that this book had been shoe-horned in to the sequence to drag out the Potter mania. It just didn’t advance the overarching plot the way other books had, in my opinion.
I’m currently “reading” the audiobook The Girl Who Played With Fire, sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. One of the reviews say it is better than the first novel (which was terrific) and I agree. The reader is still discovering surprises about the complex central character, with her hidden past. In addition to the overarching plot, the specific plot of this sequel builds on situations the author set up in the first novel. A good example for your theory.
Thanks for stopping by my Sunday Salon. I appreciated your comments.
I’ve always liked Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley series of mysteries, because Lynley et al have their own independent story line, and their characters grow and progress throughout all the mysteries. Same with Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks.
As a child, I loved the Betsy Tacy series — I’d like to re-read them I think :)
I’m horrible with series books. But I admit, I love Narnia and LOTR. The last series I remember reading back to back is the Stephanie Plums by Evanovich.
Ha ha! How could I forget about Stephanie Plum? I read, like, ten of them in a row. :-) They are kind of formulaic but soooooo fun!
I hear that Godfather 2 was pretty good. I’ve never seen it.
I LOVED Kate Thompson’s first book Switchers. Her second was boringly mediocre and her third, though better than the second, suffered from being too overtly political.
And then there are series that never finish because the author dies. It’s hard to work up the determination to finish the Gormenghast books when I will never know how it was supposed to end.
Hope you’re feeling better, Julie. Two of my daughters aren’t feeling well. I’m hoping they’re ready to go back to school tomorrow.
Hmm, it seems like the only series I can think of (other than the ones you’ve mentioned from childhood) are mystery ones. And even then, some of them, like Agatha Christie, can be read as individual books (reading in order isn’t necessary).
Oh yeah, I remember one series I really enjoyed as a kid were the “Oz” books by L. Frank Baum. I would have to re-read them to see if they have plot arcs or not.
I came here from Veronica Mitchell’s place because I saw that you’re an INTJ. I have a long-standing commitment to subscribe to the blog of any INTJ I find, and it has served me well.
I love Aunt Sara’s comment about Book 5 of Harry Potter. I find it really difficult to distinguish books 5 and 6 in my mind – they just blur together, both of them set between the return of Voldemort and the final confrontation, with not much happening to advance the plot in either one. In fact, when I saw the movie version of Order of the Phoenix I came out complaining about how much they had left out – “They didn’t even put in the Half-Blood Prince!” Oh, yeah, that’s a whole other book.
Re: your comment at my place – I’m not even an INTJ – just an INFJ admirer. (I am married to one, though.)
Last spring I read the Starbridge series by Susan Howatch. I had never heard of this author prior to picking up Scandalous Risks at a thrift store for 69 cents. After reading it and absolutely loving it, I discovered that it was the fourth book in a six book series. So I started at the beginning and read all six books in order, including Scandalous Risks again. Reading the first three books gave me a lot of history on characters I first came to know by reading Scandalous Risks. I enjoyed Scandalous Risks even more the second time around because of the background of the first three books. Each book in the series focuses on one main character and each of those people also appear in the other books. Susan Howatch is so fun in how she skillfully weaves many interesting lives together to tell each tale. The center of each book is Starbridge–an ecclesiastical community in England. We meet archdeacons, bishops, deans, curates, psychics, devout believers and agnostics. One character is a new priest in the first book, a bishop in the last book. The series spans approximately 30 years. Although the plot is obviously different in each book, as it centers around an individual life, the overarching themes are God, the church, morality, sex and father/son relationships. It’s a potent combination and Susan Howatch handles it wisely. She is never preachy–this is not “Christian fiction”, thankfully! I liked some of the books in the series more than others. I believe Scandalous Risks is the best. I would recommend to someone to start there and if you like what you read, go back and start at the first book in the series. You probably will want to read Scandalous Risks again when you get to it chronologically. Oops! Probably the point of your post wasn’t to encourage people to gush about their favorites series, but I guess I couldn’t help myself.