The SF Signal Podcast (Episode 012): When Genre Series Overstay Their Welcome + Interview with David J. Williams

2 Comments

1. Paul NYC says:

   October 18, 2010 at 2:23 pm

   Some series are over when they’ve stopped saying anything new. Others are over right from the beginning (at least for me) because I don’t care to wade into them. However, all mileage varies because what doesn’t work for me works incredibly well for a fan of the product. I could read long series a lot more comfortably when I was younger but just don’t have the patience or inclination to continue reading once I realize it really isn’t doing it for me.

   Several that have worn thin for me (not all SF):

   • Dune: I read the first set of prequels (the “House” sub-series) and had no desire to go any further than that. As a matter of fact, I skimmed most of House: Corino just to find out what happens plot wise since I’d pretty much stopped caring about the characters or the lengthy descriptions of dinners and deaths. I’m of a mind to state that anything with “Dune” on it not written by Frank Herbert is an abomination.
   • Star Wars: I excitedly read Zahn’s Heir to the Empire trilogy because of all the hype of it being “authorized” and “canonical” to the larger universe. Although I liked it for the most part, I’ll be damned if I remember anything but snippets of it now. It just didn’t do anything for me nor did it leave me in any way excited about reading any more books set in that universe. I might have read one or two of the Rogue Squadron books but that was about it.
   • Star Trek: I read a bunch of these novels back in my college days when titles like The Entropy Effect, et al. were being published. I pretty much fell off that wagon because there was soon enough product on TV and in the movies to satisfy my hunger for Trek. I recently went to the book store and thumbed through a few of the titles in that series and have to say that either the use of the English language has fallen off or there are no editors looking at these titles before they are sent to the printer.
   • Ray Feist’s Midkemia series: I loved Magician and its two sequels. I absolutely loved the Empire trilogy written with Janny Wurts. After that it just seemed like the same thing over and over again with varying degrees of earthshaking events mixed with scores of innocent deaths. I’ve read more than a dozen of these books up to and including Exile’s Return but the ending of that novel with its thinly-veiled reference to 9/11 left me cold. I may go back to see how the entire series finishes (there is allegedly an ending) but I might not.
   • Andrew Vachss’ Burke series: For those who are not aware, these are hard-boiled/crime novels with a protagonist who is a criminal that basically involves himself in cases revolving around child abuse, abused women, etcetera. Although the series lasted strong through a good number of books, they have lessened in quality as time has gone by. I’ve read maybe half of them and really have little desire to go on. The author is just phoning it in at this point.

   I won’t even go into comics because I have not read any in a long, long time. I tried picking up a few titles during the last year but honestly have no idea what is going on and no desire to try and find out. If it was possible to pick up a bound collection of a particular storyline, I would do that. But I fear that there are so many crossovers and continuations of a story in other books I’ve not read that I would be totally lost. Perhaps a good topic for a future podcast might be whether comic books companies have given up on attracting new customers and are simply cranking out what they think their aging readers might want.

   Reply
2. MikeP says:

   October 18, 2010 at 7:22 pm

   Elvira’s back? Woot! That tidbit alone was worth the price of admission.

    

   Reply