Series' Length

[Moonlight on Water]

After reading ASOIAF, (most of) Wheel of Time, Prince of Nothing, First Law, and several other series, I was wondering...is the length of a series a determining factor when choosing a series to read? I remember not being able to re-treck through all of WoT simply because it's so much and slows down unbearably in the middle. I'm not asking about starting a new, unfinished series necessarily, but simply how much the size of a series influences whether you pick it up or not. As a side note, despite The Second Apocalypse and the First Law saga (stand-alones and second trilogy included) supposedly going to be 8-9 books, I don't feel burdened at all reading or re-reading them due to length, as they are split up into small bites. I almost wish more people would do that, actually.

[Gneisenau]

I found Harry Potter harder and longer to read than ASOIAF, though Harry Potter is about 1 mil words, and ASOIAF is currently 1,7 mil. So for me length is relative.

[Francis Buck]

It's largely dependant on context for me personally, but my knee-jerk reaction is to gravitate towards a smaller series rather than something massive (preferably around three books), unless it's something I've already heard very good things about from people (such as Dune or The Book of the New Sun), or that I became invested in without realizing how long it would become. Series that go into ten-plus books are generally a turn off for me though.

[sologdin]

so, consensus is that it's not the size of the series that matters, but the motion of the notions? though it helps to have an ample sample?

[Francis Buck]

The girth of the test groups should be accounted for, lest we erect any premature conclusions in our haste.

[Switchback]

I prefer, and search out, longer series. I feel like I'd rather lose interest in a series and bail on it than I would get really involved in a series only to have the world stop after 3 books.

[Nathan Stinson]

I have traditionally been drawn to long form stories. Hence I like tv shows better than movies and long book series more than short

[red snow]

I'm cautious about starting ten part series just because i'm reluctant to spend a year only reading one author. i do also become skeptical as to whether they really need that much space to tell a story.

the only massive series i am reding at the moment are shadows of the apt and asioaf. shadows is definitely suffering from bloat and a asioaf is getting out of control.

I think the compromise of a series of trilogies is a good one. It keeps the series focused and allows readers to follow without having to reread or try and remember lots of details.

It definitely works for Bakkerand Abercrombie and mark lawrence seems to be following this model too

[kungtotte]

You know, it all depends for me.

I used to be all about the Sick Epic Fantasy Series, if it weren't six books or more and weighty ones at that I wasn't having it. Then Robert Jordan just kept writing Wheel of Time, and Steven Erikson just kept adding more words into Malazan Book of the Fallen, and I was going half out of my mind waiting for A Dance With Dragons, and I've kind of changed my mind now.

I still enjoy ASOIAF immensely, and I'm working on my re-read of WoT now that the entire series is actually published, but I'm hesitant to jump into long series that aren't finished or pick up new books that look like they might turn into long series. It's just such a gamble and I'm already short on time to read all the things I want to read. So lately I've been looking more and more towards short series (up to ~five books) and one-offs.

What Abercrombie did with his books is pretty clever I think, a trilogy to establish the universe then a series of one-offs set in that universe lets me pick my level of involvement. And although I will read all of the books he writes about the Logenverse I don't feel that sense of crushing obligation I do with a long contiguous series. Also I agree with red snow in that I don't think you need all that many words to describe these stories, even with multi-continent worlds with several parallel plotlines like Malazan or ASOIAF. Also your books don't need to be that long, people! Look at something like Chris Woodings' Tales of the Ketty Jay. Page counts for that series is: 384, 442, 480, and 448. And it's more than enough to tell a captivating story with enough worldbuilding to make it worth your while. You need two of those books to make up a single book in a typical Epic Fantasy series in terms of page count, and Woodings only wrote four books for the entire series.

I know it's not exactly a particularly fair or even apt comparison, but it's an interesting contrast nonetheless. You don't need all the words in the English language to write your series, keep some of them in reserve you know?

Also something that greatly increases the odds of me picking up a (finished) longer series is having it published in anthology form; I've had a lot of bad luck here in Sweden hunting for books where I can find the first, second, and fourth book but not the third and so on.

ETA

I do appreciate the irony of me using more words than anybody else in this thread to promote terseness in authors.

[red snow]

Daniel Abraham's "the long price" tells an entire story covering around 50 years in the same space that Erikson or GRRM tell an installment. He manages to set up a unique magic system and non-european (but slightly asian) world in that amount of space too,

[Migey]

I never shy away from long series, simply because if I like them enough to continue, length won't be an object. I've struggled to read 100 pages in some books far more then 500 pages in others. If a book really grabs me and makes me want to read it, the length is immaterial. Length only starts to be an issue when it comes to rereading, and even then it depends. Wise Man's Fear, for example, is one meaty tome, but it honestly feels about half the length of say, Great Expectations, which I am currently being forced to read for my English course.

Actually, I think length is acceptable relative to either content or enjoyability of reading. Very few authors are for me actually enjoyable to just read prose (as in the simple act of reading them, irrelevant of content), so for me, a book can be as long as it likes as long as there is actual stuff going on and not too much padding.

And I do very much appreciate the value of brevity. Many authors I am very fond of write relatively miniscule books.

[Werthead]

I generally find it to not be an issue: there are excellent ten-volume series and awful one-off novels and vice versa. It's true that there are few very long series that don't feel like they could have done with a bit more editing though. And in some cases some much shorter ones: The Demon Cycle's present-day storyline has crawled to a halt due to the author's insistence on flashbacks of decreasing relevance the further the series goes along. OTOH, Paul Kearney's Monarchies of God feels in places a little rushed at five short (250-350 pages) volumes and each book could easily have been twice the size with much more focus on worldbuilding and subplots. However, the series' relatively short length and tight plot focus is a major part of its appeal.

It's largely dependant on context for me personally, but my knee-jerk reaction is to gravitate towards a smaller series rather than something massive (preferably around three books), unless it's something I've already heard very good things about from people (such as Dune or The Book of the New Sun), or that I became invested in without realizing how long it would become. Series that go into ten-plus books are generally a turn off for me though.

The Book of the New Sun is four volumes, but each volume is pretty slim (I think the longest is 350 pages, and a couple are less than 300). They're also one long novel split up into length, so not quite the same thing. It's really one big novel, and you can buy it now as such.

With Dune I think most people agree to stop after the first one ;) The later books are also sequels, rather than continuations of the same narrative (even though Dune Messiah was written as part of Dune itself).

[Buckwheat]

I do not find the number of volumes in a series as important as the length of a separate volume. Lately, I have been more inclined to start reading shorter books because I do not have a lot of time for reading. If I start reading a series, I do not first check how many volumes it has, but how many pages does the first volume have - if I dislike it, I might just read Book 1 and not bother reading he next ones. If I like it and want to read on, I wait for when I have time to read Book 2.

[Stark Revenge]

I do tend to like longer reads. I rarely read a book under 500 pages now. The only problem I have is when authors start to ramble with no clear direction for their characters and what they're going to do. This was apparent espically in aFfC IMO.

[polishgenius]

I only read series where the total of pages comes to a prime number.

[The_Wanderer]

I generally prefer shorter (trilogies and such), but this year I've read the Wheel of Time and I'm currently working on the Malazan series right now. A big part of deciding to read a longer series are the recommendations that are attached to it. I'm more willing to try a shorter series, without knowing that much about it.

[Stark Revenge]

I only read series where the total of pages comes to a prime number.

So how do you justify reading ASOIAF when the total number of pages of the finished product is as of now still unknown?

[polishgenius]

Who says I've read aSoIaF?

[Goodbye World]

What series has a has a total number of pages that is a prime number?

[sologdin]

start here: http://primes.utm.edu/lists/small/1000.txt

then read series, taking careful count of pages.

let us know when you're done.

and hurry up because PG is tired of waiting on ye.