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12-21-2004, 09:36 AM
|  | Epinions Members | | Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Granite State
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I find myself drawn to series fiction. I love the way you can revisit a favorite character over and over again, or in some cases even "grow up" with a story. Some series fiction is only good for mind-numbing brain candy (Kay Scarpetta Series, Sue Grafton's Alphabet Series, Lillian Braun's Cat Mystery Series and the like), some are just great books (a lot of fantasy and sci-fi series fiction fits here for me) and some is great literature (Narnia, anyone?).
What are some of your favorite series? Are they finished yet? Do you read them all at once or one by one as they are printed? What series disappointed you the most in the final book? What series had the most appropriate ending?
At the top of my long list of favorite series fiction:
Chronicles of Narnia (in the ORGINAL order, TYVM, not the "new" order that books book two first!) by CS Lewis (complete series)
The Piers Anthony series with Juxtaposition in it (I always forget the official name of it) (complete series)
Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin (not yet a complete series)
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King (complete series, finally)
Harry Potter series by JK Rowling (not yet complete)
I'm sure there is more, but that is what comes to mind right now.... |
12-21-2004, 09:49 AM
|  | Insert witty comment here | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Alabama
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 Me, me, me, me! And I *wholeheartedly* agree with you on the Narnia thing!
Off the top of my head
Piers Anthony's Xanth (although I think they're beginning to get a little bit tired, or maybe I'm just tired of them)
Piers Anthony's Incarnations (finished)
Harry Potter
The Cat Who by Braun
Anne MacCaffrey - several of her series - the Pern series, the Freedom's Choice series, the Rowan series
Sherlock Holmes
Nero Wolfe
Hercule Poirot (been a looong time since I've read any of these, though)
Greeley's "Nuala Anne" mysteries
Douglas Adam's Hitchiker's Guide series
Unlike Eris, I read as they come out. And I go nuts waiting for new ones sometimes! But there is always something to read, so I can wait fairly patiently. Usually.  I'm like you, I like getting to really "know" the characters, all their little intricacies and eccentricities and details. Series fiction is by far my favorite! 
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12-21-2004, 10:52 AM
|  | Law Talkin' Guy | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Trenton, NJ
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Reading the Nero Wolfe books now; they're just incredibly well-done.
The Jack Ryan books.
The Flashman novels.
The Aubrey-Maturin novels (the best historical novels ever).
Harry Turtledove's alt-history books (although he's an awful writer, just awful).
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12-21-2004, 11:29 AM
|  | In Spanish, I'm Marijuana | | Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Lawn-Guy-Land, NY
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Chronicles of Narnia
Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys (most people seem to skip the two sequels)
Heidi's two sequels (written by the original author's translator, but still good)
As an adult, I don't do series. Dunno why.
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It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.~ Bono |
12-21-2004, 11:33 AM
|  | I'm Sparkly in Real Life | | Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: It's not heaven, it's Iowa
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The Green Mile was first released as a series. I ate it up like candy.
Dark Tower, Narnia are the ones that come to mind first.
Curtis, there was a series of fantasy novels that you wrote about on eps that I bought one of the books. Can't remember the title or the author (something to do with a bird???) but they looked really, really good (no I have not started them yet.  )
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12-21-2004, 11:38 AM
|  | thread-killa | | Join Date: Dec 2000
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William Gibson's Neuromancer and sequels
Piers Anthony's Mode books (not sure if they are done)
Madeleine L'Engle (you can say all of them since she weaves most of her characters in a large web)
just starting the Earthsea books and so far, so good.
L. Frank Baum's Oz books |
12-21-2004, 11:54 AM
|  | huh? | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Palo Alto, CA
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Quote: | emeleel said
Anne MacCaffrey - several of her series - the Pern series, the Freedom's Choice series, the Rowan series | Hear hear - Anne McCaffrey is the queen of series fiction - so many different lines - add the Crystal Singer series to those above for me.
For me, add:
Fletch
Harlan Cobon (Myron Bolitar)
Steve Hamilton (Alex McKnight)
Sue Grafton
Stephen White
Narnia, way back when
Great Brain (about the same time as Narnia) |
12-21-2004, 12:02 PM
| | Law Talkin' Guy | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Trenton, NJ
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I had forgotten about the Great Brain books. Good stuff.
Also -- and I think this was what Lynn referenced -- the Phillip Pullman "Dark Materials" books. (Which are largely about daemons, which can be birds.)
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12-21-2004, 12:03 PM
|  | Rockin', Rollin', Ritin' | | Join Date: Jul 2000
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No Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum) fans out here?
I'll have to mull over my other choices. |
12-21-2004, 01:43 PM
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I do like the Stephanie Plum books, but I've only read a couple - it took me forever just to find the first one! I read a free 'sampler' of the first eight of her books and absolutely adored it, but then could find #1. Finally found it at the library book sale. Now I keep forgetting to look for the others.
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12-21-2004, 02:36 PM
|  | Geeky goof | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Boston, Mass.
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Definitely Hitchhiker's, Narnia, and The Great Brain series. For me, add Tolkien's LOTR, Terry Pratchett's Discworld books (ongoing, I think), and Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles. For the most part I read them all at once, though with the more intense/serious ones I have to take breaks. |
12-21-2004, 05:00 PM
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I like the Plum series, but I pretty much skipped my extensive list of brain candy type series fiction - that would include Grafton, Elizabeth George, Laurie King, a few Nora Roberts from the recent mystery stuff, and much more.
I tend to read them as they come out, except with Zelazny and his Amber series, which I didn't find out about until well after he was done, or books from the past like Chronicles of Narnia.
And I can't believe I forgot Hitchhiker!!! Duh! |
12-21-2004, 06:38 PM
|  | Hot Lips | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: I'm not sure
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I was into Patricia Cornwell for a while.
But--this brought back wonderful memories of my preteen years--Cherry Ames, student nurse. Oh, I so wanted to be her.
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12-21-2004, 07:02 PM
|  | Epinions Members | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Richmond Hill, GA
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Favorites from my youth:
Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Narnia
Favorites from recent years:
Narnia and Lemony Snicket
As for Lemony...yes! I gobble these up as fast as Daniel Handler can crank 'em out.
Never could get into the Harry Potter series. I only lasted one-and-a-half books before I lost interest. |
12-21-2004, 07:45 PM
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Aubrey-Maturin definitely. It's a somewhat uneven series. A very few books (can't for the life of me remember which ones) were a bit on the plodding side, most very very good, a few were flat-out great. I've so far read all 20 of the completed novels but not yet the three chapters written for the 21st novel that O'Brian was working on when he died.
I also love Tim Cockey's Hitchcock Sewell series. Have so far read only the first two of Andrew Vachss's Burke series but it looks promising. Shamefully, I've so far only read the first of the Flashman books (which was excellent).
And I've been meaning for a long time to start Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series but haven't gotten around to it.
Alan Furst's WW2 novels aren't a series per se but they have a lot of characters that appear in more than one of the books. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've touted Furst here several times before but can't pass up the opportunity to do it again. One could potentially start at several different places in the Furst universe but Night Soldiers is probably as good a place to start as any. Do it today.  |
12-21-2004, 09:49 PM
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Hmm...
I'm into a few of them but have been getting into the dark fantasy stuff lately.
Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter is pretty good (but the last book only felt like half a book with lots of padding)
Also Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series which I dug even more than that one. Neat sense of humor, good pacing, reasonably fresh tone...
The series by Wm. Mark Simmons (Dead on my Feet is one of the books--I can't quite recall the other one) is quite good too. It has a similar ironish (not quite ironic:P) tone to it as the Dresden Files series and some fun cultural references spicing up the vampire stuff.
Another series that I got into was the Renquist series by Mick Farren. I suppose that the series is finished now (I think four books) but it is pretty good.
The series that I just couldn't get into was the one by L.A. Banks (Minion, Awakening...). It is a kinda urban vampire riff on Buffy (I am a Buffy fan I suppose but only since I've been watching the DVD's). Basically it seemed as if it was using the Buffy metalegend as too much of a base (with a 'black' feel to it) and because of this didn't feel the need to really develop things as much as needed.
The Dhampir series (Barb Hendee) isn't bad... My jury is still out on it though (not contemporary like the others though.
Hmmmmm... Other than that sort, I dig Honor Harrington by David Weber (sorta a female Horatio Hornblower in space)... Ummmmm... I like Horatio Hornblower too... C.S. Forster
The Drake Majistral series by Walter John Williams is quite good too. The three books that are in it are all fun romps through space operaesque climes.
The 16... series by Eric Flint and others is pretty decent. A shared universe deal about a town that gets sent back in time and how the past is altered because of it.
I like the 'March...' series by David Weber and John Ringo too.
The Stardoc series by S.L. Viehl is decent too but I don't really care for her latest (not in the series) and the parallel book in the same universe but not in the series is OK at least. I like pretty much anything by David Gemmell but he has a few series out there (Druss the Legend series is one of them).
I enjoy reading Alan Dean Foster's stuff and some of his series are pretty good.
Honestly it seems like a lot of series start off well (or at least once they get going they work well) but then get bogged down--either with multiple characters or just the story in general. The Wheel of Time series or the other one that is kinda like that (can't remember the name off hand) and I could dig up a few more examples of stuff like that (Xanth).
Shrug
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm... When I was younger I read the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, the Tarran Wanderer series and lots of others.
Ander |
12-21-2004, 09:50 PM
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Most of the rest are SF/Fantasy stuff btw. |
12-21-2004, 09:53 PM
| | In Spanish, I'm Marijuana | | Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Lawn-Guy-Land, NY
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Quote: | thinkerlady said
I was into Patricia Cornwell for a while.
But--this brought back wonderful memories of my preteen years--Cherry Ames, student nurse. Oh, I so wanted to be her. | ME TOO! A neighbor across the street had those and Trixie Belden. After her second child turned out to be a boy, she gave me a big box with about two dozen Cherry Ames and four Trixie Belden. Trixie was later resurrected (briefly) in the late 70's but Cherry Ames I never found, even at garage sales. But I was determined I was going to be a nurse. Then Mom's MS got worse and I had to do nursing tasks at home and discovered it was not the job for me.
I'd forgotten about Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys too.
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MJ
It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.~ Bono |
12-21-2004, 09:56 PM
| | Law Talkin' Guy | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Trenton, NJ
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Oh. And the Richard Sharpe novels, by Bernard Cornwell. Read some of the Hornblower books, too, but haven't rushed out to buy those I haven't read.
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12-21-2004, 11:24 PM
| | thread-killa | | Join Date: Dec 2000
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Guess who's back??? Trixie Belden The Bobbsey Twins
I saw them when I was at Target. I'm going to get Beanie started on Trixie for her birthday... I started reading them when I was five too, and she's going to be fighting me for them. *sigh* I wanted to BE Trixie. |
12-23-2004, 08:55 PM
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Quote: | anderclayton said
Hmm...
I'm into a few of them but have been getting into the dark fantasy stuff lately. | Hmmmm... Another vampire sorta series that I've been reading is the Vampire Nation one. A kinda post-apocalyptic alien vampire (western-style as opposed to urban though) series. It isn't bad.
Yeah yeah yeah lots and lots of vampire stuff but that's what I've been into lately :P I'm trying out a couple more right now. Anyone else into that sort of thing and have any leads for more? (not Anne Rice:p)
Ander |
12-23-2004, 09:11 PM
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Hmmmmmmmm...
A few more...
The Ukiah Oregon series (by Wen Spencer) is good. SFish mystery-style book but almost in the dark fantasy sort of thing (he is kinda a were-type and grew up with wolves).
The Liaden series is also good.
So is the Miles Vorsigan series (Bujold).
So are the FitzChivalry ones by Robin Hobb (aka Meghan Lindholm).
The Hope series by Feintuch is quite good.
Sigh I seem to read a *lot* of series's. I have at least half a dozen more though. The fact that at best they come out with only a volume every six months or so (usually only one a year) helps to increase the number of them though I've also read some decent standalones (The War of the Flowers by Tad Williams is really good, the standalones by Neil Gaiman are quite good...)
Ander |
01-10-2005, 08:36 AM
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I think we've hit the series age. Question | |
