What other fantasy books do YOU read?

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Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Last night I was talking about how some lengthy serial fantasy works seem to decline in quality the longer they go on. Most of my favourites seem to be relatively restricted in length, and fairly self contained. I came to the conclusion that in many cases the writer has created an amazing world, but appears to have run out of stories, thus proving that the story is always the mainstay of any novel.

Agreed. I also think that it depends on the 'original' works - were they meant to be self-contained with every loose thread wrapped up, or were they just part of another bigger story that the author was trying to tell but initially couldn't sell? Like a movie sequel, does the 'continuation' follow logically from the initial story, or does my brain need to go fuzzy, do a few flips and maybe just disconnect for a while while a new 'story' is set up. For example, if in the original the Dark Lord is defeated and everything is bliss, and the next story starts out with the Dark Lord's older brother (never mentioned nor alluded to previously) shows up so that our protagonists can have something to do, yet again, then there's a problem.

Melkor, until banished into the Void, was always around to start some trouble, and Sauron just didn't show up in the Third Age...

Plus, how much care is taken when writing the sequels? Are you contracted to slap something together every year or two, or are you passionately creating something that will be finished when *you* think it is (or maybe it's never finished, but gets pried from your cold dead hands)?

I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing Tolkien had written more about Middle Earth, but I'm glad he didn't pursue this to the extent that many writers today do.

I wish Tolkien would have fleshed out more stories in the Sil. They would not have affected LOTR, and as they all were preconceived, I don't think that they would become stale. Plus Tolkien's writing style is *much* better than average. I'm confident that JRRT would have put the whip down before the horse was dead.

Wringing every last drop out of the secondary world you have created isn't always a good move for a writer.

Robert Jordan seems to be doing this with WoT. I started reading the books at the suggestion of a coworker to whom I had suggested LOTR (I lost on that exchange!). Jordan's first few books were okay - not at the level of LOTR, but what is? - but then they seemed to become more redundant, confusing and a chore to read. Like when watching late night TV, I continued 'viewing' just in case something interesting would happen, but was continually disappointed.

I quit and will not read any more of his books - how else can we get a message to him and his publisher?

Another issue is having someone 'take over' after the author has gone on to his reward. Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson have done this with Frank Herbert's Dune works. If Brian did not have access to the Dune/Herbert legacy, no one would read the garbage that he spews. I even made excuses for the first prequel that he wrote, knowing that it may have been hard to sync up to the original works. The pre-prequels, where Brian had a free hand, were even worse. To add another nail, there were some gross inconsistencies that made it seem that he hadn't bothered to read his father's works. Imagine that in a LOTR sequel Gimli is suddenly an Elf.

I wish that these new works were never written, as they begin to taint the original for those who know no better.

At least Christopher Tolkien had the sense to publish and not write.