I did the exact same thing with The Iron Heel by Jack London, but unfortunately have yet to get back to it. Currently I'm reading Process, Form, and Substance: A Rhetoric For Advanced Writers by Richard M. Coe. I had never heard of it before but saw it at a second hand store and picked it up for a couple of bucks. So far it's actually better than most of the craft books I was forced to buy in university and was, like, ninety-five percent cheaper.
Picked up and started War and Peace last week. It's never really something I've been interested in, but it was literally the only non-children's book in the house I was staying at. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the part I read (maybe the first 45 pages, which is about 0.0001% of that book). It is kind of old and stuffy, but every so often there'll just be one sentence that's a really sharp, cutting observation about human nature in general. The characters are really well-drawn, and I could even keep most of them straight after a while. So yeah, too bad I'll never have enough free time in the rest of my life to finish it...
Re-reading Songs of Blood and Gold - more specifically, A Year of Ravens. Also reading A Fine Grey Rain: In the shadow of Mount Pinatubo. Also reading The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook.
Just finished Dana Stabenow's Everything Under the Heavens, and man, am I pissed. I was reading along, the plot was developing, I was expecting everything to come together and finish up in a satisfying way after a few more chapters, and blam! she hit me with an "O noes! Ebbryboddies in trubblol again!!1!" and the words "To Be Continued." What the---? No sense of resolution, just chop! I was reading in Kindle on my phone. The cover was too small for me to see it was a series. And there was plenty of "book" left--- she just used it to give a teaser for one of her novels in another series. I was not expecting to be brought up short like that and I DON'T LIKE IT!!! Will I read Books 2 and 3 in the series? Maybe. If I can find them for free in the library.
I don't endings that leave things open for sequels/foreshadow sequels in the works. Naturally in real life things don't just go to a happy ending, so why should stories? The problem comes though when it seems as though all the progress is simply torn away to repeat it all over again. When it feels too familiar, sudden, outright repetitive or all of those. So that does sound frustrating. I have a love/hate relationship with Michael Bay's entertainingly brainless Transformers movies and I remember my sheer exasperation when Megatron is resurrected a second time in a completely arbitrary side plot. It felt like one of those forced hollywood get the girl side stories. I have no intention of seeing the next one because I think it's gone on long enough.
One of her recent Kate Shugak mysteries ended on a "continued" note, too. I like the series enough to give it a break, but it was confusing.
Hey, Spense. Been no where in particular. Just fell out of love with writing (as I always will from time to time). Good to see you're still posting, my friend
I wouldn't have minded so much getting the story in installments if the first book had come to some kind of conclusion. And she probably thought she'd brought it to that. But it was like, well, you know how the end of Tolkein's Fellowship of the Ring has Boromir trying to steal the Ring from Frodo, but he puts it on and disappears, and then the orcs attack and everything is confusion? The end of Everything Under the Heavens ends with an attack like that, but without the equivalent of Frodo quietly, finally, coming to the decision to set out to deal with the Ring on his own. In LOTR that decision marks a point of resolution, and it's a turning point as well. It works. But no, DS leaves us in the middle of the fight, just when one of the MCs receives what looks to be a mortal wound, and snatches us away to another locale where we learn that things are going to get Even Worse for our protagonists--- duh-duh-DUUUUHHHHH|. Then, that's it; sorry, folks, show's over. It just seemed cheap and contrived. And lazy. EDITED.
I find myself wondering if she's always wanted to write really long books, and after having so many books published she's decided she's going to, so there, and her publisher is accepting it but refusing to actually print the double-length book AS a double-length book. Maybe. It's a theory.
A year or few ago, I wanted a suggestion on reading material and this acquaintance/friend's friend told me I had to read this one young adult series. She was always depicted and came across from personal interactions as highly intelligent and an avid reader of excellent literature, so I bought the first book. It wasn't quite my cup of tea, but it wasn't awful and I was just trying to fill the void with something. Also I'm the sort of person who always finishes things, even when they're awful. Well, there was less than a hundred pages left and the major goal hadn't even come close to being settled. So I kindly messaged the FoaF to ask her politely if the conflicts get resolved each book (it was a series) or if it gets pushed off to later books. She enthusiastically told me that side conflicts get accomplished book to book based on the POV character of that book but the main conflicts linger until the conclusion (which the final book hadn't even been published yet). I finished it and was frustrated to no end. There was another free iBook I gave a shot, only to find it also ended on a ridiculous cliff note with nothing resolved, with those pesky extra page numbers as the teaser chapter of the next instalment. Didn't spend a penny on any further works. I remember when books were their own individual stories with definitive & acceptable starts & end points. I had old series that, while part of a trilogy or tetralogy or whatever, were completely whole in each single book. Like there was every oppurtunity to read perhaps only one of them and be satisfied with the story, without going on to read the others, and yet the books made a more impactful story when taken all together. I have nothing against sequels or prequels or extended series. But each book should be written as it's own unique composition, both in isolation & in conjunction. There was this fascinating article of the current fatal flaw of movies being written with the intention of a franchise before they had successfully established the first film. The journalist compared it to the audience being ushered into a burning building all the while being continually assured the fire extinguisher will be on the second floor. . . that has yet to be built. Unfortunately I've lost the article and haven't been able to get it to come up in all my google searches. . .
You guys (@Mouthwash, @ame_trine , @Homer Potvin ) talking about The Jaunt made me go pick up Skeleton Crew by Stephen King. What a collection. Definitely creeped me out on several of those stories. Survival Type and The Raft were super creepy.
LOL! Back in my college years, I read Allen Drury's entire Advise and Consent series, despite the fact that each book in the series was increasingly preachy. Book Four - Preserve and Protect - ends with a scene in which two political arch-rivals have united as one president/vice-president ticket and are speaking before a huge crowd at the Washington Monument. Shots ring out. One is killed. But we don't know which one. It gets worse. It was several years before Drury wrote the sequel, and then he wrote two - one for each possible ending of Book Four. The second of these, The Promise of Joy, assumes that Drury's hero (one of the two who were shot at) survives and becomes president. During his term, war breaks out between China and the USSR (remember, this is in the early 70s). The war turns nuclear, with tactical, not strategic, nukes. World pressure grows on the US to intervene. Finally, the decision is made. The missiles are launched. But Drury doesn't tell us at whom. At that point, I threw out every book in the series except the first. He should have stopped there.
Aaaaarrrgggghhhhh!!! If someone's actually trying to write a serial, that's okay. The reader expects each installment to end on a cliffhanger. But it works best in magazines and comics, online or physical. Trying to make a serial in novel form is at best difficult (Author, keep cranking them out, now!). More often, as you say, it's just deceptive and cruel to the reader, and comes off as mercenary to the nth degree.
I'm rereading a book I was a beta reader for a couple years ago, Heartsick, a Christian New Adult novel by R. J. Conte. It's proving to be better the second time around, and I'm not sure if that's due to the revisions the author made after I and the other betas put our comments in, or because now that I know the characters and their motivations, hindsight is filling in gaps that are still there. A little of both, I expect, but more of the former.
Almost finished with American Gods. Always find it difficult to pull myself away from it. Due to my new found love, I brought this novel to read next, Here's hoping I'll have the same problems with this one!
Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams First time reading this; huge fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide series. I'm not really that far in, but so far I'm not nearly so keen on it. Pretty sure it's the narration. I adored the saucy, sarcastic omniscient narration of HGttG while this one–with a few witty lines every now and again—seems to fall fairly flat & monotone. But again, I'm not that far in, so I'm incredibly hopeful that it's an excellent read afterall. It most certainly won't come anywhere near the worst~
@NoGoodNobu That was exactly my experience as well, reading Dirk Gently after HGTTG. It's just less madcap, and I think it suffers for it. I mean it's still alright, but not his best by a long shot. You might like Salmon of Doubt more. It's one of those "we pulled a bunch of his papers together after he died and published them as a 'book'" books, but despite that it has a lot more of the old HGTTG mojo going on.
And damned if Atwood didn't just do the same thing in The Handmaid's Tale. In the immortal words of Berkeley Breathed, "THBBFT!!!!"
Just finished American Gods. Wow, just wow. Its rare I feel a sense of sadness mixed in with joy upon finishing a book. All stories must end but goddamn the good ones are so much fun. I'm looking forward to getting lost in it starting today. Who needs TV when one has a good novel, haha!
James Crumley's The Last Good Kiss, which, as I've noted elsewhere, features my favorite opening line. Ever.
I went the non-Fiction route and found "The Obstacle is the Way" by Ryan Holiday. It is a look at how Stoicism can use any negitive or difficult situation into a positive opportunity to grow and learn. Very much recomend it to anyone. Next up is "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius.
American Gods was a great read. I also enjoyed Anansi's boys. and speak of all thing Gaiman, I recantly bought and read his book of non-fiction book called "The View from the cheap seats"
