12/04/2012

Trilogies, trilogies, trilogies everywhere

I read about this a while ago. I cant remember whose blog it was on, or I'd give appropriate credit.

The thrust of the comment was lamenting the demise of the single volume book. At first I thought this was an exaggeration. Now, not so much. I was reading 'Clockwork Angel' by Cassandra Clare (check out GoodReads for my comments). Now, this is a fine book and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I was about 2/3rds of the way through when I started to get an uneasy feeling. When I checked - sure enough it was part of a trilogy.

I wasn't best pleased. The story was good, but I don't know if it is good enough for me to want to read two more volumes of it. So then I checked back along my reading list for trilogies/multi volumes:

Demon Trappers 
Wizards first law
Time Scout
Chaos Walking
Divergent
Hunger Games

And that's just about since Christmas. How many of those have I actually read in full? Just the 'Wizards First Law' series by Abercrombie. How many will I read? Probably only Demon Trappers and Divergent. Why?

Good question. If the material is there, a trilogy is a good idea. If it isn't - its a drag and a ripoff .

Most of my writing is single volume. My book 'Aphrodite's Dawn' (available from Amazon, folks, don't miss out) stands alone, although I have an outline for a sequel maybe one day. Of my works in progress, all three stand on their own. But here is the embarrassing admission: I have outlines for two of them to go to trilogies.

Pot and kettle? Not really. Anything I have that is multi-volume, the plan is that each can be read in isolation without leaving you feeling you don't have the whole story. I think that's fairer. Of course, I actually have to get them finished first :)

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