Enough with the trilogies!
I recently read a pretty good book. But it was published at the height of publishing’s trilogy mania and while I enjoyed it, I didn’t quite enjoy it enough to continue with the trilogy. And that’s kind of a shame, because about two-thirds the way through the book, I knew there wouldn’t be any answers when I finished it.
Now, that’s not the case for all trilogies. Some end the first book and give you a tease to more. Others use the first book to set up the entire trilogy, which seemed to be the case with the book I read, and while there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, it was disappointing from a reader’s standpoint.
I’ve been reading through all the books in my house. How this book came to be in my house, I don’t know, but in downsizing my library I’ve decided to read things first. I enjoyed the world-building and the plot was good, only up until I figured out this was the beginning of something larger. Something so big that unless I was willing to read the rest of the series, a trilogy in this case, I wasn’t going to get a fulfilling ending.
Now, I could blame the author, but I don’t think that’s fair. Publishers and editors do have their hands in the story and when it comes to a trilogy, I’m sure there are decisions made about setting up the “franchise” as it were in the first book, perhaps to the detriment of a single story with more to come.
Who’s fault is this or who’s to blame? I’m not sure if it’s any one thing. Perhaps this particular author wanted to write three books to tell a singular complex narrative. Perhaps there was pressure to garner interest in book two, and so the ending of the first book was left unfulfilled so you’d be left wanting more.
As I said, the book in question was one I had enjoyed until I figured out that it was just the start of something larger. Perhaps in another time I would have been more apt to seek out the rest, but at this point it was good, but not good enough to add to my existing “to read” pile.
At this point you may have noticed I haven’t named the book. I don’t want to yuck anyone’s yum so to speak, so I won’t publicly shame a book, or trilogy for that matter, because of my opinion.
However, I am aware that at some point on this side of the year 2000 publishers were looking to sign writers to trilogy contracts or agreements with multiple titles, whether that was specifically for a tried and true trilogy or not, I know multibook pitches were happening. Perhaps this book was part of that, perhaps not, but I’m not going to shame the author or the publisher.
And of course there will be those people who invoke the name of Tolkien and bring up The Lord of the Rings, but most of them probably forget it was originally written as a single volume, but publishing pressure split it into the trilogy we know today as The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.
See! Publishers have been meddling with stories for a long time because of “economic reasons” and thus there may be larger precedent. I’ve only read so much, and while I may be more well read than many of my contemporary friends, I still have a long way to go, but when it comes to series, trilogies, franchises, tetralogies, and the like, I’m only familiar with what I have read myself.
Dismissing Lord of the Rings from the trilogy discussion for the aforementioned reasons, I can say that Terry Brooks’ Shannara series, which encompasses an overarching world with generations in trilogies and tetralogies alike, does write books that you can easily consume and even put down. Every book in the series that I have read so far, has a continuation, but also contains a satisfactory ending if you put down a book that isn’t the end of the trilogy, say the first book or second book in a trilogy.
Perhaps that experience is why I’m being so hard on this one book. I’ve become accustomed to trilogies and authors that treat each book as self-contained even though more adventures do in fact await in another volume.
Perhaps, I’ve just had enough of series and franchises. Perhaps I just want to read a few self-contained stories that just end… satisfactorily. Is that too much to ask?