Tyree's Tuppence

by Tyree Campbell

Stop The Wheel Of Time, I Want To Get Off!

Oookay, who started this?

It used to be you could pick up a book, read it, and be done with it, able to move on to the next book in the stack.  It used to be you could go to a movie, watch it, and go home with a hankering to watch whatever movie appeared in the theater the following week.

You just knew, for example, that there would be no The Great Escape 2, not after that ending.  Movies like The French Connection and The Godfather demanded sequels only because their stories encompassed more material than could be presented in a reasonable movie time.  Sequels were for Amazon Women In Olive Oil and Blight Of The Living Fred and the like.  [Later, as we became more diet-conscious, Hollywood would make Amazon Women In Canola Oil].

In 1977 began a series of movies that is arguably the greatest moneymaking series of movies ever made, especially when one considers all the CGI that derived from it.  This series had an effect on the industry, on our thinking, on technology, on politics.  Yup, Star Wars.  Surely a plotline that was galactic in scope [and not even in our galaxy] merited more than one movie to tell its tale, and so it proved.  Why, this tale was so complex and intricate that it had to begin with Episode IV . . . pardon my non sequitur.

In fact, George Lucas assured us fans that there would be nine episodes of Star Wars in all, and that a movie would be released every three years or so.  I should have paid more attention to that "or so."  Because we saw new movies in 1977, 1980, 1983, and  . . .

We waited . . .

And waited . . .

And waited . . .

And finally, in 1999, Episode I:  The Phantom Menace arrived.  Sixteen years later.

Do you know what happens in sixteen years?  That length of time took me from nursing to . . . erm . . . analog recreations.  Jacob took that long to earn two wives [Leah and Rachel . . . you can look it up].  I mean, only Cubs fans have suffered longer.

And now, after all of this, now that Episode III:  The Revenge Of The Sith has come and gone, I pick up a rumor that VI Episodes are all there will be.  Episodes VII, VIII, & IX have been canceled.

I should sue . . . Yo!  Donahoe!  Want a pro bono case?

Incidentally--and please allow me this momentary digression--just what the &%$# is a Sith?  According to Yoda, who should know, "two always there are, no more and no less."  Thus we have Senator Palpatine and Darth Maul.  After Maul inadvertently got himself bisected, Anakin Skywalker was groomed to replace him and become Darth Vader.  Now, then:  Count Dooku, admirably if all too briefly played by the dashingly sinister Christopher Lee, was a Sith Lord.  Says so right here in the script. 

Who was his apprentice?

:-D

End digression, and back to the reality that is science fiction. 

The first science fiction series of books I ever read was the Demon Princes series by Jack Vance.  For the record, those books are The Star King, The Killing Machine, The Palace Of Love, The Face, and The Book Of Dreams, and they are highly recommended.  The years of publication for the first three are 1963, 1964, and 1967.  I admit I loved the series plotline and Vance's protagonist, Kirth Gersen, and Alusz Iphigenia Eperje-Tokay, surely one of the more interesting females in science fiction.  I didn't even read the books in order.  I didn't even know it was a series when I picked up a copy of The Killing Machine in Hawaii, on my way to Viet Nam, back in 1964.  Then I found The Star King just after I got back in 1965.  Anticipation set in, and was finally satisfied in 1967 in a bookstore in Japan when I located a used copy of The Palace Of Love. 

Anticipation then became a chronic affliction.  I spent much of the next twelve years overseas, scouring bookstores whenever I was off-duty, desperately hoping I hadn't somehow missed the fourth book in the series.

Twelve loooooooong years! 

And finally, when I saw a copy of The Face [billed as the "long-awaited 4th of the Demon Princes novels"], it was like Cain in Kung Fu.  "Take the book from my hand . . . "  I was a blur from the cash register to the barracks!  "Long-awaited"???  You have no idea . . .

Fortunately for my state of reading health, The Book Of Dreams came out in 1981, and the long ordeal was over.

One problem with serial books is the investment of time.  If you fall in love with a literary character or plotline, you just have to see it through.  This is certainly true of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover Series, which numbers at least two dozen novels, and of Anne McCaffrey's Pern Series.  Twenty five novels is a considerable investment of time . . . and money, even in paperback.  Time, mostly. 

[Yes, some series are shorter than others.  Harry Harrison's "Eden" trilogy, frex.  Or Dan Simmons's Hyperion/Endymion quartet].

But there are other books that stand alone, complete in and of themselves, which deserve the reader's attention.  The works of the late and sorely missed Charles Sheffield come immediately to mind.  I haven't read them all, but I think they all stand alone, although I have heard he wrote a "sort-of" sequel to his outstanding novel Cold As Ice.  If I could find that, I'd be a blur again.

I wonder how many good science fiction books one misses by focusing on a series . . .  

Look at it this way:  You're in the bookstore.  Jack Vance has a new novel out.  But you also see that Volume 5 of Julian May's latest series has just been released.  And, at $27.95 a pop, you can afford only one book.  What to do, what to do?  How many of you would protect the investment of time and money already spent to buy the Julian May?

Yup.  And I don't blame you, either.

Which brings us circuitously to The Wheel Of Time series by Robert Jordan.  Volume 11 just came out a couple months ago.  Rumor has it Jordan plans something like 21, 22 volumes.  The series in hardback will wind up costing the same as a set of Britannicas.  And if you've read Volumes 1 through 10, you just gotta.  I mean, you just gotta.

At least J. K. Rowling has the good sense to limit her series to seven.  You know what you're getting, and you know you [and she] will probably live long enough to finish the series.

At least, that's what she said.

[Horrors!  Oh, no.  Oh, no . . . she wouldn't . . . ]

But there is another side-effect of the popularity and prevalence of series of science fiction and fantasy novels.  With the focus on series, does the popularity of the single novel suffer?  After all, publishers also have an investment to consider.  Publishers know that once a series catches on, the readers are hooked into buying the sequels, even at the expense of single novels.  And money is the name of the publishing game, as far as the big boys are concerned.  [Hey, I'm not carping.  I'd like Sam's Dot to make a bit of loot, too]. 

But like I said, I wonder whether the series of books comes at a price we might not realize we're paying.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled chaos . . .

Past Tuppence:
September 2005
June 2005
March 2005
December 2004
September 2004
June 2004
March 2004
December 2003
September 2003
June 2003
March 2003
December 2002
October 2002
August 2002
June 2002
April 2002
February 2002
December 2001
October 2001
August 2001

Read more from Tyree Campbell in any of the following:

Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 5

Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 4

Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 3

Sex and the Single Alien
An anthology

Nyx
A novel by Tyree Campbell

Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 2