What I hate is when it's not obvious whether a book I want to buy is part of a series or not.

I long for the days of more singletons and short stories. It baffles me that in our modern, fast-paced world, the long book series remains so popular while most other media is shrinking down to more bite-sized, consumable lengths. I do wonder how the inability of George RR Martin and Patrick Rothfuss to finish their popular series could affect this going forward, though. I know many readers now refuse to even begin a series before it is finished, so they won't be left on the hook for many years with no resolution. That can't be good for book sales if it does become a larger trend. Perhaps it leads to more authors doing the Moorcock model of producing more standalone books and smaller trilogies that are thematically linked rather than being direct sequels so each can be read on its own. I also think of an author like Steven Erikson, who hit it big with the Malazan books but has made comments insinuating that he's stifled creatively by having to continue to pump the books out when he would prefer to write something else. He also had to delay the completion of a prequel trilogy to his popular Malazan Book of the Fallen because the second volume did not sell well enough and instead his publisher wanted him to start a new sequel trilogy instead. So he now has two ongoing, incomplete trilogies instead of one, yet in both cases readers really need to read 10 whole giant books BEFORE they read the prequel and sequel trilogies. How is that good for book sales when it's a prerequisite to read 10,000 pages of a long series before you can read the prequel or sequel series?

I love listening to you Stephen. Take care!

Very interesting, good stuff Professor Andrews! For what it's worth i wouldnt call Banks's SF work a series. They each stand on their own feet as singletons, although of course they share a foundational, er, culture. And two or three of his SF books are in fact singletons, not in the culture milieu. Anyway, your point is well made. I do like to wallow in a fat series/trilogy from time to time, but equally have lost my way in several, in particular fantasy, series. DNFd Sanderson Stormlight and Jordon's Wheel of Time. 👍

I get peeved by the 'disguised' trilogy or series which is a singleton that ends in an unresolved fashion with a final page saying "read more in forthcoming". None of that is disclosed on the cover. Classic example was the big fat "The Reality Dysfunction" which became Hamilton's "Night's Dawn Trilogy". I really didn't want to buy the first in an unfinished series as I had been burned by long delays in series by Julian May, David Eddings and others. As you say,. I'd rather that authors started with some good stand alone works, or wrote self-contained works within their fictional world (e.g. Mieville's Bas-Lag novels). I've recently been going back to watch old TV shows from the 70s and early 80s which were so much more economical in their story-telling but didn't lose anything in character development. If they were made now they'd be three times as long and half as entertaining.

This is a great, informative video, and you articulated your points on the SF/F trilogy situation very well! Obvious to see plenty of experience and knowledge backing up what you're explaining here. I was previously aware of 1977 being a pivotal year for books published under the "epic fantasy" subgenre tag with Terry Brooks of course, and Donaldson's Thomas Covenant seeing success, not to mention Christopher Tolkien's posthumous publication of The Silmarillion (could one consider The Silmarillion a 'fix-up' of sorts? I wonder!) But watching this I did forget about 1977 being the year of Star Wars, and I didn't know about Lester Del Rey's impact in publishing, along with other big genre books of past eras (Heinlein with 'Stranger' and Herbert's Dune of course). I appreciate this upload quite a bit, looking forward to more!

An interesting and thought provoking essay, Steve. One with which I find myself in general agreement. One only need consider the sad case of Paul Kearney to find evidence to support what you suggest. A marvellous fantasy writer whose career was effectively terminated by Bantam when they dropped him after the second volume in the Sea Beggars series. And then maliciously retained the rights to the third volume to stop anyone else from issuing it. What purpose was served by such? With its episodic origins in magazines, it is perhaps only natural that sword & sorcery should graduate so easily into multi volume book series. The same holds true for crime fiction. However, I would argue that there was a lot more one off fantasies published during the 80s and 90s than you suggest. The best selling David Gemmell alone produced a lot of it. Trilogies can be great when they're properly planned as such, and each volume demonstrates discernible plot and character development. I would point to Angus Wells' Book of the Kingdoms and Bernard King's Starkadder series as evidence of this. King's trilogy especially is in sore need of a reissue with the final volume DEATH-BLINDER being so hard to find. Sorry its been so long since I've posted here. Such are the vicissitudes of real life. Really hoping I can catch up with you at the London fair in a fortnight.

As an organizer of a monthly SF/F bookclub it's really hard to find short to mid-length singletons every month. So much is either part of a series or 500+ pages anymore. Often the first books in series are just establishing the settings and the real meat of the story doesn't start until book 2, 3, 5, so as a discussion topic it's unfulfilling. I also can't force my members to commit to making it through a massive tome in 4 weeks as we are a lite social group and all have lives to live.

I'm with you on this, Steve, as you may have guessed. I've seen too many good writers sell themselves out to series writing. It must be frustrating for them to write essentially the same story over and over again with minor variations, although i can understand that sometimes there is a financial imperative to do so. Terry Pratchett, not a very good writer, became rich doing it; so to, i believe, did Douglas Adams, another not very good writer, who plagiarised other, better SF writers mercilessly. There are of course "trilogies" which need the three volumes. Alsiss' wonderful Helliconia, for example, conceived as a whole, but with a structure which dictated a three volume approach. People still ask me why Brian never published Helliconia Autumn, which tells us how little they understood, and also says something about the mentality of those who love series... Let's call it lazy writing for lazy readers, although not everyone wants books which demand thought from them.

Hi Stephen I hope you are well.. Your mini histories & overviews are as invaluable as they are useful. Thanks

Good Video Stephen, I have some sympathy with your hypothesis. I don't think is it a coincidence that the arrival of the word processor coincided with the takeoff of the trilogy in genre fiction and the takeoff in the size of the comprising books. I think that publishers (rightly) driven by profits collude with the book buying public to put these monsters on the shelves. "If a little is good, then more must be better". And what looks better on that shelf, three fat, shiny books or a couple of slender volumes. I think this happens more in Fantasy where there is I believe the propensity for readers to want to wallow in the worlds they are indulging in. You spoke of the New British Space Opera lead by Banks producing this long series of books, but call it a shared universe or whatever, the books are not direct sequels and one does not have to read a second or third volume in order to finish the story. The same is more or less true of Alastair Reynolds, both have lots of books that are not direct sequels. On the other hand you have writers like Peter F. Hamilton who does produce multi-volume stories or Stephen Baxter with a foot in each camp. But is the Shared Universe model that different from what Burroughs was producing with his Mars books or Brackett with her Stark stories or any one of the planetary romance authors? Even Moorcock's Multiverse and his eternal champion. The only thing nowadays, is to my first argument in that the books are often quite weighty tomes whether singletons or not. Do I wish we could have another Ballard or Vonnegut or Dick who can produce a book of 150-200 pages that knocks your socks of? Of course, time is getting shorter, the hours left to read books and ponder new ideas is getting less. We could read five older books in the time it takes to read a single newer one. This doesn't mean that the time invested in newer books is a waste but that I must read judiciously. For what Its worth, Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword is also my favourite Fantasy novel. On all the KZfaq channels I've watched that list their favourite or top 10 etc Fantasy books, this is the first I have seen mention it. Good Video Stephen.

EXCELLENT VIDEO. I would second your opinions based upon my experience in publishing, and as a bookseller myself. So many truisms included within the text and even the subtext of this video! If I enumerate them all I will look like the crazy person. But the author, until a proven success, is seen as a disposable commodity. If you'll excuse me now, Duty demands I must walk to Chinatown to buy a bushel of sweet potatoes.

I think some of this has come about because of binge watching in terms of modern tv streaming/box sets etc. Modern times have encouraged this binge mentality and it has transferred to books. Many people want to keep hearing more about the same characters etc and don't want to start with new ones, a new world etc. The reason for a lack of standalone books is similar to why modern movies are now more series focussed than ever- single films are less popular. The problem is I think it can go too far and people get burned out on these series and as you say, the quality often drops off. Some series are so large, with new books/films coming out so often that people feel overwhelmed and if they miss a book may feel they can't catch up, which then means they stop reading/watching that series. This can then be the death of a formerly popular series- it grows too large and people can't keep up and/or the novelty wore off or people decide not to continue as it becomes stale.

By far, this is the best explanation of the trilogy phenom and its roots that I have seen to date. Well done, OB! As always, great content, quality, production and especially presentation. Cheers!

Generally agree with all your points. There is his pressure in today's world that (in a number of fields) you have 'one shot' at success. As you said with early SF often a book would be a reworking of a published short story or series in a Monthly Magazine (Nightfall, Space Family Jones & Hothouse come to mind) so the publish hardback would have been revised and re-visited all contributing to a well crafted finish article. And often writers (it would seem to me) to have had full-time jobs and honed their craft on a number of books before their 'launch into the public gaze' You pointed in a way to the fact that publishing is driven so much by marketing an launches which have inherent risks & cost (to the publishers) that, as you say 3 strikes and you are out. Although the same rules may not apply similar concerns are raised by Film buffs worry - in that some movies come out where the 'first' movies spends so much of the time 'world-building' for a 7 movie franchise that they misjudge the need for the first 'installment' to deliver a cracking adventure! NOTE My favourite long running SF series is still 'Dumarest' by E. C. Tubb - and he knew a trick about publishing as in each of the different genures he wrote under a different name!

Trilogies have definitely become a red flag for me when picking out books. I'll pick up a longer series (usually out of order), but trilogies automatically go to the bottom of my reading list. One-offs or loose series (such as books that share a setting but are otherwise standalone) have been by favorites for a while now, and I think that was true even of books that stuck in my mind as a kid. I do apply a curve for book length, though. Much more accepting of a series like Zelazny's Amber novels, where most of the books are under 200 pages. I do enjoy Tolkien, but I can't stand his imitators.

Some really fascinating insights. I've never heard anyone make the connection between hippie culture and its explosive effect on the sales of Tolkien's work, yet it is there--shrooms, weed, hand-carved pipes, sandalwood incense, the earthiness, the whole thing about Mother Earth, The Whole Earth Catalog, etc. It makes sense that such a 'Geist would love hobbits, elves, etc. Very perceptive of you. And I agree: SF=innovation, fantasy=fossilization. It's one of the reasons why I haven't read much Sword & Sorcery. Aside from Tolkien, Howard, Leiber, why bother? (And I do like Martin). Die-hard fantasy fans remind me of romance readers: they know what kind of drug they want, and that's that. Without a doubt, everything you say about not publishing, first, a trilogy before you write a singleton, I agree with--in terms of traditional publishing. But I think it could be a little different when it comes to indie publishing, if only because (at least up until now) the strategy is to have a series ready to go, and basically make the first book free--which, I know, sounds even more insane, but considering the Sea of Dross that self-publishing is, and how Amazon's abusive corporate tactics work, the indie writer is pushed into writing this way. Personally, I love when SF novels were a lot shorter (usually a little less than 80k words, maybe as low as 50k). Also: Just as Star Wars is partially to blame for the disease of series-itis, I also think Netflix, nowadays, is even more to blame, not just in terms of writing structure but in pricing schemes (the dreaded subscription model). Thanks, Outlaw, for another insightful video.

I seem to recall that George Gissing made some interesting observations on the pressure to write trilogies and the artistic compromises that entails as far back as 1891's "New Grub Street". Great and very insightful video as always, as someone who's been in bookselling a while myself (28 years last month) I always find myself nodding in recognition at pretty much everything you say. Keep up the good work.

As far as series go in SF, you could argue that this trend is a throwback to the planetary romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Mars series alone goes up to 11 books. Then there are his other series from Tarzan to Westerns. Many were serials in the old pulp magazines. They weren't actually books until later. Star Wars, the throw back to the 30s Space Operas, Dune, the throw back to the series type planetary romances, only more ponderous and pompous. ERB was pure pulp and fun at least. It played its part.

I read the "Three Body problem" trilogy by Cixin Liu. First two books okay, third one "Death's End" was terrible, way too long (700 pages) with a protagonist that did stupid things. Liu should have concluded with the second book.

Very interesting, if rather grim, take on how the publishing market works. Felt really bad for the guy who was wrecked by a bad paperback cover(as a graphic designer such things resonate with me). Having given up on reading SF/Fantasy in the mid 90's, I wasn't aware until recently how much the genres have been taken over by serialized publication. A recent video about 'current releases' left me with a VERY poor impression on what's been coming out these days... Never thought much about trilogies back in the day, except when Arthur C Clarke DARED to write a sequel to '2001'(don't get me started...)I suppose the only thing I required was that the author had enough 'fuel' to keep it going, and most of the ones I read didn't disappoint(Jack Vance and Roger Zelazny come to mind) I feel sorry for the readers who are abandoned by their revered authors, like that lazy old GRRM, with is inability to finish the darned Ice&fire series. Fortunately, back in the 70's I'd read some of his standalones and found them pretty dreadful, so I never fell into the GoT black hole...

Even at my advanced age, I still haven't read The Lord of the Rings trilogy. LOL - I don't mind series & trilogies (especially SF series) though - as long as they're good - I've read Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy, Silverberg's Majipoor Chronicles, the amazing (especially the first 2 volumes) Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake, The Dying Earth series by Jack Vance (& others by this talented author)...... & John Varley's constantly surprising Gaean Trilogy. I suppose the closest thing to the "high fantasy trilogy" genre that I read was the Thomas Covenant six volume series by Stephen Donaldson, which was good, but it left me with little inclination to explore that genre much further - I tried to enjoy the 1st volume of The Game of Thrones by George R.R Martin, but it just wasn't my cup of tea - even though still I understood & appreciated it's quality. I found that there is a lot of good SF stuff out there that blows many of these overrated & padded fantasy series right out of the water....

Another point to consider is the transfer of the story to film and TV. A series of books, ripe for adaptation, can make a studio a LOT of money where a one-shot will only have a more limited return. For example, how much money do you reckon Stephanie Meyer made from the Twilight films compared to CP with ‘The Prestige’?

I didn't mean to write a trilogy, I just did. Finished the rough draft for the first book and realized it was the last book, so started the first book and at 800 pages thought it might be a good idea to cut it in half. In fantasy, at least, these days people want to "spend time" in universes and with familiar characters. At least that's what the big fantasy booktubers are all about. At any rate. Good video.

I intentionally avoid artificially constructed trilogies. As a result, the contemporary SF novel is rarely found in my reading queue. If I pick up a book and, even if the description intrigues me, I will probably put it down if I see it is part of a planned trilogy, as I have little patience in the ponderous. That means I read a lot of singletons before the '80s and '90s, with many books coming from the '50s, '60s, and '70s precisely because they are fresh or possess a single, powerful novum. Another magnificent overview, Stephen.

I thought Sword of Shannara was poorly written even when I read it years ago. I read a few of the sequels though, and the writing got better.

I liked Asimov's original Foundation trilogy and because he connected all the robot stories with the Foundation, I had to read the rest. But there was only a few tidbits of new ideas and concepts in the rest of the Foundation Series that perhaps amounted to 20 pages (I'm being generous) in total. The other series I read was Larry Niven's Ringworld. The first book was great but the rest could've been written as a couple of short stories or maybe a novella- I got tired of them. After that, I avoided series and that's why I never read Banks, Baxter, May, and avoided Simmons' Hyperion cantos (I don't care how much people love those books) and anything written after 1990. I would like SF books to raise ideas and concepts and to challenge notions and to give interesting characters, human, alien or whatever. But do it in one book and move on to some other idea. The capitalist market demands sacrifice and money is the mistress that must be obeyed. Resistance is .....hmm! Well, I, and a few others, are resisting. And thankfully, you too, Mr. Outlaw. Stay healthy and am looking forward to your next video - at your own pace.

Excellent video Steven, very informative!

Very interesting essay Stephen, I really can see where you are coming from here. Of course I have been reading Science Fiction since the 70's so its easy for me to understand where you are coming from. One thing I have noticed with a trilogy is that everybody knows the first book but the 2nd and 3rd often become lost to time. I have enjoyed two trilogies recently The Spatterjay series by Neil Asher book 1 of the series The Skinner is a great novel and I think does stand alone but the 2nd The Voyage of the Sable Keech and the 3rd Orbus I thought were ok. Another trilogy however by Adrian Tchaikovsky kicked off by Children of Time I thought was excellent where all three books are superb and in fact I preferred the 3rd book in the series Children of Memory!

Very valid points you make regarding the tired old trilogy format . The exceptions to the rule are few and far between . The last decent one I’ve read was Adrian Tchaikovskys children of time but even then by the end of the second I’d had enough . The stand alone is a far more interesting because new ideas concepts and characters are generally more challenging than being spoon fed same old same old . Don’t get me wrong being immersed in a universe is fine but unfortunately there is just too much of it nowadays. Thank you for putting this out there I share your opinion . Ps Really like the M M corum books

Solid video, agree completely. I don’t think I’d even contemplate buying a novel with “Book One” or worse a “#1” in the title.

Unfortunately when standalone (singleton) books do well, they then tend to become book 1 of a series- so the successful ones are no longer standalones....(they can still be read that way, but readers may not be aware of that and assume they need to read all the series)...

I would agree with everything you said about trilogies and padded out series of 500 page books. Where I would disagree is when you bring Iain Banks in as an example. I don't think Banksy wrote any series novels. The Culture books shared a background but Iain used this to write very different books using the Culture as a base. There were very few characters who appeared in more than one book. He also wrote all those non-SF singletons befween the Culture books and all the books using the Culture background can be read as singletons. I do think his later books became bloated and could have done with some serious editing, but this supports my long-held theory that the more successful a writer becomes, the more he is able to resist having any of his words cut. Stephen King proves my case. I think you should rethink your anti-Banksy prejudice. You can't blame him for all the space operas that followed him.

I think you're spot on about the dangers of writing trilogies. And the price they pay when they fail, as many, if not most do. However, as a regular listener to the Publishing Rodeo podcast, it is clear to me that would-be authors will do just about anything to improve their chances of getting published, so if they think publishers in their chosen genre want trilogies, that's what they'll write. And who can blame them?

can I say I DNF'd Lord of the Rings my problem with trilogies and series is the massive bloated tomes each book in a series has become and the subsequent temporal commitment reading them requires, I have a finite number of years of reading left and would rather spend them reading the good things from the past I've neglected to read. Also for the record The Hobbit was perfect and I consider it Tolkiens best book.

This was absolutely fantastic! This is the video I needed because I’m a complete novice with science fiction and fantasy but I want to start reading these genres. However, I’ve been immensely overwhelmed by all the vast different series to choose from. So many damn series. Are there any great beginner standalones you’d recommend in these two genres to try?

Thanks for the analysis. I’d be interested to know how these pressures apply to publishing more generally. Are authors once picked up by a publisher just asked to produce a certain number of books which is an easier thing to do than being asked to produce a trilogy. Do all SF publishers go down the trilogy route.

What are your thoughts on the "Humanx commonwealth" series by Alan Dean Foster? Each book could work without prior knowledge of the series and they're fast paced and exciting stories. I read "Midworld" God knows how many years ago and I just loved it and had to search for more!

I think what concerns me more than anything is the trend you are talking about is now almost a 50 year drift with little or no development in the genre. This trilogy, endless series bloat, where does it all end!

I not sure....but didn't Peter Watts put his first novel online to make it available to the SF reading public for free? & I think the complete text is still available on some website... It seems to have worked, as now Peter Watts is one of the bigger names in contemporary SF. Maybe other writers can follow his lead - as getting your work out there into a public forum seems to be the most important thing when it comes to kick-starting your writing career IMO...

as a banks fan i am not really sure if his culture series is a series at all. his culture books can be read in any order. they each play in different parts of his universe. so his books are not really like the trilogy books where you have to read the books in order. thats why he had such success i think. i was the big universe he created with the nearly unlimited amount of stories he could tell in this universe.

I always assumed "Grim Dark" was a Games Workshop thing. "In the grim dark future there is only war" was the tagline for Warhammer 40k for years. So idk if it spread out from there or if they borrowed from somewhere else. These days in 40K world grim dark usually just refers to a painting style for the toy soliders that's dirty and low key rather than bright clean colours. I finally made myself read Dune, but I stumbled on some interesting stuff. Like he heavily borrowed from a book called The Sabres of Paradise which is a historical novel set in the Caucuses, but also recently I found (by reading an Aleister Crowley short story of all things) that Butler was a real author. He wrote a book called Erewhon. I still think dune is cr*p though :-0

Think of all the great books that were originally stand alone novels and after the awards and the dealings all of a sudden a trilogy appears out of the mist then the dreaded prequel rears it’s head and ruins the magic of the first tome. Tsk. Tsk.

what about Earths ? Women get the short straw with a lot of these old guys.

The sainted Douglas Adams got this (w)rite(whoops!), before he was squashed, when he presaged his masterwork with its description: a trilogy in 5 parts.........best to get on the bandwagon before you declare it, IMO. Sci-Fi and Fantasy writers are rarely geniuses. I hate these new soap style TV series that only end when viewing figures become embarrassingly low. There is 0 wrong with a beginning - mi(u)ddle and end in books.; In fact, to reflect our sordid, wee, existences, it's essential