But I'm sure all the squirrels currently rampaging unchecked around my yard (thanks for all the holes guys) will agree that there is a definite trend in Fantasy that has for the past five years been getting me down.
Sad face!
It is the death of the trilogy!
Indeed it's true, the trilogy may follow the sagely one shot into the realm of myth soon with so many epics going on even when there's no need to. Am I saying no to all epics? Nope, I'm a Erikson fan to the end even when the writer in me rails at the complete lack of semblance to a normal flowing plot. (That stream of consciousness style of his is great for long mornings on the deck, only memory required and coffee, lots of coffee.) At some point I'll read a Song of Ice and Fire when Martin stops pissing me off by saying stupid crap about Lovecraft. Heck Glenn Cook's Black Company series (highly recommended) is epic fiction all the way. But when you pick them up you know that instantly. No surprises, no shock, no decade long waits not knowing really why.
Some stories need only 1 blook, 1 volume to tell it all fully and to satisfaction. Some need 2 like the Promethean Man books. Others need 3 and trilogies are great and fun and long enough where if I like the world I don't mind reading them all to the exlusion of all others.
But some worlds do end at the final page of book1, 2, or 3. Whether people are loathe to give up the place they are comfortable to write in or publishers would rather keep 1 world that already has an audience and will need less of a push to sell I can't say. As an outsider looking in all I know is there is a definite feel to a book that is stretched too thin, a book that really could never live up to the originals, the ones that hooked me in the first place.
Worlds end be they at book 1 or book 10. Just take me along for the ride and say goodbye quietly and succinctly. Sometimes nothing is as sweet than to see on the final page the end.
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