Is it time for the Anita books to end?

[faeriethistle.livejournal.com]

When is it time for an author to end their series?
When the fans are tired of it? When the author has run out of ideas? When the publisher isnt making any money?

Ending a series doesnt mean the author has to quit writing. They can move on to something else, another genre, another series different from their first. They can take time off for family or vacations or just a mental rest.
The point is, they control the series and they control the ending. They can choose to just stop and leave the readers wondering. They can end it with a finality of no return for the characters. They can end the series but begin again with remnants from the first and move in another direction.

I feel that there is much still to mine from the Anita books but that isnt happening due to all the things mentioned here in former posts.
Should the series be ended? Should we hold out hope LKH will return to something resembling the first Anita books? Or should the series end? Maybe a ghost writer should write the books like the long ago Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys and others of the mill written books. Not that I think that will happen. But would you be upset to see the series ended? It isnt going anywhere and there is no longer any story.

With the many thousands of people writing, the many thousands of potential series, why is it so hard for good first time authors to be published and yet LKH's drivel continues to waste trees, try patience, and make potential good books stay undiscovered?
Any thoughts?

Comments

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

why is it so hard for good first time authors to be published and yet LKH's drivel continues to waste trees, try patience, and make potential good books stay undiscovered?


Simple: LKH sells.

It's the same reason why shows like The Apprentice and Big Brother get spawned off into hundreds of sequels or sibling shows or seasons. They *sell*. People read LKH's books. They buy them.

An unknown isn't a guaranteed seller. But LKH is.

[faeriethistle.livejournal.com]

Still, it makes me want to scream and pull out my hair.
I want to read! No, reading is more than that. It is as necesssary to me as breathing.
There are days I crave to read. I dont read the best literature.
(I like Clancy, Ludlum, Preston/Child, and many others.) I just want to go someplace else. I can really get lost in books.

I just want the series to be better or for her to stop writing.
There are so many things we as readers are missing due to "not guaranteed."

And I know she has more planned. It makes me want to throw a hissy-fit.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I read a thing back that David Eddings wrote where he was saying that a good series should be between 3 and 12 books long - any more than 12 is asking too much of your audience to hang on.

Now, I know there are series that are longer - the Discworld springs to mind, but that one works because not every single book is about the same character. There's a huge cast to choose from and each have their own adventures.

I tend to agree that 12 books are enough in a series - if you need to write more, then either the series had better be that fucking good or you've got a serious problem.

I applaud the people who can come to a conclusion about things instead of having things linger on without a discernable end in sight. Tanya Huff wrote five books in her Blood series and stopped right there for several years before now coming back to the characters and putitng out another series. Nancy A. Collins has said that she's on hiatus from Sonja Blue to do other things, but may come back to them at a later date - plus, there's the possibility of short stories turning up in anthologies.

As far as I'm concerned, AB:VH shoulda ended with ID. That's it, no more. The series is done. LKH could then spend her time writing spinoffs like Micah and explore people who didn't get much of a fair go. There's been enough plot threads throughout the series thus far to take us to book 12 and have a thrilling conclusion. Instead, we're still left with the first triumvirate of JC, Anita and Richard unresolved - and that was set up in book freaking four. There's the whole issue of the Council and the empty seat from when Oliver was killed. There's the whole issue over some vampires wanting to be illegal all over again versus the "modern" ones that would rather assimilate. There's the offshoot of Kissa from Bloody Bones disappearing and ne'er coming back. There's the Melanie thing that's never been addressed EVER AGAIN.

There's so much that ought to be concluded, or at the very least revisited and developed further into the major story arcs without going on and on and on with all this other crap.

If LKH had any sanity, she'd put AB:VH on hiatus and work on Merry for a while, maybe put out a couple of short stories, or even novellas, if she's missing Anita too much - or just write the stories and put them aside and create an anthology - and come back to it after a good, long rest and focus on trying to make things better.

But this is all hinging on a very big IF.

[faeriethistle.livejournal.com]

I totally agree about the Discworld series.
It is not bad to be a prolific author if you are great at it. And Pratchett is always great.

I also agree about taking a break. Maybe if she just steps back, takes a breath, looks at the past, maybe, just maybe Anita is salvagable. If I thought it would happen in any realm of the universe, some one else should take the Anita mantle and make it great.
But I believe in faeries so I dont live in the real world and Anita is doomed.

As for Merry, give me more about the workings of LKH's view of fae and make the sex work with the story not follow the Anita path and forsake story for sex.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

The saddest part of it all is that I can see the nuggets of plot nestled amongst all the pr0n of d00m of both MG and AB:VH. Potentially great plot. But it never gets used because there's need for angst, pron, powers and stupidity. And that's just so wrong.

[http://users.livejournal.com/belladonna_/]

or just write the stories and put them aside and create an anthology

This is actually a fantastic idea - a set of standalone Anita stories in which she and her gang solve mysteries. It'd go a lot toward making fans like me accept Anita's new lifestyle, if we could see that it was functional. For me, part of the problem has always been the total lack of any kind of realism about Anita's new life - managing six+ boyfriends, having three+ hour sex twice a day... it's just so unrealistic. (And isn't it sad when the main character's personal life is the most unrealistic part about a series featuring werewolves and vampires?) But she's committed this sin throughout the series, and it's been one of my beefs - that the preternatural characters seem to do nothing with their lives but lounge about being creepy. I mean, I don't care if you're a werewolf or a Sunday school teacher, at some point you've got to go to the grocery store, you know?

[dinsedaledarby.livejournal.com]

I think it would be interesting if someone ended up ghostwriting for Anita Blake. I wonder if they would do a better job than LKH?

[randomsome1.livejournal.com]

I've seen sixteen-year-old virgin fanfic writers write better stories, sex scenes included, than LKH.