Okay, it’s time to rant. I originally started this page to
showcase projects I am working on with the hopes of getting some feedback, but
something has been on my mind the past week or so and I need to vent.
TO BE CONTINUED
Those three little words drive me fucking crazy. I don’t
care where it is. The end of a movie, the end of a television show, at the end
of a book, especially at the end of a book. I’m one of those people who, if
it’s a favorite author, will buy that book the moment it hits the shelves, and
to see those words at the end is enough to make me scream. They mean a whole
year–or longer–before I know how the story is resolved. It’s beyond
aggravating.
I remember the first time I encountered those three little
words. Stephen R. Donaldson, The Mirror of Her Dreams. I had
read Donaldson’s The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and
loved them, so when the first of a new series was announced, I grabbed it and
dropped everything to read it. I won’t bore you with the details; I’ll just
jump to the end (no spoilers, so don’t worry). The hero has escaped, but
our heroine, for whatever reason, is left behind. The Big Bad breaks through
the door, grabs our heroine, and says something along the lines of “Now you are
mine.” TO BE CONTINUED What the hell? I mean, seriously, that’s where you’re
leaving us? A whole year… a whole fucking year…before I was able to find out
what happened. It was enough to make me swear off series books until I knew for
a fact I had all the books in my possession, or if I knew ahead of time that
each book is wrapped up at the end. I don’t care if there’s a larger story arch
that encompasses the series, just so long as the story contained within that
particular book is wrapped up by the time I read the last sentence.
So what, you might ask, prompted this little tirade if I
have made it a general rule not to read series book unless those previously
stated requirements have been met? Well, a couple of weeks ago I read David
Bernstein’s Machines of the Dead, Book 1 of a series. If I knew it
was part of a series, I can hear you asking, why did I break my own rules and
read it without having the rest of the books readily at hand? Because I told
the author I would. BUT had I known it was going to end in a cliffhanger, I
would have told him, “I’ll pass. Let me know when the other two books are
published.” What makes this particular instance even more aggravating is that
Book 2 hasn’t even been written yet. I only pray this doesn’t turn into another
Chris Snow situation, where Dean Koontz has delivered two books of a trilogy,
and 13 years later we’re still waiting for the third and final installment. And
just last night, as I was browsing through my Kindle looking for what to read
next, I came across a title I couldn’t remember downloading. I looked it up on
Amazon, saw it was a book dealing with lycanthropes (my favorite), and decided
that would be next on my list. However, something told me to check out the
reviews, something I rarely do, but I’m glad I did. Nowhere in the description
or on the cover does it mention this book is part of a series, but every review
indicated that the book ends with a cliffhanger. So off I go to see if the next
book has been released. The author has published other books, but nothing
indicating the next installment of the werewolf novel. Well, I created a new
Collection on my Kindle for Books Awaiting Sequels, and in it went.
What possesses an author to leave the reader hanging like
that? In this age when books are so easily accessible, literally with the click
of a button, do you think someone is going to want to wait a year or more to
find out what happens next? Hell, after all that time you’ll be lucky if they
even remember the characters’ names, let alone care what happens to them. And
you as an author? Leave me hanging like that once, you won’t ever get the
chance to do it again. You are simply deleted off my radar. Just ask Mr. Koontz
(like it matters to him). I haven’t read a Dean Koontz book since Seize the Night, and won’t read
anything else of his until I get the third Chris Snow book.
And that book that sitting all by its lonesome in that
Kindle folder? To tell the truth, it’s a book that will probably never be
read–unless, of course, somebody reminds me sometime in the future that Part 2
of that werewolf novel is out. You remember? The one you put on your Kindle in
that folder. By that time it’ll probably be gone, deleted to make room for
other books by authors who know how to start a story on page one and finish
that story on the last page.
What about you? Do cliffhangers grate on your every last nerve the way they do mine?
