[Clark Magnan]

As many others have said: Dune

I love the original and I think I like the Franker Herbert sequels better than most, but when his son took over, the series dived, fast.

 

[senserial]

I stop following a series when:
1) the story is dragging too much with no sense
2) the new book doesn't contribute to the original story, doesn't bring anything new
3) when the main characters do not develop

In short: when the series is getting like a soap opera.

 

[a_g]

Dune. I got as far as Chapterhouse before I gave up. This was way back in the day, long before his son got involved, I believe. Didn't he die right after that?

I've stopped reading a couple of authors whom I felt had start to pander to the reader instead of writing to entertain (big difference) and staying true to the essential cores of the main characters.

Yep. This is the Nightrunner Series for me. I loved the first three books and would have been content for it to end there. Then the fourth book came out and I read reviews and talked with folks who'd read it and read anyway against my better judgment. Something straight out of fanfiction tropes. I felt then she had bowed to her fans and the series jumped the shark.* **

The Anita Blake series. Somewhere after book three. In fact, I'm not sure I made it through book three.

Anne Rice and the end of Queen of the Damned. After that, I really didn't give much of a care for it.

In short: when the series is getting like a soap opera.

Oh yeah. When I find myself anxious like when I watch soap operas, it's not a good anxious either. Not an anticipation, not an 'omg how are they gonna'. It's that sick anxiousness because I realize that I'm being manipulated and not enticed and all the writer is doing is creating drama because drama creation is expected. The flow of the drama doesn't follow organically from the plot.

Funny. It appears that I usually stop after three books. Except Dune and when I got to book five I realized I should have stopped at book three.

*I've been given to understand that books five and six manage to redeem the series but frankly, after the disappointing fourth, I really have no desire to keep going.

**I won't go into the short stories she released that really did read like slash fanfiction, written slap-dash to appease the fandom. That was a major disappointment because it felt like she was bowing to the whims of her ardent slash fanfiction fans.[/size][/size]

 

[Thomas Watson]

Dune for me as well. I also gave up on Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books partway through the second trilogy. The negativity just wore me out.

It's actually rare that I start a series and don't follow through. In fact, C.J. Cherryh's "Foreigner" series has turned into a long term relationship!

 

[Ann in Arlington]

Dune: I found the first book interesting, but each subsequent one got more and more dull -- too much politics and such.

Thomas Covenant: I liked the first two trilogies -- there were enough positive people to counter balance TC, I thought. I've read the first book of the third trilogy -- features Linden Avery -- but it's all so different because of the time dilation between the two worlds. It wasn't that enthralling. I actually have the second book, but haven't read it yet -- got it in paper in late 2007 -- and switched to kindle in 2008 so it's just not been on my radar.

 

[Daniel Harvell]

The trouble with an ongoing series (like Stephanie Plum novels, among many others) is that the writer has to walk a very fine line - they have to keep the characters, situations, etc. similar enough to the early stories so they don't scare away their audience with drastic changes (character deaths, long-term romantic changes, etc.) but keep things new and fresh so the same audience doesn't get bored. Perhaps these writers (and their readers) would be better served if they made their series finite with an end game in mind (Harry Potter series is the greatest example of this).

 

[Ann in Arlington]

If you're talking a 'romantic' series, I'd agree. There's only so long the 'will they or won't they' vibe can stay interesting. So you either have to just let them get together or split them up. Which will annoy half the readership either way.

What can work indefinitely, I think, are mystery series. If you make the MC someone who it is not surprising to continually find dealing with murders (a detective, lawyer, other law enforcement officer, etc.) you can build a good cast around them and make each new MYSTERY fresh while keeping the characters mostly familiar. The key is to keep the peripheral story arcs extremely peripheral! I think Linda Fairstein does this well with her Alex Cooper series.

A lot of TV shows have problems with this nowadays. Used to be you'd watch Magnum PI, Matlock, Columbo or Murder She Wrote (though trouble certainly followed that ol' gal and Cabot Cove must have the highest per capita murder rate in the country. ) and you'd know you'd see the same cast of characters each week with a new baddie or group to take down. You could actually watch them in any order -- so if you miss this week, you'd see it in re-runs in the summer and not miss a thing.

But now, most of them have these over-riding story arcs that, if you miss one episode you can be partially lost. And some are absolutely serials to where you shouldn't even expect any sort of resolution to ANYTHING until the very end -- and missing one episode means you're totally lost! That's fine, if that's what you signed up for, but annoying if you just want to sit down and, say, watch an episode of something that happens to be showing in syndication. I'm guessing it's because so many people have digital recorders nowadays, so the assumption is that people will record and watch in order. But I find I really lose interest when the 'mystery of the week' becomes so obviously secondary to whatever bigger story they think they're trying to tell. Especially if the characters are not particularly endearing. I've pretty much given up on both Suits and Covert Affairs for that reason, and if it wasn't the last season of Burn Notice I'd have given up on it as well.

 

[emeralda]

If it's a great series like Harry Potter, then when the last book in the series is out. If it's not such a great series then I stop at the book I'm at in the series.

 

[Mark Young]

When I start seeing the same kind of plot with just a slightly different twist. I assume the writer is running out of new ideas.