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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Science Fiction Authors
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I can't agree that open-ended series are automatically bad. Consider the Discworld series. Or Sherlock Holmes.
I think open-ended series are fine if the point is to tell a new story every time, and you have a set of characters that can be reused in different stories. You have limited to no character development. (Sherlock Holmes or Granny Weatherwax can be explored more deeply, but they don't develop much.)
If the interest is not having a different story, but the fate of the character - what happens next - then the open-ended series is the wrong form. It turns into soap opera.
I don't know about Sherlock Holmes - I've only ever read A Study in Scarlet - but I don't agree about Discworld. I think there is character development but that's because there are not only plenty of characters so that you can rest them for a book or three, but that there are so many different settings.
I've often thought this is the genius of the Discworld - that it's an entire world, with different countries with fully developed cultures. It means Pratchett can tell very different stories, in different genres, with different characters. There's a consistent set of themes, a unifying voice rather than a single set of characters. Or if you prefer Discworld is not a series but a collection of series loosely related by taking placing on the same planet. That's why you get things like this.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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ArachnidinElmet
Shipmate
# 17346
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Palimpsest--
Are there any Steampunk novels you'd recommend? (Or any other Shipmates.)
I love Steampunk, as far as the gadgetry and the retro-fitting of modern gadgetry. (I've always loved Victorian tech.) The clothes, too. I'm familiar with the "Girl Genius" comics. (Fun, although the women are rather...hyper-inflated.) I know there's at least one GG-related novel.
Thanks!
I've just borrowed Infernal Devices by K.W.Jeter from the library. Haven't started it yet, but I hear it's considered a classic of the genre.
Also 2D Goggles is worth checking out, a webcomic of the adventures of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage as detectives.
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'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
Posts: 1887 | From: the rhubarb triangle | Registered: Sep 2012
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Oh yes, that is great fun.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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