So here we are with me out of energy and too many books to write about, so I’ll tell a little story and ask a couple of questions instead.
A couple of days ago, I was chatting with some guys, and as frequently happens, one asks, “What’s the best book you’ve read recently?”
It took me about .5 seconds of thought to reply, “Bound by Benedict Jacka.” As you readers all know, from the really long post that I haven’t written yet about it.
Anyway, a moment or two later, I followed that up with, “Of course, that’s actually a recommendation for 8 books, because you need the set to get the impact of Bound. So, the best stand-alone recently is Deep Down Dead . . .” and went out to give them a summary of my blog post on that book (yes, I actually wrote that one).
So, here’s my question: how do you handle recommending an installment in a long-running series? Or, how do you take recommendations for the latest book in a series that’s been going on awhile?
Bookstooge
If I had book friends in real life, I’d definitely recommend/unrecommend series as a whole unit.
And if a series isn’t finished, I’m edging more and more to wait until it’s finished to start it. It’s just not worth it to me to wait years between books, or to find out part way through that X happens and so I stop. A perfect example is Sanderson’s 10 book series. I’m just waiting until it’s done. Don’t care if I have to wait 20 years.