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As a matter of fact, far from a series of books continuing just to lure reluctant readers into purchasing volumes that they don't really want to read, it is the reverse that is likely to be true. It is the writer, not the reader, who is likely to be victimized. After all, writing a long series of related books can grow awfully tiresome for a writer. He may have sucked the juice out of his characters and background and may long to go in other directions, thus stretching and resting his cramped and aching mind.
The writer therefore quits and goes about his business-and then a storm arises. Readers express loud disappointment and make demands for another book in the series. Publishers, becoming aware of this, and seeing no reason to allow profitability to go glimmering, then proceed to put pressure on the writer, who is often far less enthusiastic about his series than anyone else is-and, in the end, he must write. In that case, anyone who says to him, “You're turning out endless reams of this junk just to con the reader into buying your books,” is likely to get a punch in the mouth if the writer is of the violent persuasion, or a sad look if the writer is as gentle and lovable as I am.
I’m talking from personal experience. The first three books of the Foundation series are compilations of separate pieces written for Astounding Science Fiction between 1942 and 1950. They were written at editorial insistence, but, for a while, I was eager to comply.
I had had enough of them after eight years, however, and, in 1950, determined to write no more. I resisted all entreaties for additions to the Foundation series and ignored all threats for thirty-two years! And then, finally, Doubleday began snarling and foaming at the mouth so I agreed to write Foundation’s Edge and Foundation and Earth, the fourth and fifth books of the series.
So there you are, Ms. Bykowski. My Foundation series was written, at least in part, as a result of publisher’s (and readers’) pressures, but they also deal with a theme too large to be contained in one story or one novel, and each portion of the series, whether a short story or a novel, stands on its own.
But is this business of stories and novels in series an invention of science fiction? It certainly is not. It is not even a modern phenomenon. The same pressures that lead to sequelization today were operative in ancient times as well so that sequels and series must surely be as old as writing.
The Iliad had the Odyssey as its sequel, and other Greek writers capitalized on the unparalleled popularity of these two epics by writing other epics concerning events preceding, succeeding, and in between these two (none of which have survived).
The great Greek dramatists tended to write trilogies of plays. Aeschylus built a trilogy around Agamemnon, Sophocles built a trilogy about Oedipus, and so on.
Coming closer to home, Mark Twain wrote Tom Sawyer and when that proved successful, he wrote a sequel, Huckleberry Fi
Of course, a series need not concentrate on “continuing the plot.” It may consist of a series of independent stories, which, however, share a common background and a continuing character. An enormously successful series of this sort was A. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. So compelling a character did Doyle create in Sherlock Holmes that the public could never get enough of him.
Doyle quickly began to grow tired of writing the stories and, indeed, began to hate Sherlock Holmes who had grown so large in public consciousness as to totally overshadow Doyle himself. In desperation, Doyle killed Sherlock Holmes-and was then forced to bring him back to life. Here is an extreme example of the victimization of an author (though it did make Doyle extremely wealthy). Other mystery novel series featuring a continuing detective (Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, etc.) followed as a matter of course.
When I was young, series of independent stories featuring continuing characters were extremely common. There were the Nick Carter books, the Frank Merriwell books, and others, too. There were magazines which, in each issue, carried a novella featuring some character such as the Shadow, the Spider, Doc Savage, Secret Agent X, Operator S, and so on.
Naturally, science fiction was influenced by such things. During the 1930s and 1940s, Neil R. Jones wrote some twenty stories featuring Professor Jameson and a group of companion robots with human brains; Eando Binder wrote ten stories about another robot, Adam Link; Nelson Bond wrote ten stories about a lovable bumbler named Lancelot Biggs.
However, the first successful series of novels in science fiction were by E. E. Smith. Between 1928 and 1934, he turned out three Skylark novels, and between 1934 and 1947, he turned out five Lensman novels.
In the 1940s, Robert A. Heinlein produced something new in his Future History series. Here the plots seemed independent and were set at widely different times, but they all fit into a consistent historical development of the solar system, so that there were references in stories set later in time to events in stories set earlier in time.
I began another series of this sort with Foundation in 1942. I expanded the background to the galaxy as a whole and proceeded to trace the history methodically from story to story, without jumping about. Later, I tied in my Robot series and my Empire series so that my own future history series now consists of thirteen novels-with others to come, I suppose.
Other series of the Foundation type followed, the most successful being Frank Herbert’s Dune series.
In fantasy, the great success was J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which inspired a host of imitations. The late JudyLy
The fashion may pass, but while it is here, it seems to be bringing us a considerable number of good things to enjoy.
Survivors
Martin H. Greenberg and I have co-edited a series of anthologies for Daw Books, which include the best stories of a given year. We began with the best of 1939 (a book that appeared in 1979), and proceeded year by year until in 1986, the fifteenth volume appeared with the best of 1953. In press (as I write this) is volume sixteen which deals with the best of 1954, and in preparation is volume seventeen which deals with the best of 1955.
For each of these books, Marty writes a general introduction outlining the events of the year, both in the real world of science fiction, and in the imaginary world of the great outside. We then each supply a headnote for each of the stories in the volume. Marty’s headnotes deal with the science fiction writer’s career, while I write on some subject or other that either the author or the story has inspired in my weird brain.
I read Marty’s headnotes with avidity for they always tell me more about the writer than I know, but not more than I want to know, of course.
One thing that I’ve noticed, with some curiosity, is that science fiction writers tend to have a ten-year lifespan, or, if anything, less.
That is, they will write science fiction, sometimes copiously, for ten years or less, and then they will dwindle off and fade to a halt. Sometimes, they don’t even dwindle, they simply stop dead. It leaves me wondering why.
One explanation, of course, is that they find other and more lucrative markets. John D. MacDonald wrote science fiction in his early years and then made the big time in mystery thrillers. John Jakes wrote science fiction in h is early years and then made the big time in historical fiction.
Another explanation is that they die-even science fiction writers die. Back in the 1950s, Cyril Kornbluth and Henry Kuttner died while each was at the peak of his career, and more recently the same was true for Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert.
But there are those who simply stop and end what seems a fruitful career without switching to other fields and while remaining vigorously alive. I can even think of names of fresh young writers who graced the pages of this magazine in its early issues whom we (or anyone else) don’t hear from much anymore.
Why is that? Do they run out of ideas? Do they simply get tired of writing? Does science fiction change into new cha
I simply don’t know.
Perhaps this is something that is true of all forms of writing and not of science fiction alone. Perhaps it is true of all forms of creative endeavor. Perhaps “burnout” is a common phenomenon which ought to be studied more than it is-by psychologists, not by me.
But if burnout is common, then what about those cases in which burnout does not occur? It may be just as useful to study those who are burnout-immune, and who have been writing high-quality science fiction steadily, prolifically, and successfully for, say, forty years and more, and who show no signs of breaking under the strain.
Lately, I have noticed that such people are termed “dinosaurs” by some observers in the field. I suspect that the term is used pejoratively; that is, it is not used as a compliment. From the things they have to say about the writers they call dinosaurs, I gather that, like the real dinosaurs, these writers are considered to be ancient, clumsy, and outmoded.
The term, however, is particularly inappropriate because the characteristic that we most associate with the real dinosaurs is that they are extinct, while the characteristic most noticeable about the writing dinosaurs is that they are not extinct. As a matter of fact, I gather from the nature of the comments made about these dinosaurs that those who use the term are rather aggrieved at them for not being extinct and for hogging too much of the spotlight for far too much time.
Well, that’s their problem. For myself, I prefer to use the term “survivors,” which is neither pejorative nor complimentary, but merely factual.
What are the characteristics that would qualify a science fiction writer to be a survivor?
To begin with, since I talked about a successful and steady and prolific writing life of at least forty years, a survivor would have to be at least sixty years old, and alive, and working. Naturally, he would have had to have started at quite a young age and been swatting away at it steadily since then.