Unfinished Series

[LibraryOgre]

So, I was thinking today about book series that will never be finished, because the author (or one of the authors) has died.

Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame and Keeper of the Hidden Ways series
Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey's Halfblood Chronicles

What are some other series you think are never going to be finished due to the death of the author?

[Telonius]

The Canterbury Tales is probably the most famous example in English-language literature.

[Traab]

Its fanfiction but The Queen Who Fell To Earth is a good one. Its a trilogy crossover of harry potter and the dragonriders of pern. Voldy is basically a nonentity, and most of the series is harry trying to earn recognition for dragons as an intelligent race. It has a lot of real world politics, and discussions on economic power as well as military but its still a fascinating read. The author died, lung cancer I think. He had a nice long list of really good stories both series and hilarious.

[Kitten Champion]

While it wasn't a series with a specific need for an end, I still do find it lamentable that Diana Wynne Jones never got to see where her characters' took her next in the Chrestomanci series.

[Palanan]

Patrick O’Brian. His Aubrey/Maturin novels are some of the finest I’ve ever read, and I’m in the middle of 21 right now. I’ve read it before, and it cuts off midway through a passage, which was where the manuscript ended when he died.

He often set up situations two or three novels in advance, and he seemed to be gently guiding Dr. Maturin towards a second wife who was much more compatible than his first, but sadly we’ll never see where that might have gone.

[The Glyphstone]

The sci-fi medical series Sector General immediately comes to mind - the last one was published after James White's death, who presumably would have written more.

[Yora]

A Song of Ice and Fire will never be finished because the author doesn't know how. I think he really wants to continue, but can't do it in a satisfying way.

Half-Life will never be finished because the creators lost interest.

With books, I've went on to only start reading once the whole story is written.

[Lurkmoar]

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens.

[BeerMug Paladin]

It's been a few years since I've looked into it and this is purely speculative, but The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies are both fantastic. After reading both, the next one wasn't out and considering it had been a few years since their publication I figured this series would (eventually) end up being unfinished.

Now that I look into it, it seems my guess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Lynch) is likely to be on track.

[Berserk Mecha]

This one is kind of cheating because it was finished and compiled by his son, but I wonder what the Silmarillion would have been like if Tolkien had lived to finish it. I reread it last year and it really seems like there were parts and plot lines that were going to be embellished but weren't.

Aside from that, I live in fear that Kentaro Miura will die before he finishes Berserk. I don't know if he's gotten a case of writer's block or if he's just lost interest but that manga has been moving at a glacial pace for some ten years, now.

[Magic_Hat]

Does it have to be literature, and does it have to be "unfinished" because of the death of someone? I can think of some TV examples, but don't want to derail the thread.

[Razade]

Half-Life will never be finished because the creators lost interest.

Gabe has said that they won't finish less because of lack of interest but mostly because the joke became too big that no matter what they put out, it won't be good enough to satisfy people. He's basically admitted that they dropped the ball on it and that letting the mystique simmer for so long doomed the game.

[Saintheart]

A Song of Ice and Fire will never be finished because the author doesn't know how. I think he really wants to continue, but can't do it in a satisfying way.

Money dictates that even if Martin is buried with his uncompleted manuscripts for the last two books, the series will be completed. Maybe not by Brandon Sanderson; perhaps by someone More Grimdark like Mark Lawrence or Joe Abercrombie, but there's just too much moolah at stake for his publishers to not have demanded plans be laid for completing the story after he's dead.

Me, I'd like to see the War Against the Chtorr (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Against_the_Chtorr#A_Method_for_Madness) series ended, but given David Gerrold's in his seventies now, I doubt we'll ever see it.

[Razade]

I sincerely hope A Song of Ice and Fire is finished by Martin, and even if he passes (a thing he'd tell you to screw yourself over for bringing up) I certainly don't want it to be Sanderson who takes the pen up.

[comicshorse]

It's been a few years since I've looked into it and this is purely speculative, but The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies are both fantastic. After reading both, the next one wasn't out and considering it had been a few years since their publication I figured this series would (eventually) end up being unfinished.

Now that I look into it, it seems my guess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Lynch) is likely to be on track.

As I understand it the author wants to finish the series but has been struggling with depression. He has produced some new short stories and is working on the next book so I hope it will still appear at some point

[Khedrac]

The Millennium series by Steig Larsson - I believe he intended it to be a 10 books series not a 3 book series.
Yes, they have commissioned someone to write (at least) one sequel, but given the name of the series I think they were going to focus far more on the magazine than on Lisbeth Salander.

Robert Asprin's "Myth" series (which was just splitting into two sub-series when he died).

Some would probably count Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time - although Brandon Sanderson got to work form RJ's notes, they woudl like to see what RJ would have written.

And two where they stopped writing well before he died so they probably don't count:

E E "Doc" Smith's Lord Tedric series.

A friend won't forgive me unless I mention Edmund Cooper (writing a Richard Avery)'s series The Expendables.

Just to balance, does anyone lament the abandoning of Hugh Cook's The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness? (He stopped 10 books into a 20 book series, personally I think he stopped several books too late.)


While it wasn't a series with a specific need for an end, I still do find it lamentable that Diana Wynne Jones never got to see where her characters' took her next in the Chrestomanci series.
Not entirely I think. DWJ tended to go off in new directions rather than write long series; I think she kept going back to the worlds of Chrestomanci because she could think of different stories to set there and it met the demand from the publishers. I think she would have been quite happy never to write another Chrestomanci story but to write essentially the same stories in a different manner.

[Saintheart]

I sincerely hope A Song of Ice and Fire is finished by Martin, and even if he passes (a thing he'd tell you to screw yourself over for bringing up) I certainly don't want it to be Sanderson who takes the pen up.

Don't really care whether a seventysomething and very successful author tells me to screw myself or not or bringing up something that everyone has to go through someday. Dead is dead, Martin is procrastinating, but I agree with you the prospect of having to read a Sanderson/Lawrence/Abercrombie epilogue is probably a more painful prospect than, say, having to watch Tyrion sail down another damn river playing board games with a late-and-poorly-introduced protagonist (if that).

[Friv]

As I understand it the author wants to finish the series but has been struggling with depression. He has produced some new short stories and is working on the next book so I hope it will still appear at some point

I was going to say - he's only forty, and apparently he has the outlines drawn up for four more books in this series, plus ideas for a second seven-book series in the same setting that takes place later. So it's a little early to assume that the series won't ever end. It just might... be a while.

[Kitten Champion]

Not entirely I think. DWJ tended to go off in new directions rather than write long series; I think she kept going back to the worlds of Chrestomanci because she could think of different stories to set there and it met the demand from the publishers. I think she would have been quite happy never to write another Chrestomanci story but to write essentially the same stories in a different manner.

Sure, she wasn't interested in writing door-stopper multi-volume behemoths like a lot of fantasy writers and would freely muck about with new stories, but seeing where Cat and Marianne would go after The Pinhoe Egg was something she said she wanted to do before she was diagnosed. She apparently quite liked Cat.

[Yora]

The Millennium series by Steig Larsson - I believe he intended it to be a 10 books series not a 3 book series.

Planning a 10 book series is insane. And also just dumb. How can you know what you'll be interested in writing in 20 or 30 years from now?

[Rodin]

It's been a few years since I've looked into it and this is purely speculative, but The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies are both fantastic. After reading both, the next one wasn't out and considering it had been a few years since their publication I figured this series would (eventually) end up being unfinished.

Now that I look into it, it seems my guess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Lynch) is likely to be on track.

I find it greatly amusing that the endorsement on the cover of the 4th book is by George R.R. Martin. I wonder if there's a club where these authors hang out and reminisce about how once, long ago, they released a novel.

One I think that will never be continued is the Empire of Man series by John Ringo and David Weber. There was supposed to be a fifth novel in the series and perhaps more after that, but given that the series wrapped up pretty well in the last book I can't imagine them returning to it now. This is one case where I wish they would leave well enough alone.

[Ibrinar]

The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox. Okay the author stopped writing because of publisher troubles many years ago and some years ago said that if he wrote more he would just be repeating himself. But originally more were planned and the author is 84 so there certainly won't be more.

There are some indie authors with unfinished series where I just assume they won't be finished based on time since the last book. For instance I read something from Alex Mykals (cute f/f Urban Fantasy romance imo) and with small indie authors you don't even know whether they are dead or alive unless they use social media or something.

Well don't know if discworld is a series that could be finished but it certainly had a few more books in it.

[tiornys]

Planning a 10 book series is insane. And also just dumb. How can you know what you'll be interested in writing in 20 or 30 years from now?
If planning a 10 book series is "insane", what are your thoughts about Brandon Sanderson's plans for the Cosmere?

[GrayDeath]

That he obviously has a few metalminds to tap them for Inspiration, Connectedness and Memory? ^^


Have to agree with most mentions here, especially Asprin (:(), dang I loved most of these Books...

[druid91]

The Salvation War. Not quite death that finished it off. But it was an interesting series.

[Wraith]

Terry Pratchett is possibly a debatable one.

On the one hand, the Discworld series had over 40 books in it, and each one (apart from the first two) were complete, self-contained stories - they could have stopped at any point, and with remarkably few exceptions they would have done so without any open ends. We had a feast of stories from Pterry, and to ask for more would very definitely be somewhat greedy of us.

On the other hand, there was undoubtedly a meta-plot going on between the novels that will never come to fruition. The modernization of Ankh-Morpork from an Olde Timee medieval city to a mechanised Victorian metropolis, along with the character threads that were being changed by that process, will never be completed and that is a real shame. The novels ended, the books ended, but the universe in which they were set never did; at least, not in the way that was probably intended.

[LibraryOgre]

Planning a 10 book series is insane. And also just dumb. How can you know what you'll be interested in writing in 20 or 30 years from now?

Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Brust#Bibliography) novels were planned at 19... one for each of the 17 houses, plus one for Taltos, himself, and one called "The Final Hit".

He's been writing them for 35 years, and is 4 books short... Cheothra, Lyorn, Tsalmoth, and The Final Hit.

I have several necromancers on tap if he doesn't finish before he dies.

[Yora]

One I think that will never be continued is the Empire of Man series by John Ringo and David Weber. There was supposed to be a fifth novel in the series and perhaps more after that, but given that the series wrapped up pretty well in the last book I can't imagine them returning to it now. This is one case where I wish they would leave well enough alone.

Look what happened to Star Wars. Or movie series in general. Typically there's two or three great movies, followed by a dozen awful ones that only run on brand recognition.

[GrayDeath]

Well, in that particular case the only good continuation I would want to read would be after quite a time skip, with Roger the Terrible ruling. And that could be done with a Novella, so I agree, no continuation needed.

[Rodin]

Well, in that particular case the only good continuation I would want to read would be after quite a time skip, with Roger the Terrible ruling. And that could be done with a Novella, so I agree, no continuation needed.

Absolutely. I remember being quite baffled when they announced that they were going to continue it. Sure, the bad guy got away, but the story was already a full book past the original premise of Space Marines Meet Ghengis Khan, and the final book was basically an extended wrap-up to start with. Where they thought the story was going to go I have no idea.

Fortunately, for once common sense seems to have prevailed. If only the same was true of Honor Harrington.

[GrayDeath]

Well, Roger is only a genetically altered Noble that shoots very well and is rather fast, he can be beaten by Common Sense.

Honor on the other Hand is a semitelepathic/empathic Heavy Worlder Cyborg Genius Admiral Supersoldier with built in weapons and a powerful Animal companion, so.....^^

[Willie the Duck]

Does a 'more is coming' promise make something unfinished, even if the series itself could reasonably be called complete?

As an example, David Brin has indicated that there will be more books in his Uplift series (which has had two trilogies and a short story), but both he and his audience seem to have lost interest. There's no particular reason why the series needs to continue, nor why it shouldn't. Is it unfinished?

[The Glyphstone]

Absolutely. I remember being quite baffled when they announced that they were going to continue it. Sure, the bad guy got away, but the story was already a full book past the original premise of Space Marines Meet Ghengis Khan, and the final book was basically an extended wrap-up to start with. Where they thought the story was going to go I have no idea.

Fortunately, for once common sense seems to have prevailed. If only the same was true of Honor Harrington.

For what little worth it might be, the main Honor Harrington series is finally over. She's now retired, and any future books in the universe will feature her only as a background character. Now, if only the same could be said about Victor Cachat, the albatross of unrealistic badassery around Anton Zilwicki's neck. There's at least one or two more books left in their story, apparently.

[Tyndmyr]

Planning a 10 book series is insane. And also just dumb. How can you know what you'll be interested in writing in 20 or 30 years from now?

It depends on how rapidly you write, really.

Worm is easily the size of ten novels. Ten quite large novels. Took him two years. The sequel is looking to be similar in scope, and the pace is 2-3 chapters a week, so...it gets you the same scale of megaseries planning, but without the 30 year timeframe.

Finished is....sometimes fungible. I really wish I could have more Discworld books. The series doesn't feel unfinished as is, because each tale is complete, but I certainly would love to read more set there.

Firefly is perhaps an easy example, but still. There was some magic in that season, and while the movie was nice, it isn't quite the same thing as more episodes. At this point, enough time has passed that I can't imagine it'll be picked up, and if it was, it'd likely feel odd.

[russdm]

A Song of Ice and Fire will never be finished because the author doesn't know how. I think he really wants to continue, but can't do it in a satisfying way.



Money dictates that even if Martin is buried with his uncompleted manuscripts for the last two books, the series will be completed. Maybe not by Brandon Sanderson; perhaps by someone More Grimdark like Mark Lawrence or Joe Abercrombie, but there's just too much moolah at stake for his publishers to not have demanded plans be laid for completing the story after he's dead.



I sincerely hope A Song of Ice and Fire is finished by Martin, and even if he passes (a thing he'd tell you to screw yourself over for bringing up) I certainly don't want it to be Sanderson who takes the pen up.



Don't really care whether a seventysomething and very successful author tells me to screw myself or not or bringing up something that everyone has to go through someday. Dead is dead, Martin is procrastinating, but I agree with you the prospect of having to read a Sanderson/Lawrence/Abercrombie epilogue is probably a more painful prospect than, say, having to watch Tyrion sail down another damn river playing board games with a late-and-poorly-introduced protagonist (if that).


I fully expect based on what GRIMM has said that when he dies all unfinished and unpublished Material for Westeros and its world/planet all get burned as part of his Viking Funeral. Leaving whatever is out as he passes, being how far the story goes. I can't see how the publishers continue it after GRIM has everything destroyed. Which he has said is what will happen with GoT book series