Many books function perfectly as standalones; many series end well. Plots are resolved, characters are given their reward or punishment. But there are also books that seem to cry out for a sequel and series that are never finished, leaving readers frustrated. We want more!1
Now we know that there may be good reasons for the author to deny us the books we want.
- Writer’s block.
- Realizing that they no longer accept the assumptions on which they based their fictional world.
- Their publisher folds.
- Their publisher decides not to publish any more books in the series.
- Major life changes, illness, and death.
Yes, we know all that. But we still wish matters were otherwise. Here’s a short list of the worlds that have left me wanting more.2
Tanith Lee’s Biting the Sun series3 contains two novels: 1976’s Don’t Bite the Sun, and 1979’s Drinking Sapphire Wine. The human inhabitants of Four BEE, Four BAA, and Four live forever, indulged by their quasi-robot minders. All physical desires can be satisfied.4 The protagonist yearns for the one thing that this seeming paradise cannot offer; something meaningful to do with her life. They try to escape their Eloi-like existence and are thwarted. Systemic oversight? It soon becomes clear something darker is at work.
Lee reportedly planned a third book, but not only did it never see print, it’s not entirely clear what would have been written. As far as we know, the author left no drafts or notes. It’s a hopeless yearning, but…I would really like to see what Lee had in mind.
***
Michael Reaves’ Shattered World series contains two volumes: The Shattered World (1984) and The Burning Realm (1988). What made this sword-and-sorcery adventure series stand out for me was the setting: a world blown into fragments by a magical mishap, each fragment of which has a magically sustained biosphere. On the plus side, there’s a lot more surface area to live on! On the minus side, the arrangement was very hard on Chthonic entities who would prefer to avoid direct sunlight. Apparently other readers didn’t find Reaves’ tales of cursed items, werebear thieves, and cloakfighters as diverting as I did, because there have been no new installments since 1988 (to my knowledge).
***
Alexis A. Gilliland edged out David Brin and Michael Swanwick for the 1982 John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award, winning for the first two volumes of his Rosinante Trilogy.5 A liquidity crisis has promoted Charles Cantrell from project manager of the space colony Rosinante to part owner. The other owner? The labour union. The current administration of the North American Union administration looks askance at this cooperative venture, which threatens their power. Cue civil war, a golden age of space piracy, and the one true faith of corporate AI (artificial intelligence) Skaskash.
I acquired the first volume in the series, Revolution, thanks to the eye-catching Chris Barbieri cover (above).
I discovered the series is funnier than one would expect from plotlines that feature banking crises, union negotiations, and the sudden collapse of the dominant government in North America. There were just three books in the series—Revolution from Rosinante (1981), Long Shot for Rosinante (1981), The Pirates of Rosinante (1982)—but the setting was expansive and interesting enough that more stories were possible, perhaps elsewhere in Gilliland’s Solar System. Thus far, none have materialized.
***
David Gerrold’s 1977 Moonstar Odyssey (simply Moonstar in the 2018 edition) is set on Satlik, a terraformed world orbiting an atypical main-sequence star. The inhabitants of this fragile paradise are as engineered as their home, most importantly in the matter of sex. Children are born sexless; they decide at puberty to be either male or female. At least, that’s way society expects it to work but as with so many things biological, the reality is much more complex than a simple binary. Those who fall outside society’s narrow definitions meet vicious prejudice and abuse, doled out on flimsy pretexts. Not only does protagonist Jobe have the misfortune to fall between the definitions, but they do so during a major disaster.
As I mentioned in a previous review, I think the main reason Gerrold missed the Otherwise (formerly the Tiptree) Award Honor Roll is because Moonstar Odyssey predated that award by over a decade.
***
Of course, the series above all for which I would like to see further volumes is Rosemary Kirstein’s Steerswoman series. The series is thus far composed of The Steerswoman (1989), The Outskirter’s Secret (1992), The Lost Steersman (2003), and The Language of Power (2004). In it, a setting that at first glance appears to be a secondary fantasy world instead is revealed as the hardest of hard science fiction. What’s going on and why the world looks as it does is gradually revealed over the course of a series that exemplifies everything hard science fiction is supposed to be, but all too often is not. The only flaws in the series is that it is nowhere near finished, and that it has been sixteen years since the most recent installment. But I live in hope.
In the words of Wikipedia editor TexasAndroid, prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll is of “questionable notability.” His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews and Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis). He is currently a finalist for the 2020 Best Fan Writer Hugo Award and is surprisingly flammable.
[1]And other books one never ever, ever, EVER wants to revisit, like Spinrad’s “The Men in the Jungle.”
[2]Finished by the original author. Continuations by other authors, no matter how well intended, generally don’t work for me.
[3]This was also published as “Drinking Sapphire Wine,” which, given that that is also the second book’s title, introduced needless confusion.
[4]Except that despite casual gender swapping, all relationships are strictly hetero.
[5]It probably didn’t hurt that he had name recognition thanks to his Best Fan Artist Hugo win in 1980.
Two series for which I’m real sorry we won’t ever get sequels: League of Peoples by James Alan Gardner and Shadow Police by Paul Cornell. Such fun and unique settings with great published stories, solid worldbuilding, plenty of potential… I would have loved to see them at least reach a more natural conclusion, rather than be left with so many unresolved plot threads.
I always told “John M” Mike Ford that I wanted a sequel to “Princes of the Air” but he wasn’t interested. I don’t blame him – it was an exquisite stand alone like he always wrote. I just was greedy for more.
It’s too bad Patrick Rothfuss never wrote a sequel to The Wise Man’s Fear…ba dum tss!
I will pass that onto Jim at gaming this Wednesday :) I meant to add a footnote clarifying that in general, publishers don’t pick up orphaned series, although I can think of examples where they did.
Thank you, James! I so much appreciate your Oldies and Goodies reviews (I myself am an Oldie). You remind me of old favorites and suggest things I’ve missed and can look for, and I am very grateful. Please keep on keeping on!
I stopped reading Robin McKinley’s blog back when it was on LJ (so a long while ago, in other words), but as far as I know, she’s still nowhere close on the sequel to Pegasus, which is annoying because that one really did actually end on a cliff hanger. I’ll go with grief as a good explanation, of course, and I, but… I’d like it, eventually.
James, maybe you could also tell the other James that I’m still waiting for the third Light vs. Dark novel (after “All Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault” and “They Promised Me The Gun Wasn’t Loaded”)? Waiting impatiently. And it’s only been two years since the last one. Don’t make me break lockdown and come over there …
I heard Cornell mention something like a crowdfunding campaign to get final installments of The Shadow Police novels out, but I think the rest of his career took off too hard for that. Which breaks my heart. Not only are the books very, very good individually, not only does the last book pull of several remarkable magic tricks right at the end, but the books leaves some beloved characters in places you wouldn’t want to leave them.
I would give a very large sum of money for the next book, and again for the last one.
Yes! I’m not the only person who really, really wants a third Shattered World book from Michael Reaves! Now how do we make it happen?
And since Shattered World has already been mentioned, I’ll contribute Roger MacBride Allen’s Hunted Earth series, which had two volumes (The Ring of Charon and The Shattered Sphere) and then seems to have been abandoned with Earth still very much being hunted. (After having, at the start of the first book, disappeared during a scientific experiment and been replaced by a black hole.
(And the “Shattered Sphere” in question in the second book is a broken Dyson sphere — these books were not operating on a small scale.)
City of Diamond (1996) by Jane Emerson (aka Doris Egan). Three large alien ships (the “cities”) inhabited and run by humans whose religion is a fusion of Christianity plus the alien religion (they think, the reader may have doubts, the aliens aren’t around anymore to ask). Politics within the cities (or at least in Diamond and Opal, we see almost nothing of Pearl), politics between the cities (Diamond and Opal had fought a war in the not too distant past), politics and trade between the cities and the sector they are currently hanging around, hints of politics elsewhere (the sector is currently split between two hostile multi system polities). Individuals trying to live and sometimes gain power and interact with each other. The story is complete for this book but hanging. Unfortunately author illness and that she is now a successful screenwriter probably means no more books. Walton review
@3 Maybe Jim Butcher will for him and GRR Martin. <– sarcasm Nothing is worse for readers than novelists who make it big in Hollywood. Hanging out with cool, famous people is much more fun than sitting in an empty room with your computer. It’s also better paying.
A good novel should end with a sense that the adventure and life will continue for the character so every good book deserves a sequel.
In most cases, the reason a book doesn’t get a sequel is the publisher won’t buy it because of sales. That’s the sad truth.
Donald Kingsbury’s The Finger Pointing Solward has been hanging fire for how many decades now?
<Insert GRRM Ice and Fire Joke Here>
With me, it’s more the series that go on, and on, and on, and should definitely have been concluded a few volumes back. I understand that the authors like the paychecks, but, oh boy. The Flinx series could’ve ended a few volumes earlier. McCaffrey’s Pern series probably didn’t need the last book ,and the previous two could have been edited down into one.
I wouldn’t mind seeing the sequel to Inca: The Scarlet Fringe (2000). So very obviously the first book of a series, but no further books were published. Apparently there was a note on Usenet somewhere that a sequel had actually been written.
However, since Blom died in 2012, I doubt that any sequel will see the light of day.
Another one: The Spiral Dance (1993) by R. Garcia y Robertson. I’ve given up hope on that one, although the author is still alive.
I believe Kingsbury first mentioned it in the 1950s, so getting on past sixty years?
Well, except for those books where the character doesn’t survive the book. There’s not going to be Charlotte’s Web: The Webbening, Old Yeller: More Yelling, or The Bridge to Terabitha 2: Have I Mentioned Today Leslie is Atlantian on Her Mother’s Side?
Per Rosemary Kirstein’s blog, she’s still working on both books 5 & 6 of Steerwoman series, so there’s hope yet :-) She’s already posted snippets of book 5 on her blog, and an exerpt of book 6 on the New Decameron project.
The first book I read that made me notice Tor as a published (as opposed to an imprint I’d followed Jim Baen to) was Philip Ross’ A Good Death, which is about an American intelligence agent who learns he is terminally ill. The book is about what he plans to do with his remaining time–sell secrets to the Soviets in exchange for enough money to live comfortably for the last few months of his life–and what he actually does–move in next to an intellectual both the Soviets and US want dead, with the added twist that the US team that shows up is his former co-workers, and the Soviets the ones he sold the secrets to–but there’s not going to be a miracle cure that permits a sequel.
I have to admit, whereas I found Reaves’ The Shattered World to be really really good, I could not get through The Burning Realm, I found the writing to be so bad in it. I could hardly credit the two books to be by the same author.
@15
Off-topic, but: Old Yeller, The Marketing
For those who enjoy Orson Scott Card’s Ender series there is hope. I saw recently-ish that he had a breakthrough for a Children of the Mind sequel, the grand culmination of the (publisher-named) Enderverse. So maybe in another year or two we’ll see how that turned out.
Barry Hughart’s Master Li and Number Ten Ox was originally supposed to be ten volumes. I’d have gladly read all of them. This one was basically everything that’s out of the author’s hands going wrong. Hughart managed to bring it to something of a close, though not the one he was hoping for. I’m not sure he’s even still alive to write more.
Another is Howard Jones’ Dabir and Asim stories. This is a victim of the publisher deciding they weren’t selling well enough. At least Jones is interested in telling more if he can get enough interest/find time between contractually better paying books/etc.
I’d also love to see the planned sequel(s) for Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon.
Sameul R. Delany’s never going to write The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities, the second half of the duology begun with Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, and I’ve just had to accept that.
19: For some reason when I was a kid we often named our pets after fictional animals. Our dog Yeller got shot by a hunter, while Blue (1) died of distemper, and Blue (2) fell through a hole in the ice. Blue (3) caught fire and fell into the swamp was really hard to housebreak and we ended up calling him Pooper; he lived to a fairly old age before attempting all too successfully to catch a car. On the whole our naming practices did not work out well.
I was going to mention Doris Egan’s Gates of Ivory novels, which I too was turned on to by Jo Walton’s blog posts, here, as an example of a series which didn’t need a sequel.
They are wonderful books, and I’d seriously enjoy any sequels. But somewhere on Egan’s blog she resolves everything I needed to know about how Dora and Ran continue to live. In one or two perfect sentences.
And I got closure for the novels, a big grin on my face (for the aptness of their fates, and the happiness of the characters – great comfort reads), and a big grin of appreciation for how to write vividly and sharply.
Oh, I didn’t know that Tanith Lee had planned a third book in the Four BEE series.
I’ve read them a while ago (and enjoyed them very much) but didn’t have the impression that the story is incomplete. All the contrary, I found the ending of the second book quite satisfying.
By the way, that confusing omnibus title is now over 40 years old so it’s quite unlikely that new readers will come across it.
There’s a newer omnibus edition less confusingly called Biting the Sun of which I own a copy. The print edition was first published in 1999 (not so fresh anymore but I ordered my copy only a few years ago and apparently it is in print); there’s also an ebook version from December 2018!
Good stuff! The novels are comparably slim; the omnibus edition has under 400 pages so there is no excuse not to read these great stories!
@@@@@ DemetriosX: Barry Hughart died last year so that door sadly has forever closed.
It came up in 2016 when I reviewed sixty-odd Tanith Lee works.
I love Tanith Lee but I have to admit I kind of bounced off of the Four BEE books. Should probably give them another try, especially now that they’re out on Kindle.
Panshin’s The Universal Pantograph?
I have heard that its author doesn’t think highly of it, but I loved the Unschooled Wizard series by Barbara Hambly. In a nutshell, there used to be an international network of wizards, but it was smashed a long time ago; the reason it’s gone is really, really bad; the man who discovers this and also discovers that he’s a wizard is middle aged and just over the crest of an entirely different career; and he now has to figure out how to wizard by picking what (hopefully) works out of a morass of misinformation, disinformation, and just plain lack of information. (Wizardry in this universe starts with math and geometry and just gets more complex from there.) The series ends on a high note, but I have always wanted to read a book about what happens next. Does Sun Wolf manage to rebuild something close to the old network, and if so, how? Does his previous reputation keep getting in the way? Does his relationship with [spoiler] continue?
@28 Bill. Yes! I read a rumour once that it was written but not published due to a dispute with publisher. I don’t know how true it is.
I think there is still hope that the sequel to “Throne of the Crescent Moon” by Saladin Ahmed will be published some day. Although it does look like he’s moved on to writing comics. Which I’ll happily read since I think he’s a good story teller.
@23
Being a Nicoll Dog seems unreasonably dangerous.
@@@@@ 28, Bill Leininger
Panshin’s The Universal Pantograph?
If the original manuscript exists, yes.
If Panshin were to write it today, no.
Those are books written by a young man.
I don’t think Panshin could re-catch the lightning in a bottle.
Zero out of the five for me here.
But, why no mention of multiple and many promises of David Gerrold’s books five, six, and seven in his marvelous Chtorr series ? He has taunted us with tidbits of chapters and many release dates, all to fall through. One wonders if his son has the three manuscripts ready to go upon his passing from this universe ?
https://fuzzyblog.io/blog/story.radio.weblogs.com/2003/06/23/welcome-back-david-gerrold-and-chapters-from-a-method-for-madness.html
There is even a fake book place on Amazon with 13 reviews of “A Method For Madness”:
https://www.amazon.com/Method-Madness-David-Gerrold/dp/0765340380
I would really love a continuation of Elizabeth Willey’s series about Argyll.
@21 sadly, he’s not.
James, I wondered if you were going to mention the Steerswoman books. They desperately need their next three but since there’s one giant story arc I wasn’t sure you would consider #5-7 as sequels as such.
@21: I heard that also but given the turgid mess that was Eight Skilled Gentlemen, I’m just as glad he stopped at three. When I do my reread I stop at two. But oh, what a great two.
I always wanted to see more of the world from Diana Wynne Jones’ The Power of Three.
Too many to remember!
@35 I first read The Well-Favored Gentleman because of an earlier Tor.com article about unfinished series. It’s like they want us to be sad.
@28. Bill Leininger:
Panshin’s website used to list (a long, long time ago) The Universal Pantograph as unpublished, which I took to mean, “I’ve written it, but publishing it hasn’t happened.”
I’ve always wondered why he never seemed to make the effort – if the manuscript is complete, but no-one wants to publish it, why not just bung it on the website?
Yes, please to Universal Pantograph.
I would prefer the one written in the same time frame as the other three, but I’ll take anything written by Panshin.
I agree about continuations written by others, no matter who for whom, because it is the writing, not so much the story, that I enjoy.
Very satisfying are books set in the same universe, whether sequels or not. Andre Norton and Terry Pratchett, for example. If one’s favourite character has been bypassed, the passage of time in the place, and the wandering around the place, gives perfect opportunity for one to imagine anything for that character.
Teresa Edgerton’s ‘Rune of Unmaking’ series under the pseudonym Madeline Howard. *sigh* It was very clearly going somewhere and looked possible that it would wrap up as a trilogy, but only the first two volumes were ever published. I assume the first two didn’t sell well enough.
Her several earlier series of books under her own name were so unjustly neglected, particularly ‘The Green Lion’ series with its alchemical allegory and the ‘Celydonn’ series. I thought they were really exceptionally well-imagined and well-told stories. I think the magical steam-punk books ‘Goblin Moon’ and ‘The Gnome’s Engine’ might have done a little better.
Jenny Islander @@@@@ 29:
Funny, I almost didn’t recognize that Barbara Hambly series of books from your description of them. It at first gave me an image of a completely different kind of series, imagining a middle-aged accountant, plumber or programmer discovering he was supposed to be a wizard!
The first book of that set, ‘The Ladies of Mandrigyn’ is one of my all time favorite books. It is brilliant with perfectly flowing plot arcs, and says so much both directly and implicitly about character, about society and male-female social roles, and about war, particularly without making the mercenary character into an anti-hero. Unfortunately, at least for me the other books published in the series couldn’t live up to that first one. They were fine books, but merely pretty good action/adventure books, only average for Hambly.
It has always made me sad that Gordon Dickson never got to finish his epic “Childe Cycle”; instead spending so much of his final writing time cranking out “Dragon and the George” books. Not blaming him; they were much more commercially successful and a man needs to pay his bills and an older man has more; and a desire to leave something besides expenses behind for his family. But if this was a better world; he could have finished what he had called his life’s work.
I loved Master Li and Number Ten Ox. The end of the Bridge of Birds is still one of the most beautiful going.
After Cyteen and Regenesis, I thought C J Cherryh needed another book to finish the story. Her publisher seemed to disagree, sadly.
As far as Cherryh, I’d love to see more Morgaine and/or more Chanur.
And going back to Tanith Lee, I know she was planning on writing more Flat Earth books; and there are already a number of stories that were published after Night’s Sorceries, the fifth & final book in the series.
“Moonstar Odyssey” quite truly changed my life and view of my birth religion when I was a young woman For Reasons, and I am glad to see it mentioned here. Other stories set in that world would be intriguing. I loved/was horrified by “Courtship Rite,” and would love to love/be horrified by “The Finger Pointing Solward.” I have the two Lee books on my shelf (among many of hers), but I’m not intrigued enough to re-read them, at least not yet. “The Universal Pantograph” is much to be desired. No continuation of The Shadow Police series? Aargh!
@46 More Hani would be welcome, even (especially?) without the Chanur tie. A wonderful little pocket of the universe, with one of my favorite “humans as outsiders” presentations.
Tentatively agree on Cornell, I’d love to see the series finished, but the NG insert into book three always turned me off as being too heavy handed. Going back to more the style of book one would be great – I admit that I was surprised by the twist/reveal, and I love being surprised by things like that.
I see I somehow convinced myself Cherryh and Fancher’s recent book was related to Cyteen. Well, it is a good thing nobody follows me for pontifications on SF.
The problem is that of financial issues. For example, John Maddox Roberts wrote two stunning AH books about a different war between Carthage and Rome, which had been set up when the Romans exiled themselves from Italy, and Hannibal and his descendants became kings (or sufets, anyway).
The second volume ended with the prospect of a battle of grand annihilation at Carthage itself . . .
And then the third never came out. Roberts himself told me that the publisher didn’t think it was worth doing. I suppose now, if he still has the manuscript, he could e-pub, but that’s his decision and (unlike the way some fans these days seem to think) I can’t make him.
By way of contrast, you have Roland Green, who has several series which are lying about waiting for conclusions. I saw him at a kaffeeklatch at a Worldcon . . . alone. *sigh*
@49: Well, Cyteen – the planet, not the novel – is important in Alliance Rising, because they recently discovered FTL and merchanter ships are going there in droves to get FTL drives. The Earth Company is reacting somewhat like Victorian England might have if the airplane had just been invented in India.
Not quite a sequel per say, but I will always wonder “what if” Jay Lake have lived to write any real novels in his Sunspin universe. The short stories were wonderful and begging for a full novel.
@6, I hear you! I felt betrayed by the end of Pegasus, and it didn’t help when I looked at her blog and it said “Pegasus II coming in 2014!” long past that year. Right now she isn’t blogging and is supposed to be working on two sequels. Apparently she fell apart when she realized it was supposed to be a trilogy. (Blame the Story Gods.) Peter died in 2015 so let’s hope she’s able to work again by now. I refuse to reread that book without the sequels in hand
The natural counterpoint to this article would be one about books that received sequels that shouldn’t have. I liked the first couple of Xanth books as a teenager, for example, but was bored silly by them by book 5 or so. Anthony went on to write 20 or 30 more. There’s something to be said for gracefully retiring a concept that’s fulfilled its potential.
I’m personally wanting to see a final book to wrap up Marvin Kaye/Parke Godwin’s Masters Of Solitude trilogy. Supposedly, the last one (Singer Among the Nightingales) was largely completed but never got released before Godwin passed on. Nobody can say if it will ever come out. I wanna know what happened to the Shando! What was The City’s big project? Did Singer ever find any place that was cool?
The conclusion to Metaplanetary and Superluminal, which we never got because Tony Daniel had to write other stuff to pay the bills.
I still have Steven Boyett’s Architect of Sleep sitting on a high shelf, waiting for the sequel that never came.
Harry Connolly’s Twenty Palaces.
(and obviously the David Gerrold and Paul Cornell entrants mentioned above!)
Darwinia is a 1998 science fiction/alternate history novel by American-Canadian writer Robert Charles Wilson. It’s ending opens up all kinds of possibilities for a second volume. If RCW is reading this, please consider a new story.
Definitely agree with Cornell’s Shadow Police.
Janet Kagan’s Hellspark was a setting rich enough for a dozen sequels, or at least books set in the same galaxy, even though the book we have ends satisfyingly enough.
More Morgaine, yes, please! More Chanur would be nice as well. Also more City of Diamond books and The Finger Pointing Solward. Martin and Rothfuss, obviously, but I am not holding my breath. Also actual Frank Herbert’s sequels to Dune, if someone has access to alternate universe in which they exist
Here’s a couple from the Wayback Machine — the completed version of E.R. Eddison’s The Mezentian Gate (it was incomplete when he died, so the published version is an assortment of bits in various stages of completion interleaved with his outlines for chapters he hadn’t started writing), and the various sequels to Tros of Samothrace that Talbot Mundy never got around to writing.
Also, lots more of Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane, beginning with completion of the novel fragment.
The current cover for Moonstar loudly proclaims it is Jobe: Book One. I asked Gerrold on Facebook a few years ago if a sequel was in the works, but he didn’t respond.
I myself am waiting for the third novel in April Daniel’s Dreadnought series. While each novel is stand-alone, it really doesn’t feel like Danny’s journey to being a full superhero (as well as maturity) is complete.
More books to the series starting with Go Quest, Young Man by K. B. Brogan (at least I think that’s the author’s name).
At least one more book so I can see what happens after the cliffhanger of 1945 by William R. Forstchen and Newt Gingrich.
The book that was supposed to be published next in Adrienne Martine-Barnes Sword series… I think it was supposed to be called The Forest Sword… unless that was the title of the last published one.
Hugh Cook’s Chronicles of an Age of Darkness. Wildly ambitious, way ahead of its time, and sadly only 10 of the planned 60! books were written.
What, no love for The Peshawar Lancers? That setting was fascinating, and all kinds of different stories could have been told there
Desperately waiting for Vorkosigan – the next generation to see what will happen with Miles’ kids (especially Taura, who seems fated to join Eli Quinn and the Dendarii). Bujold for the win.
In similar vein, perhaps even more so, I want the remaining two full novels in Bujold’s Five Gods series. Penric and Desdemona are fun but I want full treatment of characters serving and being challenged by the two other Gods.
I would love to see a conclusion to the Uplift series, though with each passing year it appears that becomes less and less likely with Brins’ shift to other series and contemporary political commentary. Also, The Empire of Man series promised a conclusion at some point but it appears the co-authors have run out of steam.
@@@@@ 65, FinnyDeveaux:
The book that was supposed to be published next in Adrienne Martine-Barnes Sword series… I think it was supposed to be called The Forest Sword… unless that was the title of the last published one.
I want it to. But since Adrienne died in 2015, I’m unlikely to get it.
The extant books are: The Fire Sword, (the best of them) The Crystal Sword, The Rainbow Sword, The Sea Sword.
Since the last one was published in 1989, Adrienne was in no hurry to finish the series.
@67: I loved that book, but got told by some people who are the same ethnicities as supporting characters in the book that it’s racist as all get-out. I thought it was more about how the so-called conquerors and enlighteners had become assimilated to a system built by nonwhites that just shifted a bit to accommodate them, but then, I’m white.
@71,
I’m comfortable with books depicting racist characters, institutions, and situations. After all, adventure is someone else having a bad time, far away and possibly a long time ago. The key question is if the writer endorses the racism, or accepts it as a matter of fact, or rejects it. And there I am prepared to make some allowance for stuff written a century ago.
So is it a novel of the racist British Raj, or a racist novel of the British Raj?
Diane Duane, The Door Into Starlight. Long planned as the book to end the Tales of the Five series, likely heartbreaker …. previous books seemed to kill their publishers.
I loved Sterling E Lanier’s Heiro books: Heiro’s Journey and The Unforsaken Heiro. There should have been more … :sigh:.
No one wants the third Hiero novel by Sterling E. Lanier? Alas!
Incidentally Dr, Kingsbury mentioned he was working on a revision of ‘The Finger Pointing Solward’ for David Hartwell in September, 2018.
And Barry Hughart said prior to his passing – in the flyleaf of the Subterranean omnibus – that although he loved the three extant books, he would be treading too-familiar ground by continuing.
If there is one universe that I thought would benefit from more attention by the author, it was one that had truly endless possibilities: Amber. Anyone who read all 10 novels, and especially the shorts that Zelazny deliberately scattered to the four winds, knows that there were so many ideas and pathways to be pursued that no one author could cover the ground… but it would have been great to see him try. Still top five for me in terms of sci-fi/fantasy series, overall. I desperately miss Roger’s writing, and have ever since he passed.
@@@@@ # 6 and 53: I doubt there will be any sequel(s) to Pegasus, because I don’t think McKinley actually had a story to tell. The book was an extended daydream about having a flying horse for a companion.
Would love to see another Lee Flat Earth novel just to see who the fifth Lord of Darkness was. And although the protagonist’s story was rounded off, I could have read another dozen Vance “Planet of Adventure” novels.
Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. I’ve heard she plans to return to the world someday.
I desperately want to know what happens to Allie in Katharine Eliska Kimbriel’s Night Calls series. They’re so good, and I’m glad she wrote a third. But it doesn’t feel like an ending at all- I need at least one more book for wrap-up!
What about The War Against The Chtorr?
Was going to say Universal Pantograph – I’ve literally been waiting for that for most of my life (and my parents have for half of theirs), but I agree with @@@@@#33 that a version written now, as opposed to mostly written previously and finished/polished now, might be a letdown. But I wish Panshin would write something else, at least.
My biggest regret is the Twelve Treasures series by Rosemary Edghill (eluki bes shahar): The Sword of Maiden’s Tears, The Cup of Morning Shadows, The Cloak of Night and Daggers (later collected in a trilogy as The Empty Crown). It was, as far as I recall, the original elves-in-the-subway storu (before urban fantasy was a thing), and she did some wonderful stuff asking questions about class in fantasy long before most people were; plus, it ends with a couple of cliffhangers ongoing. Years ago, before Kickstarter and Patreon, I imagined a setup something like Patreon just so I could help subsidize her finishing that – maybe 12 books for the 12 treasures is too much, but how about 6? (I also wouldn’t mind seeing more of Edghill’s Bast Wiccan mystery series.) She’s gone on to collaborate with Mercedes Lackey and others and probably doesn’t, financially, need to go back to past work anymore. Sigh.
I’ve also been getting nervous about Steven Brust’s theoretical 18 Jhereg novels. And his latest is in the side series, not the main series. Anyone have inside info?
I first started reading David Feintuch’s Seafort Saga on a whim late one evening. I stayed up all night for two nights in a row reading through the first three novels: Midshipman’s Hope, Challenger’s Hope, and Prisoner’s Hope, which made being productive at work a very… interesting challenge that week (and being more than a bit resentful of having to set the book down and interrupt the read at all). I picked up and read the four succeeding novels in the series as each was released, and was sorry to hear that the author had passed away. Many threads in the series remain unresolved. Adding to the dissonance, I understand that a final, eighth manuscript was completed, but never published.
I’m seriously considering approaching the publisher and perhaps starting a Kickstarter to fund approaching the estate and getting the final novel published. Even if the 8th book doesn’t resolve all of the open threads, it’s painful knowing that there’s more to the tale, and that it remains out of reach. Any recommendations on strategy?
83: I think you need to start by talking to his estate.
I would really like to read _The City in Stone_ by Phyllis Eisenstein, the 3rd book that was actually written, sold to a publisher, but has not come out because Meisha Merlin Publishing suddenly closed in 2007.
Every once in awhile, I send Ms. Eisenstein fan email hoping the book will someday appear.
Melanie Rawn and the Mageborn series…
I always really wanted to find out what happened in Robert Adams’ Horseclans universe, myself. I haven’t gone back to the books as much recently, as they don’t hold up for me on re-reading, but I remember wondering why there weren’t any more books coming, and then discovering it was because Adams had died …
I’m also waiting for more Steerswoman books and the next Trent the Uncatchable book (by Daniel Keys Moran), but those authors are alive and writing, so they might happen.
How about most of the series that John Ringo has written or co-written?
Empire of Man – left hanging after book 4
Council Wars – left hanging after book 4
Looking Glass – left hanging after book 4
Legacy of the Aldenata – left hanging after book 11 (frankly, I would have liked if he had taken the epilogue from Watch on the Rhine and run with it)
Those are the one’s I was following…
Agreed on more Zelazny/Amber!
And while I would enjoy more Morgaine or Chanur stories, what I really would like from CJ Cherryh is a sequel to the Finisterre books: Rider at the Gate and Cloud’s Rider (yum, bacon!).
@29 Jenny, I love the Sun Wolf books too! Barbara Hambly has actually written many “further adventures” stories set in her various magical universes, and at least four of them are Sun Wolf stories. Here’s the Amazon link to the most recent one that I know of — from there you should be able to find the others. (just searching on Barbara Hambly works but she’s so prolific that it takes a long time to go through everything she’s written!) They’re on the pricey side for short stories, but she’s self-publishing these while also writing historical fiction and teaching history at a community college, so I’m OK with it.
https://smile.amazon.com/Hazard-Barbara-Hambly-ebook/dp/B071V2YML7/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=barbara+hambly+hazard&qid=1596754524&sr=8-2
@77, that wasn’t Robin McKinley’s story at the time. Her explanation for not writing a sequel to Pegasu right away was that when she reached the point of working on the sequel, she realized that the story needed to be a trilogy, which threw her into a panic (or something). Then she couldn’t work on them anymore, and in 2013 we ended up with Shadows. Which is an okay novel, but not up to the author’s usual standards. (Though I like Chalice better than a lot of fans out there, so others may not agree with that assessment.) At any rate, as far as I know she hasn’t published anything since 2013, and her husband died in 2015. Which was shattering. (Considering the gap in age, it was inevitable that she would outlive him. I am probably being heartless to make that observation.) At any rate, she has to support herself so she must keep writing! I’m sure Peter’s estate had to mostly go to his grown children.
Ohh these are all new to me! Added!
I wish I said this facetiously, but I’m really dead serious about this answer: Song of Fire and Ice
I have spent more than half my life (reading book when when I was 16 and hadn’t yet been out for one year) waiting for each book. I have (lit really) given up and refuse to read any side stories, prequels or other crap that isn’t the next darn book.
I could rant on this for ages… but it has made me gun shy of large series now and so Sanderson’s epic series in progress and Rothfus remain unread on this fantasy buff’s reading list because I just can’t handle any more heartbreak, frustration or flat out despair at unfinished series.
Lorna Freeman’s Borderlands series.
Looked to be at least a quartet of novels, unfortunately the final one has yet to show up, even years later.
@68, Rob, I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think LMB has much interest in writing more Vorkosigan books. Knowing the short lifespan Miles is fated to have, writing about his grown children means that Miles has to die. She had a hard enough time writing about Aral’s death; she is probably much more attached to Miles. Even authors are allowed to retire and only write what they want to write! As much as readers wish otherwise, I suspect LMB is finished with the Nexus. And I devoutly hope that I’m wrong!
I think there is a better chance of more Five Gods novels. I haven’t kept up with Penric because I don’t really do ebooks. I was very happy to see on Amazon that they’re collecting the Penric stories in hardbound editions that will eventually be paperbacks that I can better afford. (Though I confess that I would shell out the hardback price for a new Vorkosigan book, and I haven’t completely given up on the possibility!)
@79 I think she’s currently writing a new book in the same universe.
@95 There’s a new Vorkosigan novella, Flowers of Vashnoi but it’s an ebook. It may get a collected edition if LMB writes some more novellas. I think it’s set after Diplomatic Immunity.
@96, yes that’s one ebook that I have read! Loved reading an Ekaterin POVstory. My problem is the lack of a true e-reader. Plus I have so many “real” books! Switching to ebooks would be a long and expensive process if I tried to replace them all. I have access to an iPad with a Kindle app and use it when I have no other way to get a story by a favorite author. I just haven’t gotten excited about the Penric saga, though I have read one or two of the novellas. Maybe I will when I buy it in paper.
I would definitely read any Vorkosigan ebooks that LMB publishes. There are a few authors and series which I can’t and won’t miss out on.
@73 – Me too! And also Omnitopia: East Wind.
The Pearl Saga by Eric Van Lustbader. Oh gods i read this series in my young years and fell SO in love with it! Oh goodness if there was ever a sequel i…i would just cry with joy.
Godslayer Series by James Rollins. Whew. He keeps saying there’s more coming, but gosh i’m craving it whew.
I would love a sequel to War For the Oaks. I would love to see Eddi and the Fey on tour.
Roger Zelazny’s Changeling series. The second book, Madwand, just screamed for a follow-up. It left several unresolved plot lines that would need to be covered by a third book. Never happened.
I would dearly like to see a Jonathan Strange sequel…one can still hope, though…
@@@@@ 72, o.m.:
I’m comfortable with books depicting racist characters, institutions, and situations. After all, adventure is someone else having a bad time, far away and possibly a long time ago. The key question is if the writer endorses the racism, or accepts it as a matter of fact, or rejects it. And there I am prepared to make some allowance for stuff written a century ago.
So is it a novel of the racist British Raj, or a racist novel of the British Raj?
In the book, Indian protagonists point to their South African territories as particularly racist.
I don’t see much evidence of racism in S. M. Sterling’s works. He does have viewpoint characters who are racist. That’s not the same thing.
What I find offensive is his fondness for homicidal sadism. There is way too much of that, vividly portrayed.
They don’t call him S & M Stirling for nothing.
>Harry Connolly’s Twenty Palaces.
He’s working on the next one!
I’m still waiting for Scalzi to follow-up on his fantasy masterpiece, Shadow War of the Night Dragons,
@46: I wouldn’t mind another Morgaine book, but Cherryh in “Exile’s Gate” finished the real story – will Vanye and Morgaine Do It? Anything after that would just be a continued quest between worlds until something does get them.
It would be interesting to see what’s really going on from Morgaine’s perspective, but that would be too much of a series spoiler if Cherryh actually did tell us that :-(
@various Chtorr comments: I think the series is now too much of a 1980s period piece for Gerrold to successfully conclude it. He should just declare “The Chtorr won. The end.”
@105: Yes, where TF is “Dream World of the Fire Wolf”?
I loved Guy Adams’ The World House series. We only got two volumes: The World House (2010) & Restoration (2011), both from Angry Robot. Guy Adams told me at a convention years back that there would likely be no more, because they didn’t sell at all well for the publisher.
I’ve always wanted a sequel to Michael Reaves and Byron Preiss’ Dragonworld, their beautiful 1979 novel. There was a computer game that came out a couple of years later but I always wanted another adventure.
i am also not averse to R. A. MacAvoy revisiting the world of the Black Dragon. The second novel, while not as good as the first, is still a lovely read. Further adventures would have been appreciated by this reader
@55: re. Masters of Solitude/Wintermind, I bugged Marvin about Singer Among the Nightingales regularly for almost three decades. Parke was not interested in working on it, and now of course he’s gone. There is a very short draft version of Singer Among the Nightingales. I doubt it will ever see print, and, having read it…it did not satisfy me. If that is the way they’d expected to go with the series, well, I guess I’ll just have to be happy with the first two, which made a huge, huge impact on me. I’m writing this comment via my home wifi network, “231anomaly”.
I’ll add to the wishes for more Steerswoman and the fourth and fifth of the Five Gods novels. Items from my wishlist not already mentioned:
– I always hoped for more books set in the Juanita Coulson’s Krantin universe (The Web of Wizardry and The Death God’s Citadel), two fun sword-and-sorcery fantasies from 1978 and 1980. Each existing book stands alone, but I liked the setting and the magic and wanted mawwwwr.
– I’m still pining after more of Christy Marx’s The Sisterhood of Steel, which had an eight-issue comic book run and a graphic novel back in 1984-1986, and then just stopped in the middle of all the storylines.
– I’m idly curious to know more about what happened to the characters in Robin McKinley’s Sunshine. I loved the twists on the standard vampire story and how she mixed it with baking.
On the Never Gonna Get ’Em Because Death list:
– the rest of Octavia Butler’s planned series that started with Fledgling.
And speaking of Emma Bull, I’d still love to see the sequel to Territory someday.
I would love to see Daniel Keys Moran continue his Tales of the Continuing Time series…I know he’s put out a couple of things in the recent past, but I’m greedily anxious for more. I would also like to see Stross return to the Eschaton universe, but know that will never happen. And maybe, one day, we’ll get a wrap up to the Alvin Maker series by Card.
Well, y’all convinced me to buy the Shattered World. Wish it was in ebook form, but let’s see how I like it.
There’s two for me. Butcher’s Aeronaut’s Windlass (who could resist a feline narrator?) and Duane’s Omnitopia.
@57,That was at one time one of my favorite stories and the idea of evolved raccoons developing civilization on an alternate Earth was fascinating.
What I really want, though (and Eric Flint has confirmed we will never get) is a continuation of the story begun in Flint’s early novel Mother of Demons.
My personal wish would be that he would make it a trilogy, the second book picking up the story right after the first, and the third taking place more than 500 years later, allowing us to see the world that has come about from the cultural hybridization between the descendants of the wreck of the Magellan and the descendants of the gukuy of the Nation.
Unfortunately for us (though pretty fortunately for him), his career went another way.
I long for the third book by Sterling E. Lanier in The “Hiero” series…
Talion: Revenant by Michael Stackpole is the book I would really love to have a seauel to. in 2010 Michael did a sort of crowdfunding before crowdfunding was a thing to write a sequel but nothing seems to have come from it. At the time he said he had a draft of one sequel and ideas for more. I bought a whole bunch of his stuff at the time to give as gifts to try and get it done to no avail. I really wish he would go back and do the project now that self publishing is becoming much more of a thing.
I wish for a continuation of Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey. I believe it was originally intended as a trilogy.
All the mentions of Morgaine is making me consider yet another reread…
Does anyone know when Cherryh’s next Alliance book is coming out?
@73 Tim — a) Hee. But b) She’s making noises about writing it. If she does finish, it will be self-published, so not sure how that can go under. More info here.
Also, she’s written a couple-few interstitial works in preparation for getting to <i> Starlight</i>. Here’s the first one, and then the second one.
@29, Barbara Hambly has a number of works on Smashwords, not very pricey. Including four side-quests for Sun Wolf and Starhawk.
@110 “No one in the world ever gets what they want
and that is beautiful
Everybody dies frustrated and sad
and that is beautiful”
-They Might Be Giants, 1986 CE
Thanks for the info! It saddens me… but at the same time, I’d still love to read that draft simply because it exists, and I always want to see what I’m prevented from looking at.
I would love to see another Athanor novel from Jane Lindskold. If I can’t get more Zelazny, I would love more of the Athanor.
But even more so, I want to read the next verse in Heather Gladney’s Song Of Naga Teot series. The second book ended on a massive cliffhanger, and I have been waiting since 1989 for the third book to come out.
And someone already mentioned we have been waiting even longer for Boyett’s sequel to The Architect of Sleep. Heck, we even have a title from his old blog: The Geography of Dreams.
It’s a cold case, but…
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller wrote and published the first three Liaden books. Agent of Change, Conflict of Honors, and Carpe Diem. Then they stopped because their publisher dropped them. Not enough sales. So they busied themselves with other things. For more than a decade.
That would have been that except that they got active on the early internet. And discovered a fan base, eager for more of those books. The fen even had the name of the next book: Plan B. They obligingly wrote that book. And went on to publish over twenty more novels in the sequence.
Very enjoyable article.
Sometimes though you get a sequel, or companion volume, that does not deal with the issues you want dealt with. Grr
My favourite fantasy novel(s) is G G Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry and many years later he published another great novel Ysabel which is what I see as a companion volume. However one of the key issues in the tapestry was relations between fathers and sons and at the end of the trilogy we get a child in Fionavar and a dad on Earth – it is, in my opinion, way past time Mr Kay brought these two together.
@124 Oh, yes! The third Song of Teot! I have reread those books so many times I had to buy less abused copies.
The Gormenghast books were planned as an ongoing series, but Mervyn Peake suffered a stroke and was unable to continue.
@68, I want to see Miles’ sisters, the six Naismith girls. God defend the empire! Let’s just hope the Jole boys inherited sanity from their father.
@62 hoopmanjh
IIRC, Tros had an ambition to circumnavigate Africa (in the 1st Century B.C), which would have been a fascinating story.
@130 Pat Conolly — Yes, I haven’t read the books in many years, but that sounds right (and possibly leading into an attempt to circumnavigate the entire globe?).