I think you need to separate out Media Tie-Ins into a completely separate (sub) genre, because a lot of them aren't very representative and a lot of people who read them read them exclusively without even dipping their toes into the big pool.
The series issue is a separate one, but again that's hardly restricted to SF/F. I suppose it would be more difficult to have a series in the Romance genre because the target audience would probably get pretty pissed off if they didn't have the payoff of the romance arc in the first novel and then where do you go from there, or Mystery, because something better get solved dammit (although there are plenty of series in the Mystery genre, they just happen to be more "monster of the week" when it comes to the mystery parts of the plots). But, I'd be as likely to go "Where do I start?" and possible even more likely to be confuse if I picked up the wrong book in John Banville's Art quadrilogy first than I was when I started reading McCaffrey's"The Ship Who. . ." novels or Bujold's Vorkosiverse novels (which I read all out of order and, fortuitously, probably in the best order I could have for me personally).
Apropos of nothing, I find it a bit disturbing that you keep mentioning authors I do not like. Bloody smegging Robert Jordan. I only finished the first book in the Wheel of Time series because I was in Lanzarote and there wasn't an English bookstore anywhere that I knew of. It takes some kind of talent to write over 800 pages without having a single thing about a single character that is in any way remotely near interesting!
Also, I know lots of people seem to like Weber, particularly people who enjoy Space Opera (he definitely writes military space opera), but FFS, you can immediately tell the good guys and the bad guys no matter what "side" they're on by whether they like Honor Harrington or not. Hello mister clunky and obvious! Yeah, I'm one of the people who goes to the SF/F section and HATES the authors who take up entire shelves. (Yet, I don't have trouble finding stuff I like.)
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sarken
(no subject)
Date: 2012-07-01 03:06 am (UTC)The series issue is a separate one, but again that's hardly restricted to SF/F. I suppose it would be more difficult to have a series in the Romance genre because the target audience would probably get pretty pissed off if they didn't have the payoff of the romance arc in the first novel and then where do you go from there, or Mystery, because something better get solved dammit (although there are plenty of series in the Mystery genre, they just happen to be more "monster of the week" when it comes to the mystery parts of the plots). But, I'd be as likely to go "Where do I start?" and possible even more likely to be confuse if I picked up the wrong book in John Banville's Art quadrilogy first than I was when I started reading McCaffrey's"The Ship Who. . ." novels or Bujold's Vorkosiverse novels (which I read all out of order and, fortuitously, probably in the best order I could have for me personally).
Apropos of nothing, I find it a bit disturbing that you keep mentioning authors I do not like. Bloody smegging Robert Jordan. I only finished the first book in the Wheel of Time series because I was in Lanzarote and there wasn't an English bookstore anywhere that I knew of. It takes some kind of talent to write over 800 pages without having a single thing about a single character that is in any way remotely near interesting!
Also, I know lots of people seem to like Weber, particularly people who enjoy Space Opera (he definitely writes military space opera), but FFS, you can immediately tell the good guys and the bad guys no matter what "side" they're on by whether they like Honor Harrington or not. Hello mister clunky and obvious! Yeah, I'm one of the people who goes to the SF/F section and HATES the authors who take up entire shelves. (Yet, I don't have trouble finding stuff I like.)