msbelle, I had trouble with Middlesex too but I forced myself to finish it because I felt like I had invested so much time and effort into it, so I wanted to know how it all turned out. But it wasn't the enjoyable, engaging read I expected.

OK, I got a stack of Bujold books yesterday. I'd started on Mirror Dance but I'm doing the amazing thing of putting it down and trying to go back and read in order. I'm having to skip a bit anyway, since my husband took Borders with him to work, bitching constantly about how moronic and juvenile the books are.

Dude needs to get his T. Rex under control.

I liked the first Anita Blake book, but it didn't take me 7 books to give up. More like 4 or 5, and I'd already bought them all and loaded them on my PDA for a long plane flight. At least on a PDA no one can see what you are reading - I did feel like washing my hands, my PDA, and maybe wiping its memory a few times.

Of course, I gave up on Anne Rice 20 pages in to The Vampire Lestat. I've taken a running jump at some of her other books, including the Sleeping Beauty ones, but I just can make myself read them.

Anne Rice gossip: a friend of mine used to teach with her, and said that her given name at birth was George. WTF?

I think a lot of the series writers don't understand two concepts - the characters need to grow/change and when they grow and change the relationship to the beginning character should be seeable.

Anne Rice has this problem, too. In fact, I think Anita Blake's characters are recognizable as the same characters who started out in book 1, but I sure don't feel that way about Rice's characters.

I really liked the character in LKH' s series. - not identifiy, but she rang True. But It seemed to that she had to cross a line in evrybook. There don't seem to be anymore lines, so the books are boreing

I agree with you. And then when she started the Gentry books, she just made an elven Anita who didn't have the lines Anita had to find and cross, so she just fucked and got more and more powers.

If I ever finish this succubus book, please kill me if my character acquires a new power every other chapter. I mean, what's the point? If there's no weakness, then there's no conflict, right? And that's where the Anita books have gone wrong: there's no moral quandry anymore about killing or sex, or her love triangle. And there's no actual PLOT anymore -- when's the last time she had an actual CASE?

I always thought that a series that becomes boring often suffers from an author who started out crafting the first novel with great love and enthusiasm and ended up making a lot of money. Then author becomes distracted by the pleasures of wealth and devolves into ho-hum, crank out another one on schedule, I'm so important, pass me a scone.

edited, in an attempt at grammaticalness

And there's no actual PLOT anymore -- when's the last time she had an actual CASE?

You mean, waste time working when there's boinking to be done?

Yo. With a PRETURNATURALly well-hung hottie.

The porn lost me on the cervix-bumping explication in NiC. Ew. So not sexy.

Then author becomes distracted by the pleasures of wealth and devolves into ho-hum, crank out another one on schedule, I'm so important, pass me a scone.

I would distribute the responsibility for devolving series among publisher, author, author's credit card company, and fans. What do you do when you have a contract and no ideas for the series? I imagine LKH is just as frustrated as we are.

I imagine LKH is just as frustrated as we are.

Well, at least she can drown her sorrows in a paycheck.

Yo. With a PRETURNATURALly well-hung hottie.

Mmmm, effulgent.