--- None of those series were commissioned by publishers. They also cover a span of, what, thirty years? So not exactly recent.
There has been an increase in Young Adult SF and fantasy but you would have to be pretty churlish to think this was a bad thing. I really doubt it is to the exclusion of adult fiction either. Er, yes, authors do write series. This has been going on for some time. Like you I prefer standalone books but there are still more than enough them to satisfy me Yes, the general quality of genre writing - literary or visual - has undoubtedly increased. Oh noes! Violent video games! Martin it is rude of you, martin, to suggest that i am saying the increase in young adult sf and fantasy is a bad thing. especially when i clearly applaud anything that prompts children to read. i am not suggesting that all genre series are commissioned by publishers, nor should it be suggested that none are. i DO say that publishers and editors recognize market forces, and i personally consider it a lamentable trend if it tempts more writers like geo rr martin and sm stirling to write series. having said that, i still enjoyed reading philip jose farmer's "riverworld" series. it is true that this has been going on for some time. it is also true that pandering to the mass market is increasingly profitable in 21st century mega-capitalist global commerce, which emphasizes quantity over quality even more than in the past. hopefully, the increase in quality is keeping up with the increase in quantity, according to sturgeons's law... this is of course just my opinion, but i believe there are enough authors who write genre series, without publishers and editors encouraging established authors, like niven, herbert, clarke, and asimov, et al... (yes, i am aware the latter three of are deceased) to continue mass producing more ringworld, dune, 2001, and foundation franchises... i make an exception for the killer bees' versions commissioned by the foundation shared universe. sometimes a remake is better than the original version, for example, the 1978 version of "invasion of the body snatchers", but often authors and scriptwriters should quit when they're ahead, instead of adding prequels, sequels and parallelquels (although, not all the ender series were bad) as for violent video games, i make no apologies for that statement!~) jon __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
