WOT Makes Another Top Ten List

[HighWiredSith]

10 Biggest Time-Sinks in Science Fiction and Fantasy

[randsc]

Even for the most passionate of fans, I think that ranking is hard to dispute.

[dscott8]

I'm amazed that David Weber's Honor Harrington series didn't make the list. I have all 20 of the currently released volumes in this series, there's two more in process as we speak -- and who knows how many more it will take to finish the saga?

[Basel Gill]

I'm amazed that David Weber's Honor Harrington series didn't make the list. I have all 20 of the currently released volumes in this series, there's two more in process as we speak -- and who knows how many more it will take to finish the saga?

 

Another one which should be up there is Eric Flint and Co.'s 1632 series (which Weber has also had a prominent hand in). Just the published novels aren't much of a time-sink. But when you toss in the Ring of Fire shared-universe anthologies, and the ongoing Grantville Gazette online fiction (which is officially considered as canon as the stuff on paper, which I consider a pretty radical step), it can get pretty extensive.

[Muad Cheade]

I'm amazed that David Weber's Honor Harrington series didn't make the list. I have all 20 of the currently released volumes in this series, there's two more in process as we speak -- and who knows how many more it will take to finish the saga?

 

Another one which should be up there is Eric Flint and Co.'s 1632 series (which Weber has also had a prominent hand in). Just the published novels aren't much of a time-sink. But when you toss in the Ring of Fire shared-universe anthologies, and the ongoing Grantville Gazette online fiction (which is officially considered as canon as the stuff on paper, which I consider a pretty radical step), it can get pretty extensive.

I agree.

[SethBaker]

How about the Star Wars outrigger novels? There's like 150 of them.

[IMeMin]

I just checked out that list, and of course Wheel of Time belongs on it, but I think Star Wars is a major omission. 150 books is no exaggeration, it'll probably hit 200 soon if it hasn't already. (I've read maybe 40 or 50, most of the ones I've read are just average-ish but fun as a Star Wars fan, though I will mention most of Timothy Zahn's SW books are excellent, though you do need to read them in order.) Plus there's the video games, or just listening to the soundtracks. But one thing it did mention was that a time-sink can be either a good thing or a bad thing. Somehow the way it's phrased, one's first impression is likely to be "a bad thing". I would say in general a time-sink is more likely to be a good thing.

[FarShainMael]

Slightly OT: Talking of David Weber, I'm currently reading 'Empire from the Ashes' (in ppbk, why is the hardcover so INFERNALLY expensive) and it's taken him 23 chapters in 'Heirs of Empire' to work up to the. most. DREADFUL. pun. I have EVER heard in. my. ENTIRE. life..

 

..'Lost Children of Israel' indeed!!!

 

(To anyone who hasn't read this.. the 'children' are young space-navy officers who have been marooned on a planet which has the technology they need to get home, but it's in the charge of the planetary Church who don't know that their rituals are actually maintaining a quarantine against a galaxy-wide plague which died out millennia ago, so the kids have to, er, negotiate with them to get hold of the technology. Oh, and 'Israel' is the name of the lifeboat that got them to the planet..)

 

I bet DW was sniggering as he wrote it. RJ would have wept!

 

..OK, more than slightly OT, sorry about that!

[dscott8]

This one is not sci-fi or fantasy, but when you consider Conan Doyle's original 4 novels and 56 short stories about Sherlock Holmes, and then throw in the thousands of pastiches by other authors since the characters went public domain, and add in the fact that Holmes is the single most portrayed character in movies and TV shows, the Great Detective has to be the ultimate time-sink.