Best Short Finished Series

[trentcw]

I am so tired of finishing a series only to find that the author has a few more books to go, or even one more book. That's more time I have to wait before the story is, finally, finished. And, if I have to wait too long, I may end up reading them all over again. Call it an obsession for closure, I don't know.

 

So, I need recommendations on the best, relatively short, but definitely finished, series. Let me hear it. Something that won't leave me hangin. What do ya'll think?

[RobertAlexWillis]

The Lord of the Rings, by J R R Tolkein.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Sorry, that one was a little bit tongue in cheek ... try these:

 

Coldfire trilogy by C S Friedman (three books, and thats all that were needed)

 

The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny (there are 10 books, but they're all pretty short, and he's definitely done since sadly, he's dead)

 

The Riftwar (and extensions) by Raymond Feist (a note here, he keeps adding books, but what he's already got are several independent series, each one standing on its own, each one 3 or 4 books long, so you won't have to wait to get each full story)

 

Fred Saberhagen's Books of the Swords and Books of the Lost Swords (11 books, but he's all done)

 

Kate Elliot's (only recently finished, seven books) Crown of Stars.

 

David Farland's (4 books) Runelords

 

Anyway, there's more where that came from, so if you've read those, just say so and I can spit out some more.

[the dude]

for some fairly light reading, you could check out david eddings' stuff. it's all pretty much finished at this point (though i haven't followed anything he's done in a while). there's 2 pairs of series, with a couple supplementary books for on of the pairs.

 

"The Belgariad" and "The Mallorean" are 2 5-book series, and there's also "Belgarath the Sorceror" and "Polgara the Sorceress" that you can read after the 1st 2 series.

 

The other 2 are "The Elenium" and "The Tamuli."

 

Terry Brooks put out some good stuff, before it got a little redundant. Check out the first 7 "Shannara" books. They're decent. There are more after that, but they get a little repetitious. Most of those books are stand-alone, but it's still better to read them in order, especially books 4-7, which are written as one cohesive story.

 

His "Magical Kindgom of Landover" series is complete, and not too bad either.

 

In shorter fiction, Conan. Just, Conan. Not the crappy knockoffs, but the original Howard stories. There are a lot of good anthologies that've come out in the last few years that you could check out. If you like those, his Solomon Kane stories are pretty damn good too.

 

Robin Hobb, of course, is awesome too, if you haven't checked them out. 9 books in 3 semi-separate trilogies, and it's a complete story, A-Z.

 

Willis here's got a good list though. I'd go through the list he's got there before checking out what I've suggested, with the exception of the Hobb books if you haven't read them. I'd check out the Coldfire Trilogy, then Hobb over Saberhagen. those are nice stories, but Hobb is better.

[RobertAlexWillis]

I have no problem endorsing Robin Hobb. Start with the Tawny Man stuff though. Starting with the Liveship Traders won't be starting where it's best.

 

4-7 were the best Shannara books in my opinion, followed by 8-10 ... Walker Boh is the best character Brooks has created, in my opinion.

 

Eddings .... light reading indeed. Reading Eddings is good for putting your mind in neutral. Prepare for very black-and-white situations, no complex problem solving, questionable tactics, alot of cooking, young looking (but really old) dark haired women who know pretty much everything and act like it, and conveniently all-powerful blue rocks :D . And somehow, its still fairly enjoyable.

 

See? There's plenty out there. For variety, you could throw in Anne McCaffery's Pern novels. A pair of time-overlapping trilogies to start you off, then multiple stand alone singles. Each tells its own story, so no "waiting", and besides, she's essentially done anyway. Harry Harrison's "Eden" (3 books) and "Stainless Steel Rat" (10 books plus some short stories) are good too.

[Alarwyn Liande]

I agree with the dude, Hobb is definitely worth reading. Other than that...

 

Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn is a trilogy in four parts (in most editions) and a good classic fantasy series.

 

Ursula LeGuin's the Earthsea Trilogy (and its additionals) is a beautiful story as well.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Wow ... how did I forget Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn? It made my cheating top five!

 

You know ... I've been promising myself I'd get to the Earthsea books for a while ... maybe I'll go do that.

[the dude]

i'd still recommend starting with the farseer trilogy. too many formative events in that series to skip it without missing a lot of understanding of the main character. other than that, spot on.

 

though i found, with the "voyage of the jerle shannara" series from brooks, that it was starting to get a bit... i dunno... repetitive, for a lack of a better word. and besides, walker gets screwed in that series. 4-7 were def. some of the best, but the first 3 are ground-laying volumes that shouldn't be skipped, in my opinion.

[TheDiceAgain...]

David Farland's (4 books) Runelords

 

This is not entirely true. I just saw on bn.com the other day that he has written a new book that apparently starts the story of Gaborn's son...

[TheDiceAgain...]

Oh, and you might also think of trying R.A Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden books, there are a bunch, but the stories themselves are pretty much self contained in the individual series:

 

Icewind Dale Trilogy - 3 Books (as the name might imply)

The Dark Elf Trilogy - Ditto

Legacy of the Drow - 4 Books

Paths of Darkness - 4 Books

 

Salvatore is still writing more(as Drizzt isn't dead yet), but that's at least 14 books of manageable size where the story arcs are finished.

[Werthead]

Feist's Magician can be read as a stand-alone novel or as a trilogy (with Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon). Beware with proceeding further as there are another 21-odd books in the series beyond that with growing storyline connections between them, and 6 more books still to come before it's finished.

 

Paul Kearney's excellent Monarchies of God series (five short volumes) is worth tracking down. Patrick Tilley's Amtrak Wars (six medium-sized novels) is pretty good fun to read as well. It has a semi-cliffhanger ending and some unresolved plot points (the Amtrak corporation was threatening legal action, as I understand, so Tilley stopped writing the series), but oddly these give the books a good feeling of life going on after the books. The principal storyline begun in Book 1 ends in Book 6, for example.

 

Otherwise Peter F. Hamilton's mighty Night's Dawn Trilogy (SF, but written in a more relaxed fantasy-esque style) is a brilliant series, its massive length (the series is split into six shorter novels in the USA) and extreme depth making it of interest I think to epic fantasy fans in general and Jordan and Martin fans in particular.