So I’ve been absent on the blog front for a while – what was meant to be a short break turned into something quite a bit longer! I’ll spare you the long (and boring) story and just say that other projects and work kept vying for my attention. Fortunately I’ve finally found time to get back to blogging, so I thought in the spirit of unforeseen long absences I’d kick things off again with a post on a related theme:
It’s a common enough phenomenon in the fantasy book world: the long-awaited sequel. I’ve heard plenty of frustrated readers complain about how long they’ve been waiting for the next instalment of a favourite series, and when books get made into hit TV shows like Game of Thrones the wait often makes headlines.
I must admit, since I started using Goodreads I haven’t experienced much impatience myself – perhaps because the long list of new books I want to try and series I want to continue distracts me sufficiently during the waiting period.
Things were different in my teens though. One series (The Obernewtyn Chronicles) had me constantly stopping at my local book store to ask when the next book would be out. I was promised release dates only to be disappointed each time. In the end, the next book took 9 years, and by that time I’d long given up asking.
A 9-year wait might feel long, but when you look at the genre’s history, there have been longer ones. So I thought I’d find some examples of the longest spans of time between the publication of books in a popular fantasy series (by the same author) and see how they compare. Continue reading
Thoughts on Fantasy 
