Last month I had the pleasure and privilege to read JP McLean’s newest novel, still in manuscripts, Scorch Marks. My job was simple – to read it and catch small errors and inconsistencies before the book goes to a proofreader. I didn’t find many; the few that I did notice were more suggestions than actual errors.

In my comments to JP, I mentioned that the book felt like a conclusion of the series, which she later confirmed. It wouldn’t be difficult to find a thread and continue, but unlike some popular fiction writers, JP McLean knew where to end her story.

Back in February, after my second cornea transplant, I was precluded from reading, watching TV, or even using my phone screen for a more than a few seconds for a couple of weeks. I had to stay in bed, laying flat, doing nothing. Once again, audiobooks saved me. I had downloaded several dozens of mysteries, romances, general fiction, non-fiction… a small, impromptu library on my phone so that I have options in case that I didn’t like some of them.

Indeed, I didn’t fancy quite a few books. I would start listening, stumble upon something I didn’t like, and move on to another book. It made me think how snobbish I (or readers in general) have become. A couple of decades ago, I would give many of those stories a decent chance. In my hurry to find a satisfying read, I probably missed some good ones. Unlimited access to all sorts of books has made me impatient and spoiled, no doubt about that. But that’s a topic for another time.

Anyhow, among the books that I listened to was one of the relatively newer Louise Penny’s titles, All Devils Are Here. I knew she wrote many books before that one, and quite a few after. I liked it, so I went back to the beginning of her Inspector Gamache series. I enjoyed them at first, particularly the settings and characters. The plots were, if not mind-blowing and nail beating, interesting enough. Then, after seven or eight books, the cracks started showing: the incredible number of deaths in a tiny village that wasn’t even on the map; the inhabitants, first deliciously but soon foolishly eccentric; people who exclusively eat “fresh” baguette (as if others normally eat stale baguette); dietary habits (rather than the extremely high murder rate) that should’ve attributed to the population slaughter due to coronary diseases. The plot gradually became either dull, predictable, or unrealistic, peppered with senseless deaths. Once interesting characters seemed like frozen in time, no depth or color or shape has been added for way too long. Honest and honorable Chief Inspector and his evil bosses. An alcoholic woman who always caries a duck around her neck, the other that always has chunks of bananas in her hair. It was kind of cute in the first book I read; by book twelve, and after eleven repetitions, that particular banana-remark made me want to scream.

IMHO, Louse Penny overused/abused her characters; through the years and over so many books, she managed to turn them into caricatures, into shadows and empty shells of their former self.

(I needed an immediate palate cleanser, and I found it in Kristan Higgins’ romance novels. I’ve read almost all of her books, except the newest ones. Loved them all.)

Another author that hackneyed her characters and story is Diana Gabaldon and her Outlander series. I wish she wrapped up her saga after the third installment. Yet, in order to continue through several more books, almost every main character was twisted and warped; almost everyone was raped at some point or become a killer, or a cheater, or a traitor. They separated, reunited, were tortured, escaped; they drowned, they were hanged… Eight years passed between book seven and eight, but then, when Go Tell the Bees That I’m Gone finally came out, it was nothing more than a retelling of the previous seven books. Claire and Jamie were among my favourite fictional couples ever in books one to three, I still liked them in books four and five, tolerated them in book seven. To say that I didn’t finish book eight would be an understatement – I barely made it though the first 100 pages before I returned to the library. Diana stopped caring for her characters the moment she made Jamie meet his daughter while urinating in the back alley. To me, it was like a slap. I carried on nonetheless, but gradually stopped caring, too — for him, for Claire, their daughter and grandkids, who kept jumping through time so you never know where they were going to be next time, for all their friends and foes, for Quakers and Benedict Arnold and above all, for the pages and pages and pages of American Revolutionary War seen through the D. Gabaldon’s prism.

The only character I still deeply love is Lord John Grey. He is one of my greatest fictional crushes. Yes, I know, I know, but still. He’s one of the reasons I don’t want to force myself through any more of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander books. I lost Jamie and Claire; I don’t want to lose Lord John. She was an inch from ruining him as well in book seven. It’s safer to go back to him by reading The Scottish Prisoner, The Hand of the Devil, The Brotherhood of Blade… than to risk another disappointment.

Louse Penny and Diana Galablon are not alone, of course. Passion for writing is one thing; financial prospects that come out of endless reuse and recycle of well-known and well-loved characters is another. To be honest, I don’t know what I would do in a similar situation, so I’m not deeply offended by their choice. It’s just a bit sad and a bit more annoying.

So, who did recognize this moment when the story was told, and that continuing it would be only for material gain? Naomi Novik comes immediately to mind, with her nine Temeraire novels. Elizabeth Holt and her Maiden Lane novels. The Bridgertons and other series of Julia Quinn, J. K. Rowling… the list is long and includes some authors I know, like above-mentioned JP Mclean (the Gift Legacy; A Dark Dreams novels) and Audrey Driscoll (the Herbert West series).

The jury is still out for A Song of Ice and Fire. This is a very interesting case – D&D, the obnoxious screenwriting duo of the HBO series, Game of Thrones, already butchered the story and mutilated the characters to no recognition (and this was deeply offensive. Unforgivable, in fact). Now George R. R. Martin seems to be bound to follow that impossible, illogical storyline and the characters’ somersaults if he even plans to finish the series. I could only imagine how he must feel about it. If I were him, I would ignore the mess these two created, and write a completely different closing chapter. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Do you thing that some fiction series are so long that they stop making any sense? What’s your “favourite” overused string of books?