The results are in and they came as a bit of a surprise for me. The question was this :
Should your favorite author next book be a sequel or a new idea?
- Sequel : 44%
- New idea : 13%
- Don't care as long as he writes one : 41%
Many votes were lost when Blogger crashed for more than one day in May. That's not really an issue since the proportions were about the same. What came as a surprise for me was the low result for the new idea. I would have thought that readers were more incline toward new stuff from their favorite authors than a sequel.
However, another poll I conducted a couple of months ago, where I asked the readers whether they liked most the series or the stand-alone and the series won, should have given me some insight. Surely, among the most wanted novels still waiting to be printed, it's clear that books like George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons or Scott Lynch's The Republic of Thieves are what people look forward the most and they fit both winning answers.
In definitive, almost half of... let's say... Brandon Sanderson fans would probably cheer for that new Mistborn novel while the other ones would only care if another of his books is being written.
I guess we all love to read about the people we grew accustom with. But then debut novels from new voices would be left in dark more often than not... and I'm pretty sure that's not the case. Well that's an interrogation for another time!
However, another poll I conducted a couple of months ago, where I asked the readers whether they liked most the series or the stand-alone and the series won, should have given me some insight. Surely, among the most wanted novels still waiting to be printed, it's clear that books like George R.R. Martin's A Dance with Dragons or Scott Lynch's The Republic of Thieves are what people look forward the most and they fit both winning answers.
In definitive, almost half of... let's say... Brandon Sanderson fans would probably cheer for that new Mistborn novel while the other ones would only care if another of his books is being written.
I guess we all love to read about the people we grew accustom with. But then debut novels from new voices would be left in dark more often than not... and I'm pretty sure that's not the case. Well that's an interrogation for another time!
1 comments:
I like stand alones. Too many times the arc breaks. The characters' arcs have to go backwards especially after the first book. Either you keep the same tensions for books on end and they get worn out with no progression. Too often, they simply jump the shark.
A stand alone creates a discrete movement of character and plot without watering it down.
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