One of my favorite book series when I was younger was the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. Those were the best books, full of verve and imagination. The first, A Spell for Chameleon, won the August Derleth Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1977 and was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1978. The next 5 or so books were of the same quality, and the next 10 were still readable. After that, though, they lost all semblance of being good. They were reader-submitted puns strung together with nonsense storylines. And it killed me to admit that and stop reading them. I’m so removed from that series that I have no idea if Anthony is still writing them.

In terms of books, I completely agree that Sherilyn Kenyon’s series has gone on way too long. I also feel that way about Christine Feehan’s Carpathian series. Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake and Merry Gentry series both need closure. JD Robb’s In Death series is repeating itself. Of course, I keep buying and reading them, so maybe I’m perpetuating the problem It’s not that I dislike these authors or their books, more that I loved their earlier works and now feel like the spark that I so appreciated is gone. Or at least, a lot dimmer.