The Books We Wished Had Sequels

by Tee Tate

Sequel?  Sequel???  I Don’t Need No Stinking Sequel!LoTR

I thought it would be easy to come up with the name of a book that I wish had a sequel.  After all, I’ve read a lot of books – surely I could find one that I wanted more of, right?

Wrong!  I already have a heckuva lot of trilogies, multi-volume sets, and books that may not be direct sequels but mirror earlier works (think China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station and The Scar).  In fact, everything I could think of fell into one of three categories:

1) books that were so well concluded that a sequel would have been unreasonable;

2) books that already have numerous “sequels”; or

3) books that didn’t deserve a sequel!

Loving speculative fiction as I do, my personal library is awash in sequels.  As evidence: my collection of Jacqueline Carey novels (six in the Kushiel Legacy set and three more in the Naamah Trilogy); Brent Weeks’ Night Angel Trilogy and his Lightbringer series (two of three so far), Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Trilogy (The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear, with another on the way), Marie Brennan’s four Onyx Court volumes, a token of Terry Brooks’ Shannara tales and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld works, Tad William’s massive Otherland novels, all the George RR Martin Song of Ice and Fire books, and perhaps the queen of trilogies, Robin Hobb with her Farseer Trilogy, Liveship Traders Trilogy, Tawny Man Trilogy, Rain Wild Chronicles (all related) and her Soldier Son Trilogy.   I could go on and on.

To answer the question, I suppose I could say I wouldn’t mind a continuation of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings relating Aragon’s reign or the Elven migration to the Grey Havens, or how I wouldn’t mind a second volume from Guy Gavriel Kay chronicling the exploits of Ned Marriner and his wacky family ala Ysabel… but in all honesty, for now – I’m good.  No sequels needed.

-Sharon Browning

Related Posts

2 comments

Elisha Dew 13 December, 2012 - 1:38 pm

Sharon, I’m so glad I’m not alone in my “no sequels necessary” opinion. There are lots of things I wouldn’t mind reading more of (like your Tolkein example), but I don’t feel the need for it.

paradiane 4 February, 2015 - 12:56 pm

I’ve always wished for a sequel to Mockingbird but now I’m not sure I want it!

Comments are closed.