I'm not trying to troll, so I'm not naming names, but I'm sure you can think of some. Wheel of Time famously got finished by another author, and I'll also take examples like that.
Specifically I'm looking for series that are obviously not completed. I'm sure there are series out there that are more serial in nature, and each book (or subet of books) is essentially complete, but I'm looking for one or more books that set up and begin a story that is never finished.
by pythor
7 Comments
Bit of a niche answer, but I really enjoyed the Dragon Knight series by Gordon R Dickson when I was in high school (cannot 100% vouch for how they hold up as an adult, I know they’re campy at least). The first one is The Dragon and the George, and it’s basically half the inspiration for the old cartoon Flight of Dragons, if you’re familiar. Just a fun series of books about a history professor who gets isekai’d into medieval England, but with magic, and in the body of a dragon. Later he gets to learn wizardry and stuff. They’re very fun!
The series goes on quite a few books, and ended when the author died without a “true” ending? But they’re episodic enough that it didn’t bother me, there weren’t any huge threads left dangling.
The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, by Anne Rice famously ended with the declaration:
“The Adventures of Ramses the Damned Shall Continue”.
For nearly three decades that promise was unfulfilled, but in 2017 she released two more books in the series coauthored by her son, Christopher Rice.
However, by this point Anne was in her seventies and I’m not actually sure how much of these she wrote. They lack something from her earlier writing and definitely didn’t capture me in the way the first book had.
Imo, the first book is still worth reading, the second two eh.
Octavia Butler was reportedly planning a third Parable book before her untimely death. Fortunately the existing two form a complete story. (Edit: sorry, I just realized this doesn’t technically count as an answer to your question. But any chance to drum up Butler!)
Discworld will never be “finished”, if that counts.
*The Faerie Queen* (Edmund Spenser, 1590, 1596) is a classic example. His second edition was divided into six complete books of twelve cantos each, but Spenser claims to have planned either twelve or twenty-four books. He died in 1599 and a fragment of a possible seventh book was published afterword, the Mutabilitie Cantos.
The Talisman, which was a collaboration between Stephen King and Peter Straub. It has a sequel, Black House, and that book ended in a way that strongly implies that a third book was going to happen.
The good news is that King is supposedly working on the third, and final, installment using notes and ideas from Straub who has since died. It sounds like we might actually get a conclusion to this series.
To your original question, though, as is, I think The Talisman and Black House are good reads despite not yet having a conclusion. They are even more fun if you have interest in King’s Dark Tower series as aspects of that mythology tie into the books, particularly Black House.
The Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman qualifies. What was supposed to be the next to last book came out in 2014. Reportedly the author had a falling out with her publisher. So far, the last book, Nevermore, has never come out. Guess it really was well named.