Why We Love or Hate F&SF

Interesting discussion. Plussed. Thanks for sharing.

For me, the first thing that comes to mind is that if I could stand to finish one story I'll probably finish the others in the series when and as they become available, just to find out where the author was going with these ideas...I'd be a series writer's ideal reader if I actually bought the books (or went to the movies), rather than waiting to borrow them from libraries.

Changes in tone can be a turn-off...not always, and not a total turn-off, but sometimes they feel as if something went wrong with the series (writer, publisher, producer?). Harry Potter got too heavy too fast; the dark adult undertones grew naturally from the cheerful school-story beginning and fitted together, but... Xanth, on the other hand, became more frivolous as all that lovely Florida-like jungle was tamed into Florida-like retirement villages. I still enjoy Xanth, mostly out of loyalty.

One comedy series that's not usually classified as fantasy, although it *so* is, was "Clueless." If asked I would not have believed that four different writers could borrow plots from twenty different classic novels and spin twenty different school stories, about the same ridiculously spoiled students at the same hilariously pathetic school, and make the whole thing work. But they did, and for me, at least, it does.