Can you leave a book/game or series unfinished?

[Madman Muntz]

Okay, so right now I'm reading the Ice&Fire series by George R.R. Martin and ever since the third book I'm starting to hate it more and more. I loved the first one and was okay with the second, but ever since the third it has been like two awfully boring chapters for one truly great one.

Now I'm close to finishing the forth and I found myself stopping multiple reading sessions after only a couple of minutes because I'm so annoyed by the plot. But I still know I will finish the series eventually, because I never leave a series I put more then two or three hours into unfinished, it's almost a compulsive disorder.

Did you ever have that feeling or do you just walk away from a series or game or whatever you don't like anymore?

I'm sorry if I ranted a little, but it is really bugging me to no end.

Oh easily if I feel the quality is starting to fade. Like you I really enjoyed the first two books of the Ice and Fire series but couldn't finish the rest. Same with The Wheel of Time. Got to around book nine and gave up.

The sad reality is that even though for the money, or even just for their fans, writers, musicians, film makers, game makers, etc might want to keep creating new entertainment. Quite a few keep doing so past their ability to keep their ideas interesting.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yes you can to both eventhought I had finish reading all of my books including the bad one.
I had left games like LoZ Spirit Track, Chrono Trigger, Eire Emblem: Radience Sun unfinish and etc but I never felt really bad for doing it. Otherwise I would of put in more effort to try to finish it.

 

[Username Redacted]

I find it very easy for me to leave something unfinished. If the media is no longer engaging to me then I'm unlikely to hold out in the hopes that it gets better later as it's very hard to rationalize that when I could move on to something else that's going to be better now. Some examples:

Eureka Seven: I got ~40 episodes into a 51 episode series and just stopped. The show had a few interesting characters and concepts that had kept me going that long but, and it's been a while, I think there was some sort of major plot point payoff where I was just like "That's it? That's how you're going to resolve that?" and abandoned ship.

Psychonauts: Two words: meat circus. If either the controls or the camera had been dodgy it would have been fine but dealing with both was enough to get me off of this otherwise excellent game.

 

[purplecactus]

Games, potentially. I don't allow myself to get to invested in games to that extent, otherwise I'd be screwed out of money even more than I already am.

Books. Never. I cannot let a book series go unfinished. It's kind of ridiculous when you think about it, but hey. Even if it's some truly awful series, I keep reading, thinking 'maybe it'll get better in the next chapter/book'. Bad habit, really.

 

[Deacon Cole]

Yes. I read the first book in L Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth series and when it ended with the bad guy/POV character seeing the ground moving away from him because he was in a rocket ship taking off with his stupid head sticking out of the door, I decided that I didn't need to put myself through nine more of these books.

 

[TehCookie]

If it's bad I drop it but if it's meh I'll still finish it. Just very slowly after finishing the more interesting things I have in my backlog.

 

[tahrey]

I'm not as well read as I'd like to be, so the only one I've actually had opportunity to do this to so far has been Redwall.

The first one was pretty neat. The second, a bit preachy and repetitive. The third ... well, I returned it to the library on recognising the third or fourth set-piece that was basically exactly the same as in the previous two books, but with slightly different names.

Sorry, Jacques. You gave it a good go, I suppose, but enjoyable fiction simply doesn't consist of running a find-replace and then sending the transformed .doc file off to your publisher when you can find time in between the waterskiing lessons and afternoon of pratting about with a paraglider paid for from the profits of the first book...

Threw my lot in with Pratchett instead after that, and I think I will be there right at the oh so bittersweet end :/ ... ok, he's getting a little bit formulaic as the alzheimers sets in more aggressively, and the narratives are getting a bit looser, but each new book still brings much more to the table in terms of fresh storyline and characterisation than those furry messes. Heck, just compare the Nomes trilogy vs the first three RW books...

I did also get conned into trying some Stephen King, and some Will Self, and got thoroughly sick of both within a hundred pages and just plain gave up. I don't think that counts for the purposes of this actual question though. They were just... annoying. As if you could actually pick up, through the text, the tone of an author who thought they were super-clever and the absolute shit, rather than concentrating on writing an enjoyable and gripping story. I think The Book Of Dave was supposed to be a comedy? Maybe? I seriously couldn't tell, it was just a mess, but one that somehow garnered a lot of critical acclaim. Oddly enough, I have read a couple of SK -shorts- (like Carrie, and Christine...) and found them more enjoyable than the longer book I tried. Maybe he's more suited to doing compact, movie-pitchable works? Certainly the one longer-form thing of his I saw translated into a TV show instead of a movie was diabolically awful...

 

[Yopaz]

With Wheel of Time the first few books were brilliant, but then the story slowed down for a while putting more and more time into descriptions, intrigues and politics before it went on to finish with 4 rock solid books. Despite it's slow moments I consider the series the best I have ever read.

Oddly enough I found Wheel of Time exactly the opposite, I thought first few books started really slow and I dragged myself through them a couple chapters per day. Past book 5 or 6 it really caught me, I've read 6-7-8-9 faster than the first book alone But then again I love the intrigues and the politics, but the needless descriptions and constant repeating are killing me sometimes.

captcha: Extra Cheese
yes please

I think the first book started off really slow, but that's usually how most good fantasy series are. Take enough time to explain the lore and the important characters. However the first few books do have the same theme, either run away or travel somewhere with a little bit of action in some places.

 

[Vegosiux]

Easily. If it doesn't convince me I should be reading/watching on, that's it, I'm not finishing it. That usually becomes apparent no later than the first few chapters/episodes, so not much time is wasted.

 

[Vigormortis]

Yes. Yes I can.

If I'm reading a book, playing a game, or partaking in some other form of media entertainment, and I find myself not being entertained, I can very easily stop. Leaving the thing "unfinished".

It's media entertainment. Having to slog through it defeats the purpose.

Just recently, in fact, I've failed to finish Borderlands 2. And, I have absolutely no intention on going back any time soon.

I'm still tempted to request/demand a refund from Gearbox. Borderlands 2 is the first game, in quite a long while, that I truly regret paying full price for.

 

[Something Amyss]

If it's bad I drop it but if it's meh I'll still finish it. Just very slowly after finishing the more interesting things I have in my backlog.

This is pretty much what I do. I've got a folder on my Kindle for books that I'm probably going to go back to eventually when I have nothing else to read.

I'd also add personally that I don't like to waste money, so I try and give my best effort to anything I've paid for. I won't delude myself; a bad movie/book/game/show is still a bad movie/book/game/show.

I'm on a bad streak with books right now, where I've got several in a row that are kinda blah. I've dropped them, at least temporarily, mid-book and might go back, but I've got like 80 books in my backlog (including free titles, for the record, I didn't actually spend much on that backlog) and some I know I'll enjoy more. Only reason I didn't go for them first is that I was hoping for some variety.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

I've walked away from FFX-2, Don Quixote, Fifty Shades of Grey and Infinite Jest because I wasn't enjoying them.

I didn't finish one of Darwin's books either. It's very dry. He may have been a genius but he was no great communicator.

 

[Therumancer]

I have no problem with not finishing things that blow chips when I'm out for entertainment. Basically if a book/movie/game is not entertaining me, when that is it's explicit purpose, then it's not doing it's job. When something like this fails I tend to be very critical of it, and those who produced it, especially on the internet, and especially when it comes to video games seeing as they are pretty much impossible to return, especially after you've given them a fair chance.

Of course the purpose of all media is not to entertain, in many cases it's to convey information (even if in an indirect way) and entertainment simply happens to be a secondary virtue if it exists.

Within this cosm there are a few things I personally can't get my head around the existance of. "Classic" Russian literature for example. It rarely has anything profound to convey, or information to impart, and it's really not entertaining. It seems to pretty much exist to be a physical manifestation of depression as far as I can tell.

 

[CrashBang]

Okay, so right now I'm reading the Ice&Fire series by George R.R. Martin and ever since the third book I'm starting to hate it more and more. I loved the first one and was okay with the second, but ever since the third it has been like two awfully boring chapters for one truly great one.

Now I'm close to finishing the forth and I found myself stopping multiple reading sessions after only a couple of minutes because I'm so annoyed by the plot. But I still know I will finish the series eventually, because I never leave a series I put more then two or three hours into unfinished, it's almost a compulsive disorder.

Did you ever have that feeling or do you just walk away from a series or game or whatever you don't like anymore?

I'm sorry if I ranted a little, but it is really bugging me to no end.

I had to take a break from the second one at around page 300 because the pace had slowed to a crawl. I did pick it back up recently and have nearly finished but I'm now really sceptical about the third. I have heard that, from four onwards, Martin kinda lost the plot. So I may read three and leave it there.

OT: I've never gotten around to buying and reading all of the Transmetropolitan comics, despite the main character being my Avatar.

 

[prowll]

Games? Easily, I still haven't finished most of the game(series) I ever started. Started up Dragon Age: Origins again a week or so ago, and I've pretty much given up on finishing it again. Same for a whole bunch of other games.

Books? Single books I might give up on if I really can't get into it. Series? It's never really come up, though I doubt I'll ever reread some of the series that went downhill after a few parts (The last part of the "Earth's Children" series nearly ruined the entire series for me...)

Dear heavens, set that down and walk away. It's Martin, it just gets more pretentious as it goes. If you don't like it now, you'll be suffering more later. Don't put yourself through the self-hate.

A good series? I ABSOLUTELY will hunt that down, track for the new book, ect. If I've gotten a couple books and the story starts to be boring? Dropped like a rock. Wizards First Rule was this way with me. First couple books were great, next two stunk to high heaven, and ... *mike drop* I'm out.

 

[Eleuthera]

snip

I think you quoted the wrong person here

 

[Croaker42]

I have the other problem where more often then not I just don't finish games. Books are not a problem but I can get to the last level/mission or a major story arc point and I just stop playing. Not sure why.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Oh sure. I got about four books into the Wheel of Time series before just getting so fucking bored with the damn thing. All this crazy shit is supposed to go down eventually, but there's a pile more books to get through before that happens! No, you need to read about a shit ton of politics and side-characters boring ass stories. I'm sure if the series was trimmed of its fat then it would be pretty good, but as it is I just cannot be bothered.

I did mean to finish the Inheritance Cycle books, but by the time the fourth had been released, I'd grown out of them a bit. I guess if I were in a book shop and I saw it I might pick it up and finish the series out of nostalgia, but I don't really have any drive to finish the series.

 

[RadioactiveMicrobe]

I can't leave anything unfinished. Even if I hate it.

 

[Random berk]

Depends really. If a book series fails to keep my interest through the first one, I won't give it a second chance. If I do come to love a series however, I'll stick it out to the end, even if it does go downhill. If you can't immerse yourself in a fantasy world to the point that you have to finish the story, then what's the point of reading fantasy at all?

There are exceptions of course, like if the series drags on too long without actually following a continuous storyline. When I was.. 12, I think, I started reading a series by Anthony Horowitz featuring a protagonist called Alex Rider, a teenager who was basically conscripted into MI6. I loved them.

I'm 22 now, and to the best of my knowledge that series is fucking still going. Needless to say, I dropped that one quite some time ago.