Quantum Forest

Visiting a bookshop, killing time while waiting for a plane in the airport. I have always been a fan of science fiction, the traditional type, hard science extrapolation. No wizards, magic, or knights in a horse. Please, bookshop owners, put the four or six volumes sagas under fantasy. Anyway, I am moving off topic. One element that grabbed my attention was the presence of multiple trilogies, tetralogies, or higher order series of books, not only in science fiction by in almost every conceivable topic. It seems that writing a good book is not enough, but that now we need to have sequels, prequels and all sorts of extensions riding on the success of a single book. Even the Dalai Lama is under pressure! We now have ‘The art of happiness’ and ‘The art of happiness at work’, so we may have ‘The revenge of happiness’ in the near future.

What is going on? It might be a combination of risk aversion and a reduction (or lack) of creativity. If ones write a [novel, essay, story, poem, pick one], the odds of publishing increase if there is a chance for doing successive installments. It does not matter if the author is rehashing the same old ideas, but what is really important is the potential for buyers of the future variations of the book. From that point of view, most classical writers would still be looking for an editor, because they would not have wanted to sign up for ten books telling the same story.