What Keeps You Reading An Ongoing Series?

I just received the ARCs for the Anniversary Day Saga in the Retrieval Artist Series by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. They are 8 books in the saga and I was thinking about what has kept me reading this excellent SF Thriller series.

For me, it has been the main characters of Miles Flint and Noelle De Ricci. Their contrasting personalities and character development into who they have become in each book has kept me reading the Retrieval Artist Series.

What is it for other readers? The characters? The setting or world-building? The theme? Or the plot or storyline?

Just wondering what keeps readers hooked in an ongoing series?

Marion

The characters

The Characters. The setting. Same things that make me finish a book in the first place.

All three are important: characters, world-building, plot. But with me the characters are most important in continuing a series; I've never been quite sure how authors do it, but if there's that quality of making me care about the main characters, that carries me on. It's the thing that made me say "YES!" with fist-pump, as soon as I saw the title of the last Aubrey-Maturin book Blue at the Mizzen, which cued me that he was finally getting his promotion to admiral.

But the factors aren't always in that order. I finished Asimov's Foundation books years ago, despite cardboard characters, because of the ideas. And with the Dune series it was more about the world-building than most of the characters. Still, for me to really love a series, it needs to be at least OK in all three of the factors above.

Well, I'm reading the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs (https://www.librarything.com/series/Barsoom) right now, and the main thing that keeps me reading it is that I'm committed to it for my TBR Challenge group*! Seriously, I'm just not that big of a series person; I don't even like to read two books by the same author in a row, much less several books by the same author in the same series. I just need a more frequent change of voice/perspective than that, I suppose. (Having said all that, I admire those who are able to knock off series on a regular basis. I wish I had your attention span!)

* https://www.librarything.com/groups/tbrchallenge

It's got to be characters, wanting to know more about them, how they develop and how they meet new challenges.

#5 Art - I like variety too. I never read series all next to each other. I read one, then some other stuff, then eventually get back. Partly, besides variety, I do it to stretch out the series. :-) Sometimes if I'm REALLY into one, I'll read two in a row, but not usually.

There could be one of several reasons why I'll stick with a series. Sometimes (in the really good instances) it's a combination.
- character(s) I strongly identify with, and want to see how they face their next challenge/stage of development
- worldbuilding that may be built on simple premises but with enormous consequences or theme to explore
- a world so charming that I wish I could visit it for real, but will settle for reading another volume
- each volume moves the story in a startling new direction that keeps my interest hooked
- the writing style is warm and inviting or otherwise speaks to me (usually means I like the characters/world too)
- last book ended with a cliffhanger, and I care enough to see what happens
- worst case: I've read this far and there's only one or two books left, might as well finish the series now and hope it ends well

For me when it comes to Science Fiction it's all about the plot and storylines. I can stomach the flattest of characters and a shallow world, but if the story isn't trucking along answering questions and creating new ones then I'm out.

I second what #4 said re: Asimov's books. It's all about the ideas and the possibilities for me. When it comes to big Sci-Fi series, the pacing is important to me too. Lots of these books can be really really big. The most recent ones to have done a good job is The Expanse series, I think, starting with Leviathan Wakes. They've done a good job with all the little novellas as well, in that series.

For me to continue reading a series I really enjoy an on-going story arc. A planned narrative that spans all the volumes, each contributing a bit more to the backstory that was barely visible in the first book. Harry Dresden is the best example of this that I've read. Jack Reacher is the worst and exemplifies all the things I don't like about a series. It is just a set of unrelated events all happening to the same character. Which rapidly becomes beyond improbable and into outright unbelievable.

I'll read them anyway because I enjoy each episode. But I have a far greater hunger and desire to read long series' that develop over time. Trilogies fall somewhere inbetween, in that they are often planned to be that long, but hardly count as series, but they do generally have the thematic continuation that I enjoy.

#8 Cecrow's answer pretty much says what I was going to say only a whole lot better than I was trying to say it so I’m jut going to say me too, this! :O)

Except for the last one, the worst case. I’ve reached a point in my reading career where even to finish a series I won’t read a book I don’t like or don’t care about. Usually, once you’ve lost me, you’ve lost me.

>10 reading_fox: That depends on expectations. I like both the serialized series like Dresden where you need to read them in order or you are lost and the story progresses and the non-serialized which can be read in mostly any order (well... if you read them out of order you can miss a wife or something somewhere and be surprised when they show up). Mystery and thriller series tend to be from the second type; SF and Fantasy is more likely to be the first type... (although there are exceptions of course).

The world and characters, but sometimes I just want to know how it all works out...

>12 AnnieMod: Indeed, Annie; I've skipped a couple of Discworld novels because I had a specific reason to read 'Raising Steam' out of sequence, and something happened to Commander Vimes in one of the preceding two books that has me going "Huh? What's that in aid of?" (And then, "I suppose I'll find out what that was about in due course...")