August 27, 2014

My favorite book trilogies

I'm shocked at how few trilogies there are out there, at least when I type in things like best book trilogies into Google.

There are a whole bunch of book series, but not just neat, tidy, three-book runs.

So, let's go with book series - and define that as at least three books (that I've read) in a connected story and by the same author (or at least published under the same author's name) - instead.

So, in no particular order...
  • Hunger Games - quite popular right now for some reason...I read them when I was laid up with a back injury a few years back...good series for both young men and women because there's a ton of action and strong, female lead
  • Harry Potter - I'm surprised if I find a book reader who hasn't read this in its entirety, so no big explanation is necessary...wonderfully helped spawn a continuing re-explosion in children's reading (now young adult reading, too)
  • Incarnations of Immortality - read the seven books in this series when I was in high school and enjoyed the heck out of them...nice fantasy series exploring the immortals (war, death, time, god, devil, nature, fate) as offices held by mortals...interesting concept made more interesting by the family relationships that connect the series's current office holders
  • Wrinkle in Time - loved it as a child, read the four books...re-read the first book as an adult and absolutely loathed it...fantasy premises that become more Christian as the series moved along...
  • Discworld - funny stuff in fantasy form...the quality is routinely high, and you can drop in and out at any place in the series...hilarious books with thoroughly entertaining characters
  • The Dark Tower - the linchpin around which Stephen King's career has ended up turning...encompasses so many genres (Western, sci-fi, fantasy, historical) and so many of his other tales (some intended, some connected after the fact)...
  • MaddAddam - just finished the second book (accidentally read after the third) and found it redundant because I knew where the characters were eventually going...good read, though...
  • Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - it's been a long time since I read these four, but they're another humorous series...fun sci-fi with a good sense of humor
  • all of Kurt Vonnegut's world - my favorite author...not technically a series, but so many of his books have interconnected characters (sometimes in slightly different forms and with different details) that it's almost okay to call them of a single piece...wonderful writing...
  • Dragons of... by Weis/Hickman - read these in high school, too, and was never satisfied with the non-Weis/Hickman books that followed...high fantasy with world building being done throughout...great D&D action and themes...
So many of these were read so far in the past that it's tough for me to rank them in any meaningful way. Young ChemGuy would certainly have ranked them very differently than old ChemGuy.

If I were forced to choose from among the ones I've read as an adult, I would probably but Vonnegut up top followed by Dark Tower, Harry Potter, and Discworld...then Hunger Games & Hitchhiker's...then MaddAddam.

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