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I’ve been reading a series of books by Andy
McDermott. (Spoiler Alert. Don’t read this
article if you don’t want to know what happens
at the end of Empire Of Gold.) The series
follows Archeologist Nina Wilde and her
protector, then boyfriend, then husband, ex-SAS
Eddie Chase. The books are almost a modern-day
Indiana Jones. The writer knows how to do action
sequences, and he created very engaging
characters. The books are fun to read, despite
the repetitiveness of over-used story-telling
tricks. (C’mon, now. How many times can our
heroes be captured, manage a daring escape, get
captured again, and escape again, multiple times
in multiple books?)
The latest of his books I’ve read is Empire of
Gold. It started off great, where you learn
about Eddie’s past, involving one of this books
primary villains. The book delved deeper into
Eddie’s dark side, and a fundamental difference
in attitude between him and Nina. By the time
the final climax of the book, you can see how
this difference, and the dark events that
preceded it were taking its toll on our heroes’
relationship. The story had me hooked, eagerly
awaiting the conclusion. But the conclusion
never came. In fact, the bad guy gets away,
along with a villain thought dead from previous
books. On top of that, Nina sees Eddie kill a
traitor in self-defense, but only sees enough to
believe he killed the man only out of anger.
With Nina believing Eddie a murderer, he runs
away, planning to find a way to prove his
innocence. A cliffhanger.
Needless to say, I wanted to throw the book
across the room when I finished it. I was
emotionally invested in the story, in Eddie and
Nina’s relationship, and being left where it did
made me feel cheated. This is especially
frustrating because of how long I’ll have to
wait to read the next one.
Some analytical soul reading this will say
that the ending had the desired affect. That I
will anxiously buy the new book once it comes
out. The soul(s) who believe that are missing an
important fact in their reasoning. The emotional
levels that keep me (and others) reading the
book, and caring for the characters, are high as
a build up of the story. Those emotions fade
with time. What keeps me coming back book after
book in a series is the amount of satisfaction I
received reading the stories before. What I’ll
remember when the next book in the series comes
out is not how I felt during my previous reading
experience, but how angry, used and manipulated
I felt once I finished reading it.
This isn’t the only book series I’ve read that
has done this. The way Harry Potter and the Half
Blood Prince ended left me feeling somewhat
similar when Dumbledore died in the end. If it
wasn’t for knowing the next Potter book would
conclude the series, and the vested interest I
had in the other HP characters, I might not have
read the last. Many of the other authors I’ve
read who’ve done this lost me as a reader. And
don’t get me started on TV series that do this.
End of the season cliffhangers can be just as
frustrating, but can ruin the entire series if
the episode and/or story arc are not resolved
and the series is canceled. (The 4400 is a prime
example of this.)
As a writer, I will never, ever do this to my
readers. First and foremost, I will always make
sure the story I’m telling will be complete by
the end. This doesn’t mean I’ll never do a
series. I already have a series with Distant
Ties and the sequel Broken
Ties. And, sometime in the future, I plan
to write a third, called Ancient Ties.
Each of these books can be read by themselves,
and still be enjoyed, leaving a feeling of story
closure. Also, A book I write may not end in a
way that people expect, but will bring closure
in a way that compels your imagination to see
how the story resolves.
So, will I buy and read the next Nina and
Eddie novel when it comes out? Probably, but
writer Andy McDermott will have to re-earn my
trust. If he pulls another cliffhanger, that
will be the last book I read from him.
Update:
Have read the next book, Return to Atlantis (UK
version named Temple of the Gods) and am quite
pleased. No additional cliffhangers, fun read
and the story is wrapped up. I'll just hope he
doesn't try a cliffhanger again.
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