Much of my activity in the social media has to do with writing and reading. Networking with other writers counts as one of the better reasons I have for spending time online. It’s good for the morale to be in touch with people who understand this strange habit I have, without requiring any explanations. The same goes for reading, especially when discussing a specific genre, such as science fiction. These interactions, which include numerous reviews and recommendations, account for nearly all my fiction book-buying decisions these days. The discussions that lead to book selections on my part are often wide-ranging and diverse, and – of course – loaded with opinions. Also, sometimes, complaints.

A specific complaint I see expressed regularly has to do with trilogies or longer series. This complaint reads the same way whether the author is as popular as Frank Herbert or N.K. Jemisin, or a relative unknown such as yours truly. A reader will mention reading a Book One, and, inevitably, someone responds by allowing that they, too, like the first book, and sometimes also the second. But after that it was all downhill. The author, they believe, ran out of ideas or – worse – simply got lazy (speculations vary). Such commentary leaps out at me because, as often as not, I’ve read the series or trilogy in question, and experienced no such thing. Different people will react to books in different ways and the definition of “quality” is, of course, flexible and highly subjective. And a series really can run out of steam if the writer extends the story too far, striving for quantity at the expense of consistent quality. (It is, by the way, very difficult to know when to quit.) All of that being true, I rarely see such a comment made about books by an author whose body of work consists of stand-alone novels or short stories. Readers might find that body of writing inconsistent, one book to the next, but it isn’t normally seen in the same way as a steady decline over a series of connected novels. (“Their first book was great, the next only so-so, but that latest release deserves an award!”) Something else happens when it’s a series of books, meant to be read in order.

Curious about this difference in perception, I’ve made it a habit to ask people about reading habits when they make the observation that a series started out with great promise, but lost momentum somewhere along the way. The key questions turned out to be “How long did it take you to read that series?” and “Did you read it straight through?” I haven’t exactly made a systematic study of the matter, but the responses I’ve received have led me to the following observation: there seems to be a correlation between the perception of a series faltering and the habit of binge reading.

Binge reading simply means that you start with book one and don’t stop until you’ve read  through the entire series. (People also do this with movies and TV shows.) You’re all in, fully committed. The series is treated, essentially, as one really big book.

Binge reading is a habit I never acquired. In younger days, books came to me one or two at a time. They were all stand-alones until I discovered Tolkien, and even then there was a considerable lag in reading The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. The same thing happened when I read Frank Herbert’s Dune. The other books in that series were out there (it was still a trilogy at that time), but acquiring copies took some time – and I read or reread other books in the meantime. I believe this is how I developed a good memory for books I’ve read, so reading the next book months or a year later has never been a problem. And these days I’m in the habit of having a mix of reads ongoing at any one time, fiction and nonfiction. It could be said that I’m the opposite of a binge reader.

Other readers take a different approach: they buy the whole series at once, or if necessary wait until the entire thing is complete, and then plunge in. (The latter makes a certain amount of sense, since now and then a writer gets partway into a series and just drops it.) Those for whom binge reading is the norm make a serious commitment to reading a series. For most, this complete immersion is a big part of the fun. And in truth, most of the binge readers I’ve met end up quite satisfied by their experiences. But not all of them.

In the conversations I’ve had with fellow readers, more often than now it’s the bingers who claim that the writer jumped the shark, and should have quit while they were ahead. But was it the writing or the reader who ran out of momentum? While it’s certainly possible for a writer fade in the stretch (that sort of thing can happen to anybody, in the course of any endeavor), I find myself wondering if the problem is more likely due to reader fatigue, than any failing on the part of the writer.

For many readers, bingeing through a series is part of the fun. Not everyone who binge-reads runs afoul of this phenomenon, or experiences it with every series they read. But some do, and I’ve even heard from readers who absolutely will not read a series, ever, because they all “lose it” before the end. They are often quite vocal in their dislike, and are critical of writers who write a multi-book series – as if this were some sort of personal failing.

So – some binge and some do not. To my mind, bingeing carries the risk of reader fatigue, and having examined my own habits in this light, binge reading will never, for me, become a habit. All a matter of perception on my part, a matter of calling it the way I see it. How does it work for you?