The longest science-fiction series
I was so excited with how well received the fantasy series list was, and how much of that list came from you guys, that I started putting together the science-fiction list as soon as I got a chance to improve my scraping script. As always, I relied on help from Reddit and the LibraryThing Green Dragon group and now, on yours.
Besides the issues I pointed out on the previous list, the science-fiction one raises a difficult one: Perry Rhodan. The Perry Rhodan series numbers over 2500 installments, the first ones dating back from 1961. As such, it’s practically impossible to gather an accurate page count for all of them. One Redditor suggested I make an estimate, based on 64 pages per week over a period of 50 years (the current issue number is 2573). This comes up to over 160.000 pages, so we can safely assume it’s the uncontested absolute leader of the list. It will therefore stay pinned at the top of the list, looking down on its puny subjects that rarely pass the 10.000 pages mark.
You may also notice that, because science-fiction series are generally shorted then their fantasy counterparts, I have significantly reduced the page and book count requirements for inclusion in the list.
Without further ado, here is the list (you can click on the table header to sort it by name, author, book or page count). Please feel free to suggest other series or point out mistakes.
| # | Series | Author(s) | Books | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Perry Rhodan | Many | 2573 | 164672 |
| 2 | Deathlands | James Axler | 84 | 29408 |
| 3 | Darkover | Marion Zimmer Bradley | 38 | 13055 |
| 4 | Gor | John Norman | 28 | 13050 |
| 5 | Robot/Empire/Foundation | Isaac Asimov et al. | 29 | 11136 |
| 6 | Alliance-Union | C. J. Cherryh | 29 | 9533 |
| 7 | Dune | Frank Herbert and Brian Herbert | 15 | 8771 |
| 8 | Known Space | Larry Niven et al. | 26 | 8236 |
| 9 | Wild Cards | George R. R. Martin et al. | 20 | 8078 |
| 10 | John Grimes | A. Bertram Chandler | 23 | 7481 |
| 11 | The New Jedi Order | Many | 19 | 7266 |
| 12 | Assiti Shards | Eric Flint | 12 | 7218 |
| 13 | Honor Harrington | David Weber | 12 | 7176 |
| 14 | Timeline-191 | Harry Turtledove | 11 | 6837 |
| 15 | The Horus Heresy | Many | 15 | 6321 |
| 16 | Legacy of the Aldenata | John Ringo | 12 | 6174 |
| 17 | Bolos | Keith Laumer | 15 | 5951 |
| 18 | Berserker | Fred Saberhagen | 17 | 5766 |
| 19 | Vorkosigan | Lois McMaster Bujold | 14 | 5376 |
| 20 | Skolian Empire | Catherine Asaro | 13 | 5344 |
| 21 | Chung Kuo | David Wingrove | 8 | 5258 |
| 22 | Colonization/Worldwar | Harry Turtledove | 8 | 4800 |
| 23 | Foreigner | C. J. Cherryh | 11 | 4740 |
| 24 | Saga of Seven Suns | Kevin J. Anderson | 8 | 4608 |
| 25 | Deathstalker | Simon R. Green | 11 | 4486 |
| 26 | Liaden Universe Novels | Sharon Lee | 12 | 4343 |
| 27 | The Company | Kage Baker | 14 | 4324 |
| 28 | Night’s Dawn | Peter F. Hamilton | 4 | 4322 |
| 29 | Retief | Keith Laumer | 18 | 4317 |
| 30 | Childe Cycle | Gordon R. Dickson | 11 | 4270 |
| 31 | Solar Cycle | Gene Wolfe | 12 | 4252 |
| 32 | Mission Earth | L. Ron Hubbard | 10 | 4235 |
| 33 | Xeelee Sequence | Stephen Baxter | 10 | 4233 |
| 34 | Gaunt’s Ghosts | Dan Abnett | 12 | 4160 |
| 35 | Revelation Space | Alastair Reynolds | 7 | 3960 |
| 36 | Pip and Flinx | Alan Dean Foster | 14 | 3888 |
| 37 | Polity: Universe | Neal Asher | 9 | 3881 |
| 38 | RCN | David Drake | 8 | 3720 |
| 39 | Saga of the Exiles + Galactic Milieu | Julian May | 8 | 3707 |
| 40 | The Baroque Cycle | Neal Stephenson | 8 | 3648 |
| 41 | Seafort Saga | David Feintuch | 7 | 3536 |
| 42 | Uplift Saga | David Brin | 6 | 3456 |
| 43 | Otherland | Tad Williams | 4 | 3352 |
| 44 | Sector General | James White | 14 | 3339 |
| 45 | Well of Souls | Jack L. Chalker | 10 | 3337 |
| 46 | The Culture | Iain M. Banks | 8 | 3300 |
| 47 | The Serrano Legacy | Elizabeth Moon | 7 | 3136 |
| 48 | Chris Godfrey | Hugh Walters | 19 | 3075 |
| 49 | Kris Longknife | Mike Shepherd | 8 | 2938 |
| 50 | Foundation | Isaac Asimov | 7 | 2881 |
| 51 | Requiem for Homo Sapiens | David Zindell | 4 | 2852 |
| 52 | Alien Nation | Alan Dean Foster | 9 | 2797 |
| 53 | Rama Universe | Arthur C. Clarke | 6 | 2783 |
| 54 | Viagens Interplanetarias | L. Sprague De Camp | 12 | 2697 |
| 55 | Retrieval Artist | Kristine Kathryn Rusch | 7 | 2688 |
| 56 | Hainish Cycle | Ursula K. Le Guin | 10 | 2669 |
| 57 | Ciaphas Cain | Sandy Mitchell | 7 | 2653 |
| 58 | Gap Series | Stephen R. Donaldson | 5 | 2652 |
| 59 | Marq’ssan Cycle | L. Timmel Duchamp | 5 | 2632 |
| 60 | Hammer’s Slammers | David Drake | 10 | 2612 |
| 61 | Empire of Man | David Weber | 4 | 2465 |
| 62 | Firestar | Michael Flynn | 4 | 2411 |
| 63 | Time-travelling Oxford historians | Connie Willis | 5 | 2364 |
| 64 | Hyperion Cantos | Dan Simmons | 4 | 2305 |
| 65 | Amtrak Wars | Patrick Tilley | 6 | 2283 |
| 66 | Ender’s Game | Orson Scott Card | 6 | 2272 |
| 67 | Eight Worlds | John Varley | 6 | 2174 |
| 68 | Sime/Gen | Jacqueline Lichtenberg | 9 | 2153 |
| 69 | Inquisitor (Eisenhorn + Ravenor) | Dan Abnett | 6 | 2144 |
| 70 | The Stainless Steel Rat | Harry Harrison | 10 | 2131 |
| 71 | Under Jurisdiction | Susan R. Matthews | 6 | 2102 |
| 72 | Void Trilogy | Peter F. Hamilton | 3 | 2080 |
| 73 | Ultramarines | Graham McNeill | 6 | 2080 |
| 74 | Vatta’s War | Elizabeth Moon | 5 | 2064 |
| 75 | Manifold | Stephen Baxter | 4 | 2032 |
| 76 | The Heechee Saga | Frederik Pohl | 6 | 2021 |
| 77 | Mars Trilogy | Kim Stanley Robinson | 3 | 2016 |
| 78 | Barsoom series | Edgar Rice Burroughs | 11 | 2008 |
| 79 | The War Against the Chtorr | David Gerrold | 4 | 1937 |
| 80 | The Lost Fleet | Jack Campbell | 6 | 1920 |
| 81 | Homecoming Saga | Orson Scott Card | 5 | 1900 |
| 82 | Dragonback | Timothy Zahn | 6 | 1872 |
| 83 | Galactic Center | Gregory Benford | 6 | 1865 |
| 84 | Dark Wing | Walter H. Hunt | 4 | 1856 |
| 85 | Giants | James P. Hogan | 5 | 1847 |
| 86 | Lensman | E. E. “Doc” Smith | 7 | 1792 |
| 87 | Bold As Love | Gwyneth Jones | 5 | 1768 |
| 88 | The Family d’Alembert | E. E. “Doc” Smith | 10 | 1755 |
| 89 | Phule’s Company | Robert Asprin | 6 | 1705 |
| 90 | Fleet | David Drake | 6 | 1704 |
| 91 | Tour of the Merrimack | R. M. Meluch | 4 | 1584 |
| 92 | Captain Future | Edmond Hamilton and Brett Sterling | 10 | 1563 |
| 93 | Heritage Universe | Charles Sheffield | 5 | 1537 |
| 94 | Helliconia Trilogy | Brian W. Aldiss | 3 | 1536 |
| 95 | Plenty | Colin Greenland | 3 | 1504 |
| 96 | Quantum Gravity | Justina Robson | 4 | 1493 |
| 97 | Old Man’s War | John Scalzi | 5 | 1476 |
| 98 | Destination: Void | Frank Herbert | 4 | 1460 |
| 99 | Frank Compton | Timothy Zahn | 4 | 1456 |
| 100 | The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams and Eoin Colfer | 6 | 1440 |
| 101 | Canopus in Argos: Archives | Doris Lessing | 5 | 1392 |
| 102 | The Eon Series | Greg Bear | 3 | 1376 |
| 103 | The Federation of the Hub | James H. Schmitz | 6 | 1337 |
| 104 | Space Odyssey | Arthur C. Clarke | 4 | 1248 |
| 105 | Del Whitby | John Morressy | 6 | 1206 |
| 106 | Three Californias | Kim Stanley Robinson | 3 | 1120 |
| 107 | Cobra | Timothy Zahn | 3 | 1099 |
from → Lists
What about Kevin J. Anderson’s Saga of Seven Suns?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_Seven_Suns
Done, 4608 pages :)
Night’s Dawn page count seems a little bit low. It’s 3074 in UK hardcover and about 3810 in paperback. 1,125,000 words or thereabouts.
Harry Turtledove’s COLONIZATION trilogy is a direct continuation of his WORLDWAR saga. Together with their joint concluding novel, HOMEWARD BOUND, that’s 8 novels, over 4000 pages.
David Wingrove is just about to start reissuing CHUNG KUO in a mind-boggling 20 volumes released over the next 4 years, including several brand-new volumes and re-written and re-edited versions of earlier books.
There’s also Patrick Tilley’s AMTRAK WARS series, which stands at 6 books and about (from memory) 2500 pages.
Neal Asher’s POLITY UNIVERSE comprises 12 novels sub-divided into several smaller series, not sure on combined page-count but it’s quite high.
There’s also the WARHAMMER 40,000 universe. Several authors are collaborating on the HORUS HERESY series, which currently stands at 14 novels (WH40K’s answer to the NEW JEDI ORDER STAR WARS series, basically). Dan Abnett has his own GAUNT’S GHOST series (12 novels, over 3000 pages so far) and his two INQUISITOR series (the EISENHORN and RAVENOR trilogies, forming one six-book series, about 1600 pages), whilst Sandy Mitchell has his CIAPHAS CAIN series (seven books so far, about 1600 pages) and Graham McNeill has his ULTRAMARINES series. There’s a few others in that setting as well.
Charles Sheffield’s HERITAGE UNIVERSE comprises about 5 books, but IIRC they’re pretty short, probably coming to 1200 pages or so altogether.
Wow, thank you! I updated the list.
If we’re counting short stories, I’m wondering if George R.R. Martin’s THOUSAND WORLDS setting might also count. Three novels – DYING OF THE LIGHT, WINDHAVEN and TUF VOYAGING – are set there, along with dozens of short stories (most of them collected in DREAMSONGS, although that also contains non-THOUSAND WORLDS stories as well). The combined page count would be well north of 1,000 pages.
Ah, CJ Cherryh’s ALLIANCE-UNION series. 30 novels by one author, some of them pretty big. That’d probably be up near the top of the list.
9533 pages :)
EC Tubb’s Dumarest series was 33 books – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumarest
Also, Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle is a cheat – it was originally published as a trilogy, but the individual books were then split for paperback publication.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of Dumarest books that I cannot find the page counts for :( If someone would help me with the correct page count for the series, I would add it to the list.
See http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?1304 Details for all the books in the series.
Also:
Jack Chalker Well World series: 10 books
Gwyneth Jones Bold as Love Cycle: 5 books
L Timmel Duchamp Marq’ssan Cycle: 5 books
Alan Dean Foster Flinx series: 14 books (28, if you count the series as the Humanx books)
Brian Stableford Hooded Swan series: 6 books
Thank you, I added all of them, except Hooded Swan, that only has 932 pages.
Ah, Colin Greenland’s PLENTY trilogy (sometimes called the TABITHA JUTE trilogy). About 1,500 pages in paperback.
Mary Gentle’s ASH: A SECRET HISTORY is a single novel over 1,100 pages long. However, in the USA it’s published in four volumes, so may count.
Whether you count BAROQUE as 3 novels or 8, it still comes out at roughly the same page count, so I don’t think that’s too much of a problem.
Kim Stanley Robinson’s ORANGE COUNTY (more recently called THREE CALIFORNIAS) trilogy? Also about 1,200-1,500 pages.
Can you give me an exact page count for the Plenty trilogy? LibraryThing and Amazon only give me 902 pages for the whole trilogy.
544, 496 and 464 pages for the three books via Amazon.co.uk listings, so 1,504 pages. I only have the first book in paperback and that page count is correct. Hardcover page counts would be lower.
Awesome, it made the list :)
Gregory Benford’s six-volume GALACTIC CENTRE sequence should also be up there. I remember the books being about 400-500 pages long each.
1865 pages in total, thank you!
Well, the Perry Rhodan spin-off series “ATLAN” (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlan#Atlan-Heftserie , sorry – no entry in the english wiki) ran for 850 booklets, plus multiple trades.
And what about all those stuff like Star Trek and Star Wars? Does that count as a series too?
As a general rule, anything counts, as long as I can get the correct page count for the entire series. Also, I generally try to avoid “universes” (although some may have been included), and would like to only include series that share characters and story lines, not just a specific universe and/or world.
OK, then Atlan would make on the second place off the list.
Even it’s a spin-off from Perry Rhodan, it was a separate series (not included in the 2573 PR magazins).
Gordon R Dickson Childe Cycle: 12 books
Jack Vance Demon Princes: 5 books
Ken MacLeod Fall Revolution series: 4 books
Doris Lessing Canopus in Argos Archives: 5 books
John Varley Eight Worlds: 3 novels( plus most of the contents of 3 collections)
With the exception of the Demon Princes and Fall Revolutions series (that didn’t pass the 1000 pages mark), I added all of them. Thank you!
Julian May:
The Saga of Pliocene Exile
The Galactic Milieu Series
These two series share the same world. So going by the same rules applied to Feist’s Riftwar Cycle, these two would surely qualify for this list as a single entity. :)
John Scalzi:
Old Man’s War universe
Done :)
If you count the New Jedi Order as a series, wouldn’t we want to count the Star Wars Expanded Universe as a collected whole? It has fairly solid internal consistency and has somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 novels if you’re only counting adult novels, and not the YA and collected graphic novels.
I saw your comment about sharing characters and story. There’s more character and story sharing there than in Darkover or Alliance /Union. This isn’t a knock on Bradley and Cherryh. Bradley was a favorite growing up and Cherryh is a favorite now. But both universes act in similar ways to Star Wars, except that only one author played in them. Reportedly, Star Trek doesn’t have that same internal consistency with the fiction.
For the Void Trilogy, it is part of a larger Commonwealth Saga, with Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained.
Personally, I think you should exclude media tie-in shared universe fiction, but include author’s series which use the same world/universe but perhaps different stories or characters. So the Dune series would be in, but Star Wars and Alien Nation would be out.
That seems a little bit arbritary. The original intent was to find a list of the ‘longest SF series ever’ and a lot of that does come from shared universe, multi-author tie-in stuff (PERRY RHODAN for starters). Maybe finding a divide between actual long, serialised stories and episodic adventures featuring the same cast could work, but extensive research would be required.
It’s difficult to know where to draw the line. The ALLIANCE-UNION books, for example, tell the story of the founding of the Alliance and a future history of humanity. Against that broad backdrop that story and history unfold, regardless of if individual novels are set centuries apart with totally different characters. The same for KNOWN SPACE, or DUNE. STAR WARS is arguably the story of the Clone Wars, the Rebellion, the New Republic which succeeds it and the Galactic Alliance which follows on from that, seen through the eyes of the Skywalker family (from Anakin through Cade, 130 years later), so a case could be made for that as one large story. However, it’s arguably a succession of events, not a truly unified story in the way that the NEW JEDI ORDER saga is (where the SW galaxy is invaded by an extragalactic alien race and the Jedi have to lead the war against them).
The only thing I would exclude is STAR TREK. Because the novels are non-canon they not only contradict (and are contradicted by) the various TV series, they also contradict one another. As such they have no consistentcy. With DOCTOR WHO the novels’s canonical status is dubious (some elements which first appeared in the books have appeared in the new TV series, whilst the TV series has simultaneously rendered some of the books non-canon) so I’d say the same is true for them.
Justina Robson Quantum Gravity: 5 bokos (one due to be published next year)
Jack Campbell Lost Fleet: 6 books
Lin Carter Callisto series: 8 books
Catherine Asaro Skolian Empire series: 14 books
Update on ATLAN: 850 * 64 would make 54.400 pages and thats only counting the booklets, not the trade paperbacks.
Not too forget the german SF-series Ren Dhark.
If I counted right, there are 16 + 25 + 12 +24 +14 +29 + 48= 168 Books in the series so far.
http://www.ren-dhark.de/weg/ueberblick.htm
Plus some spin-off books and specials.
Maddrax (A SF, Fantasy & Horror Crossover) has 284 booklets per 64 pages (18.176 pages) plus 9 Hardcover and some spin offs. (http://www.maddrax.de/)
Paul Preuss Venus Primes series: 6 books
Stephen Baxter Xeelee Sequence: 9 books
John Morressy Sternverein series: 6 books
David Feintuch Seafort Saga: 7 books
Simon R Gree Deathstalker series: 8 books
Er, Simon R Green, not Gree :-)
I can barely keep up with you ;))
What about La compagnie des glaces from GJ Arnaud
Maybe the ice company in english
The guy wrote 98 books on the first serie alone and then a sequel with 30 books I believe
It makes a lots of pages too
I would gladly add the series if I could find a page with all the volumes on LibraryThing to parse.
The whole series is listed here but unfortunately not the page count
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Compagnie_des_glaces
Sternenfaust is a science fiction series published ervery two weeks since 2005 in Germany. Publisher is Bastei (see http://www.bastei.de/indices/index_allgemein_879.html )
So far, 152 novels were published. With 64 pages per issue i get about 9700 pages.
I think I should have stayed clear of Perry Rhodan. There seem to be a large number of periodicals, and I’m starting to think that none of them should be included in the list, as a 64-page booklet (magazine?) doesn’t come close to a regular novel.
Well, I would only list series from ONE Author.
Maybe Shared Worlds and/or periodicals would be a better thing for another list.
You are probably right. Although Dune would become a problem then ;))
Not for me, actually. ;)
I don’t count anything not written by Herbert himself.
First off, really like your blog and added it to my RSS reader. Keep up the great work :-)
Now, just to follow up on Perry Rhodan. I am not a big fan of it either, but it would be ridiculous to exclude it in this kind of list. The length is certainly its strongest selling point.
One could split it up into the main authors individual efforts, but then you would have multiple among the list. There is a huge statistics page (in German) in case anyone is interested on how many publications each author contributed: http://www.perrypedia.proc.org/wiki/Autorenstatistik_aller_PR-Publikationen
In addition, while the individual magazines were only 64 pages long, they did tie into each other. So if one would not split up by author, but rather by thematical series (as far as I can tell, these were called “Zyklen” with either 50 or 100 publications), we’d have multiple listings again. Leaving it as is is probably best instead =)
Fun Fact: Kurt Mahr, the author with the most pages in the PR universe individually was an actual rocket scientist. As he couldn’t work as rocket scientist in Germany, for obvious reasons, he moved to the US instead. He started writing initially to fund his university studies.
Even if you didn’t include the periodicals you would have to include the “Silberband” edition.
That’s the periodicals streamlined and sorted by storyline released as hardcover.
With about 400 pages per book and currently 112 books out there, it would still be number 1. :-)
If you want the exact number of pages, it’s stated on the separate article pages under “Seitenanzahl”:
http://www.perrypedia.proc.org/wiki/Silberb%C3%A4nde
Just noticed that the Perrypedia got the numbers already:
http://www.perrypedia.proc.org/wiki/Silberband-Synopse
The total count from Silberband 1 to 112 is 45.065 pages.
Right, I guess Perry Rhodan is here to stay then :)
but the Silberbände are just reprints of the Series. And what ist a regular Sidecount? If i get the ebooks? Where are the Sidenumbers then?
How about the Formats of the Books? If u read a Hardcover the Sidecount is surely diffrent to the Softcovers……
The Title of your Blog entry is “The longest science-fiction series”. And these are Series, they all play in a consistant Universe for them selve.
What about Edmond Hamilton – Captain Future?
Sure, 1563 pages :)
I have no pagecount but
http://www.librarything.com/series/Legacy+of+the+Aldenata
has 12 Books
Done, 6174 pages :)
Frederik Pohl – Heechee
2021 pages, thanks!
What about Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series?
It has 7 books, and the 8th is propably on the way.
I believe that’s on the fantasy list.
Indeed, it is. I haven’t read the entire Dark Tower series (in fact, I gave up after the first book), but it seemed to me to have very little to do with the “science” part of sci-fi.
Poul Anderson – Dominic Flandry & Time Patrol
You should include the Doc Savage pulp series, comparable to the Wild Cards series. At 181 original books, each averaging 110 pages a book or so, you have an estimated 19,910 pages, plus at least two more recently-written books at about 200 pages each… bringing you up to an estimated 20,310 pages. That would make it #2 on the list!
Not if he counts ATLAN… ;)
Sorry for the spam. :)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch – Retrieval Artist
L. Spraque de Camp – Either Viagens Interplanetarias or at least the seven Krishna novels plus 2 novellas
Don’t worry, spam away! :D
Larry Niven Known space includes ringworld (place 68)
I removed Ringworld, thanks!
Heinlein future history
http://www.librarything.com/series/Future+History
I think the shadow books should be part of Ender’s world
http://www.librarything.com/series/Ender%27s+Game%3A+Extended
Walter Hunt, The Dark (Wing, Path, etc.)?
David Gerrold, War Against the Chtorr (unfinished, alas, but already long enough)?
I added both of them :)
The Heechee saga is Frederik Pohl, not Baen.
Oops, you are right. It’s fixed now.
Elizabeth Moon – the Vatta’s War (5 vols approx 1900pages) series?
So how many SF authors can we find that deserve multiple entries? Not very many so far.
2064 pages, thanks!
The Destination: Void series by Frank Herbert and Bill Rasom is 4 books and around 1,463 pages.
I added it, thanks!
You omitted the Dray Prescot series (H. Kenneth Bulmer, aka Alan Burt Akers), similar to Burroughs’ Barsoom, interplanetary adventure.
52 volumes, the last few only published in German. Approximately 11,000 pages.
Actually I would file “Day Prescott” under fantasy. “Gor” too, by the way.
And L. Sprague De Camp also.
Not an easy decision…
Yeah, the line between fantasy and science-fiction is sometimes blurry. Some would argue the entire genre system is flawed, as any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and whatnot but I, for one, have no such issues. If it features space-wizards, I can include it in both lists.
Another one – Susan R. Matthews, the Jurisdiction series, 6 vols 2,000 pages.
Not my favourite, but someone must buy them.
Does Kage Baker’s The Company series qualify as SF? If so there’s 9 or 10 books in that one.
Oh well, quality is not an important
criteriacriterion for this list, so I added both series.They were good books, those Jurisdiction novels. Damn sight better than a lot of the ones currently on the list, anyway… Er, not that quality is a required criterion.
Hm.. there are 4 books (plus a recently re-published novella) that comprise a linked series but don’t appear to be listed as such on the Fantastic Fiction site. Can’t think why.
Connie Willis – ‘Firewatch’, ‘Doomsday Book’, ‘To Say Nothing of the Dog’, ‘Blackout’ and ‘All Clear’ are all based around Dunsworthy’s Oxford University History Dept’s time-travels. Totals about 2100 pages.
Apparently they are featured as a series on LibraryThing under the Time-travelling Oxford historians name. Unfortunately, I cannot find the page count for the first work (Fire Watch). If you could make a quick trip to your bookshelf and tell me the page count, I would add it :)
No problem… or not much of one.
The republished ‘Firewatch’ standalone novella/novelette = 92 pages (75 of text plus 2 Afterwords).
Damn good book.
Great! 2364 pages in total.
Actually, we might be looking at a very special series – ‘Fire Watch’, ‘Doomsday Book’ and ‘To Say Nothing of the Dog’ all won Hugos.
‘Blackout’ and ‘All Clear’ were written as a single book (it was the publisher who split it, saying it was too big – though there are heftier tomes in SF/Fantasy). Both were published this year and I wouldn’t be surprised if it/they aren’t at least short-listed for the Hugo next year.
What are the odds for a 4 book series winning 4 Hugos?
Wow, thank you for the idea for my next purchase :D
The Giant series by James P. Hogan is 1,847 pages long and 5 books
The Ilium series by Dan Simmons is 2 books and 1,587 pages long.
There’s the ‘Assiti Shard – Ring of Fire’ series – multiple authors (including Eric Flint and David Weber), starts with ’1632′ and runs to 11 books so far – and unless my maths are wonky (might be worth checking) – 6,514 pages.
Some more:
CoDominium/Empire of Man series, primarily by Jerry Pournelle. More than ten books, kind of difficult to count.
Hammer’s Slammers series by David Drake. The three-volume collected edition comes to exactly 2000 pages.
The Fleet anthology series edited by David Drake and Bill Fawcett. Six volumes of 250-300 pages each.
RCN series by David Drake. Eight books.
Probably more stuff by Drake and also John Ringo – I kind of lost track looking at their bibliographies.
Cobra series by Timothy Zahn. Four books with a fifth coming very soon and more planned.
Quadrail/Frank Compton series by Timothy Zahn. Four books, a fifth is in the works.
BTW, what are the exact criteria for inclusion?
I just finished Peter F Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga (precedes the Void Trilogy). Those are some chunky books – the paperback editions I have comprise 1,144 and 1,235 pages each for a total 2,379 pages. Not sure of the hardcover count, though it has to be over 1,000
I posted another update (8 full series). Thank you all!
Nice!
I got a suggestion for the list if its not too much work – making the table sortable. No expert, but searching “ajax sort table” gave me http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/sorttable/ and http://www.devwebpro.com/16-sortable-table-techniques/
Not a problem. I will try to find some time today to do it :)
It’s done :)
Awesome, you are the man!
Mustn’t forget Fred Saberhagen’s ‘Berserker’ books – 17 of them with a 5,766 page count.
IIRC guest writers have joined in the fun in the anthologies of short stories (and perhaps another novel or two not listed in the main sequence) so the totals may be a bit iffy.
Is the new Iain M novel ‘Surface Detail’ not also culture?
Just a little update: I added a script that enables you to sort the table by clicking on its headers. You can now sort the list by name, author, book and page count.
Now here’s one that needs some executive decision-making – A. Bertram Chandler wrote 3 series all based on the same central character:-
Commander Grimes – 12 books
Grimes in the Rim World – 6 books
Grimes in Federation Service – 7 books
Are there three series or just one under ‘Grimes’? Indeed the scifan.com website lists 28 volumes under ‘John Grimes Rimworld’ (not counting omnibus editions).
Frustratingly, page counts are not available for all the books, particularly with early ones from the 1960s and many/most are now out of print, but if I remember my A.B.C. his books were quite short, usually in the range of 120 – 200 pages.
Workman-like writer, merchant marine officer, wrote his books while off-watch.
They are grouped in a single series on LibraryThing too. I will add it.
I just added the 100th series!
Well done, that man!
And to start the next century, Michael Flynn, ‘Firestar’, 4 books, 2,411 pbk pages.
No, you well done! By the way, you do know you don’t have to count the pages by yourself right? I just run the script and it does this for me, for those that it can find. Thank you very much for the help!
No problem, I just browse my shelves and, if the entire series isn’t there, try and recall which books that are there were part of a series. And I’ve got a nagging feeling there are a couple of biggies that we’ve all missed. Did think at one time that it was Andre Norton, but on checking not that many SF books from her, most of her stuff is Fantasy.
Not having to count is a relief – most of my hbks are UK eds which differ in page count from the US jobs; some pbks do too.
Um… there is an 8 book series by Mike Shepherd – the Kris Longknife series. I only bought the first in the series, but he’s kept on churning them out on a regular basis.
The more I look, the more samplings of mid-list (mostly) space operas I find on my shelves.
Wasn’t it Ted Sturgeon who reckoned we need more trashy SF? It’s the way to pull in young readers and with luck they’ll stick. Nothing like a shapely female in a skin-tight body-suit, holding an exotic weapon and with a background of exploding space ships to catch the eye of 15 y.o males.
> And I’ve got a nagging feeling there are a couple of biggies that we’ve all missed.
I had the same feeling . Now I think it is Jack Vance. He just made a lot but not emough of series
No joy with the Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton?
The series page on LibraryThing only includes two books. I understand the Void trilogy is also included?
It’s debatable. THE VOID TRILOGY was initially marketed as a new series in the same universe with a few, brief appearances by characters from the COMMONWEALTH SAGA duology. However, by the end of the trilogy a lot of characters from COMMONWEALTH have shown up and several major storylines from COMMONWEALTH are picked up and resolved fully in VOID. When I talked to the author a while ago, he said he’d planned the two series together as one block, but separated them in two because of the time-jump in the middle and the shift in characters.
I’d count them as one series. If you haven’t read COMMONWEALTH I think you could read the first VOID book without too much trouble, but then you’d get more and more confused as you get further into the trilogy as old characters pop up.
There’s also a standalone in the same setting, MISSPENT YOUTH, but that really doesn’t have anything at all to do with the later books aside from a couple of brief mentions, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
As a matter of interest, did you include A SECOND CHANCE AT EDEN with the NIGHT’S DAWN TRILOGY (also by Hamilton)? It’s a short story collection set in the same universe and some of the stories directly feed into events in the trilogy.
So I will replace the Void trilogy with the Commonwealth Saga, 5 books. Cool.
I updated the Night’s Dawn entry, the short stories were not included. You gave me the page count for Night’s Dawn, as mine was too low. Did you include the stories in that page count? I wouldn’t want to add it twice.
Ok – some more :-
Robert Asprin – Phule’s Company,
Ursula LeGuin – the Hainish series,
Harry Harrison – Stainless Steel Rat
Hugh Walters – Chris Godfrey/UNEXA series, 20 books. Never heard of him? Not surprised.
James White – Sector General series, 14 books,
Kenneth Bulmer – Keys to the Dimensions series
L. Ron Hubbard – Mission Earth
Interesting… an author I’ve never heard of who’s sort-of written 2 series – one of 98 books, the other 54.
James Axler – the ‘Deathlands’ and ‘Outlander’ series.
It seems that James Axler is a pseudonym of Laurence James and was also used as a house name. According to scifan.com Axler didn’t write any of the ‘Outlander’ books, which were written almost entirely by Mark Ellis.
I’ve been meaning to get my hands on Deathlands for some time. I’m a huge Fallout 1/2 fan, and I’ve heard that Deathlands comes close to the setting and feeling of the PC game. But does it qualify for the list? I wonder if the series shares any characters throughout (at least episodically). I’ve posted an update, check out the 2nd position ;)
Have to admit that I have mixed feelings about including series with multiple authors, but I don’t make the rules and I know very little about these particular series. A bit of quick checking doesn’t help much with regard to character continuity in regard to ‘Deathlands’, it might be useful if a fervent fan or two could give us the low-down.
With ‘Outlander’ it looks more straightforward – there’s a wiki page that states that the series is set around the same group of characters and most if not all the books come from the same hand, albeit under a house name.
What has been illuminating in this whole exercise is that with a few exceptions the extended SF series is a fairly recent fashion. I expected many more from the Grand Old Men of SF, but they aren’t there in significant numbers, despite (in some instances) a writer having authored scores of books, sometimes totalling well over three figures.
Not to be a stickler(ok, maybe a little bit), but you missed ilium by simmons. 2 books and 1,587 pages long.
For a series to be included it must be at least a trilogy, and have at least 1000 pages. I don’t think 2 books can be considered a series.
No problem. How about this one?
http://www.librarything.com/series/Manifold
There is also the Forever war series:
http://www.librarything.com/series/Forever+War
Why , its all a wquestion of teh edition; German publishers oftenS plit US biooks ( David webber; or simmons notebly) each in to 2,..
thn there are Series with verry thin Books but high count of issues;..
I wouls just Go for the letter count ( and if it is avaraged)
The Battletech universe is Kind Of missing;
also the Shadowrun one?
Starwars and Startreck Do have several novella series; also does Dr Who, ?
Gor is here and in the fantasy listing?
also the “dismissal of the serverl Boolklet series ” as only 64 Pages” is a bit short; because of the format of the magazine; and the 2 column layout those ( Perry Rhodan; Atlan; Maddrax, Bad Earth, Rhen Dark… And for the Fantasy series Jhon Sinclair, Dr Morton, der lord…) Do contain quite a high number of word / page,..
They come about to a 120 or so US trade paperback
Maybe an average word counter would be better comparison?
Especially Perry Rhodan is kind Of triky; as the sivereditions are Shorted; and then you have Several spinnoffs that are big in its own right, like the Planetenromane ( 415 each ~160 Pages which) and some smaler ;)
Atlan Is Either A biggy in its own right With 850 and i think 4 Times 12 Installments;
or you add it to PR with the 2574 original hefte; the ~900 Atlan AND the 415 Planetenromane; And some Smallchange like the 36 some issues “PerryRhodan action” And stuff i dont have on top of my mind (comics?, Space thriller? ;)
I Would add Atlan and PR Action and the Planetenromane as singel Entries; they add to the universe but are separate products; mostly with a Lose connection
but then there is dune With the ” Main serries” and its expanded Universe Whoch Then has to dealt with seperately too ;)
Dont forget:
http://www.shelfari.com/series/Forerunner-Universe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoDominium
How about the Mack Bolan books that as of now include approximatly 600 books.