A Series of Fortunate...Books?

Along with about a billion other people, I recently finished the last Harry Potter book. Don't worry, I won't spoil anything. It's funny, because I had never intended to read the books, but Michelle had devoured each one of them. She made me take her to see the 1st movie when it came out, then the 2nd and the 3rd, etc. After the 4th movie, I broke down and started reading the books. The rest, as they say, is history.

What struck me recently is how creative a person needs to be to write a book, much less a series. The author (of fantasy or sci-fi books especially) has to have this whole persistent world/universe playing out in their head. I can barely keep track of what I had for breakfast this morning. Thinking about this last night, I've realized that most of my favorite books are not single books, but usually a series of books:

The Lord of the Rings - One of the most popular works in 20th-century literature. I had heard of these books, but never read them until I was 27. I had heard that they were making movies based on the books, and a lot of my friends were excited about this. I decided to read them, and I'm glad I did. I ended up reading the whole series (plus The Hobbit) about five times over the next few years.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Some of the funniest stuff I've ever read. Again, I've gone through this set of books at least four times, and I crack up at the same places every time. There were nights that I was reading in bed, and I would wake Michelle up because I was laughing so hard. Douglas Adams was brilliant.

C.S. Lewis has two sets of books that make my list, the first is The Space Trilogy. Lewis supposedly based Ransom (the main character of The Space Trilogy) on J.R.R. Tolkein, author of the Lord of the Rings. The second book, Perelandra, was my favorite...according to Wikipedia, it "illustrates a new "Garden of Eden", a new "Adam and Eve", and a new "serpent figure" to tempt them. The story illustrates a hypothesis of what could have happened if "our Eve" would have resisted more firmly the temptation of the serpent."

The Chronicles of Narnia - also by Lewis, is an award-winning children's series. I saw the cartoon based on The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was a kid and didn't think anything of it. I saw it again as a teenager and thought, "Wow, that's portraying the Christ story!" Yeah, I'm a slow learner. I finally went back and read the entire series a few years ago, and it was fantastic. I can't believe I missed all of these books as a kid.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events - I've only read five of the thirteen books in this series (I have to keep borrowing them from the Bennages), but they are really enjoyable little books. They are easy reads filled with witty writing and the sad events surrounding the Baudelaire orphans. It's hard for me to think of these books as "dark" because they are so enjoyable to read.

The Thrawn Trilogy - A Star Wars-based set of novels, this series paved the way for all Star Wars fiction to come. Written ten years before the prequels came out, this is the story George Lucas should have told. If you were frustrated with the prequels, you should read these books to rediscover the Star Wars universe. It details the events that occur a few years after Return of the Jedi. This is another series I've been through multiple times.

The Dark Tower Series - A group of books by Stephen King, this one took a long time to finally wrap up. I haven't actually read the last three books yet, but the rest were quite good. The whole thing is based on the Robert Browning poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came". The first book took King twelve years to write, it will likely take me that long to finish the series.