Series Spacing

Over the past several years, I have really gotten into a number of different fiction adventure book series. These include:

• The Circle series by Ted Dekker
  
• The King Raven trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
  
• The Dreamhouse Kings series by Robert Liparulo
  
• The Lost Books series by Ted Dekker
  
• The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
  
• The Pendragon Cycle series by Stephen Lawhead
  
• The Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larsson
  
• The Darkness/Prophet trilogy by Frank Peretti
  
• The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
  
• The Song of Albion trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
  
• The Heaven trilogy by Ted Dekker
  
• The Celtic Crusades trilogy by Stephen Lawhead
  

There is nothing like immersing yourself in a world that is completely different than your own, with characters that you have developed a sort of relationship with. Because it can taken several weeks or months to work through a given book series, all of the details, personalities, and settings have a sufficient chance to get lodged into your brain, come alive, and become a part of you.

To date all of the different series that I have tackled were already completed by the time I took up my reading. When I finished one book, I could effortless glide directly into the next. However, recently I had a different experience. Last summer I completed two books in a series that I very much enjoyed. After a bit of poking around on the internet, I came to learn that the author was working on a third for the series. I marked it on my reading list to look out for, but as the year went on there were rumors of delays and issues with the publisher. Finally, at the beginning of May, the book came out. After a year-long break from the worlds and characters, I had to get back into the zone and reacclimate myself. It took several chapters, but I finally was able to settle myself into a comfortable and knowing place.

One thing that I like to do when I read is to take notes on the different characters for each book. What has helped a great deal in reading through the different series is to refer back to my notes to remind myself of personality traits, special skills, and relationships. In the case where I had to wait a year between reading books in a given series, this was even more useful.

How do you keep up with series books spaced out in time?