Mainstream Thriller: Spymaster by Brad Thor (2018) - Cliffhanger
Snatched this one up at the Library, in a hurry and needed an audible. Halfway into it noticed I had it tagged as Cliffhanger. Sigh. Just goes to show no matter how informed I am, getting snookered is ever a possibility.
ETA - When I started this thread yesterday I should have mentioned that if I start a book knowing full well that it's a cliffy that's my choice. If I pay good money for a book, and some aren't cheap, get invested in the story, only to find out that it happens to be a cliffy I tend to become very cranky. Who knows how long it will take for the next book to come out?? I don't want to wait 6 months or even a year to find out the end of the story. I'd rather be told up front the book is a cliffy and be allowed to decided if I want to invest my time and money!
I was soooo mad at Nalini Singh with this one, that I gave her only 2 stars on Amazon France (a first for me!). That was so disrespectful from her not to warn her readers that it was a clffhanger . And why a cliffhanger? You may understand a new author who wants you to buy her/his book to resort to these methods, but not from someone as famous as Nalini.
And generally, when you have a cliffhanger, the author manages to publish the other books rather quickly, even all at once.
Well, Nalini doesn't give any date for the next book, and she tends to write them only once a year!
Imagine if they do that to you in the middle of the movie you're watching at the theater! Or if you go to a restaurant, and they serve you the appetizer, the half of the main course, and then "thank you ladies and gentlemen you may come next year for the other half and the dessert, don't forget to leave a tip!" ARGHHHHHHH!!!
Furthermore, in Archangel's Prophecy, 20% of the book are repetitions or reminders of what we already knew, which broke the pace of the story for me, and made me wonder at the end if she did it on purpose to "pad" her storie, allowing her to split the book in two...
Imagine if they do that to you in the middle of the movie you're watching at the theater!
This did happen but with a Hallmark Christmas movie on tv and the ending was a year later and not worth waiting for, along with many British TV series including "Outlander".
As I've stated in other posts there is no guarantee the other books will ever be published. Sad!
Here comes the sun even though I love that rainy day feeling!
Imagine if they do that to you in the middle of the movie you're watching at the theater!
Actually, friends of mine felt that way about the 2nd Star Wars movie, Empire Strikes Back. Come the ending, they were sitting there, saying no, it can't be the end! They have to rescue Han! They didn't buy my saying that's next movie (3 years down the pike!) But so it went. And the NCIS season that ended with the bombing & Ducky having a heart attack on the beach; we had to wait till the fall to find out if our folks survived. I guess I've gotten used to cliffhangers, much as I don't like them!
I guess I've gotten used to cliffhangers, much as I don't like them!
You're right, we seem to accept cliffhangers on TV all the time. Sometimes we see them in the movies too, as you mentioned.
My main problem with a cliffhanger in a book, is lack of full disclosure. If an author is up front about it and makes it absolutely clear that you are buying a story that does not have an HEA or even and HFN, and that you will have to spend more money to get the rest of the story, then fine. That makes it my choice to buy/read or not.
It is NOT ok IMO, to not disclose this info until the reader gets to the last few pages of the book. That's just underhanded dirty pool. Authors who do that are on my naughty list and I never buy from them again.
Imagine if they do that to you in the middle of the movie you're watching at the theater!
Actually, friends of mine felt that way about the 2nd Star Wars movie, Empire Strikes Back. Come the ending, they were sitting there, saying no, it can't be the end! They have to rescue Han! They didn't buy my saying that's next movie (3 years down the pike!) But so it went. And the NCIS season that ended with the bombing & Ducky having a heart attack on the beach; we had to wait till the fall to find out if our folks survived. I guess I've gotten used to cliffhangers, much as I don't like them!
To me, a cliffhanger in a movie or TV show is different from a cliffhanger in a book. I don't know that I can describe why that is; it just is. I think it's because each episode of a TV show has its own story wrapped up in that episode, and the cliffhanger episodes at the ends of seasons are to entice readers to come back the next season--viewers KNOW that all TV series go on hiatus for the summer. Also, even with a cliffhanger TV episode (like the one with Ducky having the heart attack), the story that is within that episode is still wrapped up. But with books, cliffhangers don't have any part of the storyline wrapped up in that individual book.
I guess I've gotten used to cliffhangers, much as I don't like them!
You're right, we seem to accept cliffhangers on TV all the time. Sometimes we see them in the movies too, as you mentioned.
My main problem with a cliffhanger in a book, is lack of full disclosure. If an author is up front about it and makes it absolutely clear that you are buying a story that does not have an HEA or even and HFN, and that you will have to spend more money to get the rest of the story, then fine. That makes it my choice to buy/read or not.
It is NOT ok IMO, to not disclose this info until the reader gets to the last few pages of the book. That's just underhanded dirty pool. Authors who do that are on my naughty list and I never buy from them again.
To add to my post above, when viewers used to watch TV shows, it wasn't something they were paying for (pre-cable TV). It was free, and viewers had to pay only for the TV itself and the electricity to run the TV. TV show actors, producers, directors, studios, etc., didn't get their money from viewers directly. With books, though, as secretromancejunkie says, we are the ones paying for that book and we deserve to know if we get the HEA or HFN within that book or if we have to pay more money to get the resolution to that story.