In shock today over last night’s season finale of “Castle”. Just absolute shock.

Was working on various projects today (editing and cleaning) but my mind just couldn’t get over the two major events of the show. This has been really messing with my ability to actually focus on the task(s) at hand and kill whatever momentum I might have had going into it.

On the plus side, I’m emotionally invested in a television series again for the first time since 1995.

On the down side, I’m emotionally invested in a television series instead of a book series for the first time since 1995.

I finished Monster Hunter Alpha last night (I know, I promised to read something else, but… but… it was there, damn it!) and really, really hate unicorns now. I also hope that Larry doesn’t have his “end game” for the series too soon. It’s a thrilling ride of a series and I am not ready for it to end any time soon.

That being said, everything has to end eventually. I’m really, really tired of seeing a series drag on with the same story occurring over and over again. I understand that sometimes you just can’t let a character go, but after 16 books in a series about the person where the same thing seems to happen over and over again, you start to wonder if the writer is out of gas or, even worse, afraid to leave their comfort zone.

Now, I’ve seen writers do this and get hammered  by people for it. David Weber comes to mind. He wrote a book last year called Out of the Dark, which tells the tale of humanity getting crushed in an alien invasion and vampires coming out of hiding to fight them off. I liked it, personally, but most of the reviews I found really hated it. I even heard it reminded the reader of when KISS made a disco album or took their makeup off. They call it a “comfort zone” for a reason.

I guess it’d be like J.K. Rowling writing a SF romance. But then, readers have comfort zones as well.

And they are much pricklier about it than a writer is.