Do you like characters in a series to age or not?

[TheYearOfSmallThings]

I have been reading the Rebus books for at least 25 years, and in that time he has been allowed to age. In the latest one he has had to move to a ground floor flat due to COPD (from all the cigarettes in the early books).

Before that, I read a Janet Evanovich book in which Stephanie Plum is always the same age, and Grandma Mazur never dies. I have been reading these books for a quarter century too, since I was at Uni and Stephanie seemed old to me!

I generally prefer series where characters are allowed to age and evolve. I can see the problems for an author, but otherwise I feel the books become stagnant. Or maybe I just feel that way because I am getting old and it comforts me to have company

What do people prefer? Can anyone recommend long running series where the main character evolves interestingly?

I do like to see the characters develop. What I dont like is when I spot that a book series is in the offing and that all the 'party quirks' are laid out and you just know that they are going to be repeated in each book.

As a recommendation - have you tried the Falco books written by Lindsey Davis? The characters develop through the series. Very satisfying mysteries set in the post Boudiccan rebellion Roman world. I love the minutiae of Roman life.

The first series focusses on one character, 20 books in all, set during the era of Vespasian. The second series, 9 books and counting, set in the era of Domitian (Vespasian's younger son) focusses on the next generation.

I don't think I've even heard of those, or if I have I got them confused with Cadfael (no idea why). I'll give the first series a go - I don't normally approve when authors try to extend to a second generation.

I know what you mean about repeating all the quirks and history, especially in a long series. It probably matters less if you read the series over the years, but if you are binge reading it is unbearable.

I think the problem is with a popular series, the characters can become too old to do what made them interesting in the first place. Take Harry Bosch in the Michael Connelly books. I mean, he's retired about 6 times. It's time to retire the character I think!

I don't actually mind if they go back in time and set a new book early in the series to avoid that.

I don't mind. Depends on the type of book.

Famously Agatha Christie realised that, with the benefit of hindsight, and knowing how successful her books would be, she wouldn't have made Hercule Poirot so old in his first appearance. Then she managed to follow up with creating Miss Marple. But I don't read Agatha Christie to expect huge amounts of realism and character development.

The Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell, and the Logan Macrae series by Stuart Macbride, allow the characters to age, marry, move house, lose family members. I prefer that too.

I would also recommend the Falco series, absolutely cracking series of books.

The books did show him (and his wife and their children) ageing.

Rather than keep him on as he got older, the author then did another series of books, very much along the same lines, following his now grown-up daughter Flavia Albia - the first book in that series is The Ides of April - and Falco just has a few cameo appearances in the new series.

I have to say that the second series of the Falco books is absolutely cracking. I fought shy of it for a while as, like you, I dont normally like second generation stories. However I am currently on the 9th of the second series and so far so very good.

One style of story I really cant stand is family sagas. DM loves these but I cant get over the lazy plotting and standard tropes. There is always a 'the squire dun her wrong' followed by bravely working in 't mill, plucky ambulance driving in the Great War then being parachuted into France during WW2. The names change but they all still show the same 'plucky resolve'!

Sorry, is my cynicism showing?

Scarpetta only ages about 5 years in 30, but her niece grows up.
Michael Connelly deliberately made Bosch age, which I admired, but I wish he'd slowed him down a bit now. He's about 70 and still chasing down the bad guys.

I agree about the family sagas, but there is obviously a massive market for them. Shelves full of covers featuring plucky girl in a shawl, possibly clutching infant.

Dave Robicheaux must be over 90 and he's seemingly still taking on the world.

Master and Commander series by Patrick O'Brien. Best series ever in the history of writing. Hence my user name. The characters all age over the 20 books.

Ooh another good series is A Dance to Music of Time, and the Forsyte Saga

I tried to read the Patrick O'Brien books, but I just couldn't get into them.

I've always assumed A Dance to the Music of Time would be extremely hard going?

Just to go off in a different direction, there is one series of books that I enjoy that is more fantasy based.

It's a series of books called the Empire series (the first is Daughter of the Empire) written by Janny Wurts along with Raymond Feist.

It's set in a fantasy world based loosely on ancient Japanese or Korean stories (think Samurais etc).

The trilogy revolves revolves around the protagonist Mara's development from an inexperienced young girl to a powerful political figure and leader over the course of her life.

So a large part of this series of books is political intrigue and matters of honour. If that's your team, go for it. If the whole honour thing isn't for you, maybe not as much. But the political intrigue stuff is actually really excellently written.

Having said that, there's also plenty of action as well and lots of people end up dead. The entire trilogy is one big chess game filled with politics and betrayal.

Basically, this series places emphasis on showing every single step, every important building block from a young girl just trying to save her house, to becoming indispensable to the Emperor, to becoming the power behind the throne when [it would be a spoiler to say].

This isn't some simple tale. It's all about politics, power bases, economics, spy networks, mortal enemies, revenge, deception, death and total social upheaval.

As you may have guessed from the above, I do think it's a pretty good trilogy.