Today’s Book Series by Volume looks at a few ‘classic’ series that have stood up to time fairly well. A reminder: all series are measured in hardback as we all know that’s the only proper way.
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis – Filling over 1/3 of a cubic foot, this seven-book series seems rather small for my bookcase, but the enjoyment I get re-reading these books every few years fills the rest of the shelf snugly. Ostensibly written for the younger set and first published in 1950, the series has been in constant print since 1956. There has been considerable discussion over the years over Lewis’ allegorical use of religious and mythological themes, especially in the first book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Most of the books follow the Pevensie siblings just prior to World War 2 when British children were often sent off to relatives living in the countryside for safety. The youngest, Lucy, finds an old wardrobe that is a pass-through to Narnia, a world of Queens, Kings, mythical beasts, and talking beavers. (and talking mice, and lions, and… well, you get the idea) The books describe a sprawling struggle between good and evil full of heroism and machinations.
This is one of the penultimate ‘guilty pleasure’ series for kids of every age.
Foundation series by Isaac Asimov – At around a full cubic foot, this series is packed quite tightly into that space. To say Asimov was a prolific writer is akin to noting that Thelonius Monk was ‘kinda jazzy’. I read so much Asimov as a kid I could recite his Three Laws of Robotics and he remains, in my opinion, alongside Arthur C Clarke as having the most impact on the Science Fiction genre of any author to date.
The Foundation series is built around Hari Seldon’s development of the science of Psychohistory, (now a real thing!) which is a combination of psychology, history, and statistics used to predict seminal moments of the fall of the Galactic Empire and leveraged by Seldon to mitigate a predicted ‘dark age’. Covering over 500 years, the series explores scientific versus moral decision-making as well as individualism inside statistical trends.
Asimov wanted to end the series at a trilogy, but the universe is so well defined and large that many of his stories ended up sited there and many well-known authors couldn’t help but to write in it themselves.
Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian – Taking up close to two swashbuckling cubic feet this series really surprised me. Not that it was good, a lot of folks had told me that, but that I so thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted more when I was done! I generally read questionable sci-fi and hard-boiled mysteries and this was a rather shocking departure from my usuals.
Set between about 1800 and 1815 and mostly shipboard on British Royal Navy vessels, the stories follow an unlikely friendship between Jack Aubrey, a large, brash RN officer, and physician and naturalist Stephen Maturin, a smallish, introspective man. The series loosely follows the actual history of the time though mostly as a frame and without actually touching the history.
What I found most engaging was the friendship between the two men. Almost diametrically different in every way, their collaborations, asea and ashore, creates a narrative larger than the two men themselves. With Aubrey being all things afloat, he needs Maturin’s knowledge of humanity while on shore. At the same time Maturin’s idealism and thoughtfulness is counter-balanced by Aubrey’s outgoing practicality.
I would suggest to any reader of this series to make liberal reference to the ship diagram commonly found on the endpapers of the books noting sail and fitting names of ships of the era. While you may not be qualified to crew a Frigate by the time you finish, you’ll at least know the proper name to whatever mast you get tied to.
~posted by Jay F.
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