Dear John Ronald Reuel Tolkien,

I am livid. I’ve considered myself to be a fan of science fiction for many years now, watching, writing and reading constantly now, but as a child, I could never afford to buy new books, so I had to opt for second hand ones. For this reason, I was frequently presented with seemingly normal science fiction novels with a short blurb, an exciting drawing of whatever was popular in science fiction at the time of publication (unicorns, busty women, dragons, spaceships, aliens and the like) and a handy pencil price-tag on the inner front cover.

I would excitedly take these home with me and read them only to discover, at varying points of my literary journey, that they were in fact part of a series. A series I did not own, nor have the capacity to own. In some cases I would have stumbled across the first in a series, and have thoroughly enjoyed myself until the end, when I realised that the story did not in fact finish at all and that I was once abandoned by the characters and world that I had been a part of for the duration of the novel.

You may be wondering what this has to do with you, my post-humous friend, but I think you probably know. As the author of the ‘seminal’ science fiction series, I am holding you personally responsible for the reams of drivel being published in science fiction and for the broken dreams of my childhood. Big calls, I know, but you’re dead, you can handle it.

I cannot fathom why some authors feel the need to wring every last character and scenario from a world and/or idea until they end up with literally tens of books about the same thing. Ideas grow stale, characters grow boring and readers, well, they turn away. I can see it’s a money-making scheme, I mean, you wrote ‘The Hobbit’ and subsequently wrote the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, and I suppose I should thank you for leaving it at three, but you see, your influence has lead to such never-ending sagas as the ‘Dune’ series (Brian Herbert is arguably equally responsible for that farce, but then, citing the case of your own son, Christopher continuing your ‘legendarium’, I believe you are responsible for this too), ‘Twilight’ and whatever drivel Terry Pratchett has dreamed up.

What happened to the single novel? To the world you could lose yourself in, ride the rollercoaster (or spaceship, or worm, or whatever) of until such time (generally 200-600 pages) that the story comes to a believable conclusion. What happened to it, John? You did. And for that, I’m coming to your grave and digging you up with my gauntletted hands and I’m going to slap your skeleton silly. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Adrik