Can you leave a book/game or series unfinished?

[Rush Syks]

Okay, so right now I'm reading the Ice&Fire series by George R.R. Martin and ever since the third book I'm starting to hate it more and more. I loved the first one and was okay with the second, but ever since the third it has been like two awfully boring chapters for one truly great one.

Now I'm close to finishing the forth and I found myself stopping multiple reading sessions after only a couple of minutes because I'm so annoyed by the plot. But I still know I will finish the series eventually, because I never leave a series I put more then two or three hours into unfinished, it's almost a compulsive disorder.

Did you ever have that feeling or do you just walk away from a series or game or whatever you don't like anymore?

I'm sorry if I ranted a little, but it is really bugging me to no end.

 

[Eleuthera]

Games? Easily, I still haven't finished most of the game(series) I ever started. Started up Dragon Age: Origins again a week or so ago, and I've pretty much given up on finishing it again. Same for a whole bunch of other games.

Books? Single books I might give up on if I really can't get into it. Series? It's never really come up, though I doubt I'll ever reread some of the series that went downhill after a few parts (The last part of the "Earth's Children" series nearly ruined the entire series for me...)

 

[SckizoBoy]

Irrespective of media, yes, quite easily.

It depends how bored I am with it and/or how much the narrative is pissing me off. Once I'm not enjoying it or I don't think it's any good any longer... dropped. *shrug*

That said, if it's by an author/developer/etc. that I like, I'd be inclined to give it more of a chance, though my stock with them goes down, understandably.

 

[DoPo]

It's quite hard for me. I usually pick up stuff I really like, so that helps, but also I have a compulsion to finish them. Unless absolutely horrible for one reason or another, I'll try to endure if I find it boring or something.

 

[Rush Syks]

It's quite hard for me. I usually pick up stuff I really like, so that helps, but also I have a compulsion to finish them. Unless absolutely horrible for one reason or another, I'll try to endure if I find it boring or something.

You might have guessed that this post was a quite spontaneous reaction to beeing upset about those books yet again. Now that I have calmed down I might add that I normally have a good initial impression whether I'll like a series or not, so it's not like I'm stuck fighting through things I've grown bored of very often. So basically I handle it just like you said.

Only this time it's a really special case, because I still like the world and style of writing and want to become engaged again, although I probably never will be.

 

[Freddy]

Well, I always had a hard time leaving anything unfinished, be it game, book film or series. During the past years, however, I kind of said to myself that as long as I just force myself to read/watch/play on, there's really no point in it. I still try not to let myself be discouraged soon, but if the book/game or series just doesn't grab me after some hours I just leave it at that. Time is too valuable to waste it with things you don't really enjoy.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I have a terrible habit of getting to about 95% completion then dropping whatever it is entirely for fuck all reason... I keep playing online games that don't have an end point. League, BlazBlue, UMVC3 when i'm feeling particularly foolish and a little bit of Injustice. Where I play nothing but Hawkgirl who I suspect will end up towards the bottom of any tier lists.

Can't block in the air = makes a character who is based around air moves. Legit

 

[Queen Michael]

I had just fourty pages left of Father Goriot by Balzac when I decided that Balzac just wasn't for me and stopped reading. That's how prepared I am to give up. I read for fun. If it's not fun, I stop.

(The last part of the "Earth's Children" series nearly ruined the entire series for me...)

Really? Why? (Please use spoiler tags.)

 

[Tazzman]

Nah I can drop things easily, I don't see much point in forcing myself to finish something get bored off. This time last year I started Mass Effect 3 and I got bored of soon enough. So many of the quest were just "help me because I ignored you in ME2" and so I put it down and haven't finished it since (it didn't help that I pretty much lost my save and had to begin again but still). Books on the other hand, if the first few chapters don't grip me then I tend to stop reading and come back to it another time.

 

[Easton Dark]

Oh easily. The key is to not develop stockholm syndrome with pieces of fiction.

Steam lost my save of The Walking Dead after I had finished chapter 4, that was months ago, have not cared to go back even once.

Mass Effect 3? The series ended at 2 for me.

 

[Raikas]

I have no trouble dropping things when they're either not interesting or not good (or both). I regularly read series out of order to see if I like the writer's style - that way I don't get caught up in "I wonder what happens" and feel the temptation to read through just for that (and when the writing is good enough, it doesn't matter that I know what happens, I'm still happy to go back and read what came before).

And I stop playing games all the time - I'd say I probably only finish about a quarter of the games that I start. I'm just not going to devote time to something that's not fun. It's entertainment, so if I'm not entertained, I'm not going to keep going.

 

[flarty]

I never used to be able too. But with age I've started to leaned if I'm not enjoying don't plough your time into it. Though games are more difficult since they cost a premium, but if i picked something up in the steam sale I'll easily let it go.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Yes and, easily too. I've never been too hung up about the ending of something and ever since The Internet happened I can always just look up endings if it's about a book, game, etc that I can't be bothered to finish or, don't want to finish. The only time I adamantly wanted to complete something was with The Lord of the Rings (talking books here). Around the time Fellowship was out I wanted to get through the books but I hit the brick wall that is Two Towers. I read through the Harry Potter saga taking the many years it took for everything to be released book-wise and tried again with LotR...once again, I just couldn't bypass Two Towers. A couple of years ago, I tried a third and final time and after Two Towers I just couldn't get behind Return of the King. I made it through RotK but I just can't enjoy that trilogy as much as I enjoyed Hobbit. I've been quitting things long before Lord of the Rings but I'm still going to blame those books.

 

[DugMachine]

Depends. If I didn't enjoy it from the beginning I would have no problem forgetting about it.

With Ice and Fire, I'm so hooked on those books and love them so much that I just can't wait to read the rest. 6th book needs to get here NOW

 

[Eleuthera]

snip

Without getting into too much detail:

Spoiler

The endless cave(painting) descriptions, the continuously telling us what happened in the earlier books (we know, we read them!), and probably most annoyingly the complete story/relationship rehash from "The Mammoth Hunters"

 

[thejackyl]

I can leave a game series unfinished (Dead Space, Resident Evil, Metroid Prime). Usually it's due to issues I had with the game itself. I just don't have enough interest in Dead Space to buy 3, same with RE6, and I had issues with the Prime series since when I first played them, I didn't have the internet (Finding the artifacts/keys was a pain for 15 year old me)

I've stopped playing games about halfway through and never bothered finishing them. Usually because I got bored with them. Mass Effect, Dead Rising 1 and 2, 3d Dot Game Heroes, Rage, Uncharted 3, Arkham City.

As for books, and movies. I'll try to read/watch the whole thing. There have only been 2 or 3 instances where I turned a movie off/stopped watching before it was over. One was because the movie was putting me to sleep, others because other things were happening that made the movies a LOT less interesting.

Most times I don't feel bad about it, since I tend to buy games I know I'll like, and if I don't think I'll like them, I'll wait for a Steam Sale and pick them up cheap.

 

[Yopaz]

I do this with most of the games I play, a few books and some series, but very few movies. So far ithere's only Star Wars episode 2 and Eragon on that list.

I tried reading Eragon to see if it was better than the movie, I never finished that either. With books I am usually able to keep reading if I'm over half way through and if there's a series I can usually finish it if the first few books were solid. With Wheel of Time the first few books were brilliant, but then the story slowed down for a while putting more and more time into descriptions, intrigues and politics before it went on to finish with 4 rock solid books. Despite it's slow moments I consider the series the best I have ever read.

My Steam library is a testament to games I was unable to complete (most because of lack of time), not for a specific reason, simply stopped playing or forgot about them.

TV series are easy to abandon. If a series have a specific plot, something that is the ultimate goal such as Lost where it goes on and there's no progress and the goal stays the same(ish) then I lose interest. A detective series or a humour series where the episodes are just loosely linked to each other through being about the same people in the same universe then I can go on, but when they keep me waiting for the end that never comes then I lose interest.

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

Games? Certainly. A lot of game series become senseless money milking devices leaving me with no desire to finish them.
Latest example, Assman's Creed 3. I just can't make myself care about anything in it, it has one of the prettiest sandboxes I've ever seen but that's pretty much the only positive I can say about it.

Book series? Rarely. I couldn't make myself read the Hyperion/Endymion books by Dan Simmons. It's not that I didn't like them, It's just they were written in a way that just doesn't make me want to come back for more.

I had no problems with A Song of Ice and Fire, I've read the first four books three times and the fifth twice. I know what you mean though, there are some quite boring parts in the third and the fourth book, but nowhere near enough to even consider dropping it. The fifth book I went through as smoothly as the first, perhaps because of the wait or perhaps it was just that good.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Yeah, I've walked away from a game/book series. I couldn't finish reading the Wheel of Time. I got as far as the 7th book I think, but I couldn't finish it; I just got sick and tired of it. I would've thought after 7 or 8 books the series could've finally reached some sort of conclusion, but no it just kept going on and on and on. And these books aren't small either.

As for games, there's a huge list of individual games I've never finished. As for series, well there's:
Mega Man X series - Never finished any of those games, but I did attempt more than one of 'em
Metroid Prime series, only ever finished the first one. tried 2 and 3, but got fed up with 3 upon reaching the first boss (big dinosaur thing with the orbs)
Mass Effect - Played the first 2, but then before the 3rd one was released I decided to never buy an EA game again so I'm probably not going to ever play it. Plus I don't have to money to buy games right now anyway.
Pokemon - I've had enough. I can't take any more Pokemon.