Every Story Must End… Eventually

I finished the second book in the Hunger Games Trilogy, Catching Fire, about a year and a half ago. Last week, I finished the third and final book in the series, Mockingjay. What took me so long? Basically, I just wasn’t ready for it to end yet. I fell in love with the characters and I found the premise fascinating. Now that I’ve read book 3, though, I really can’t wait to see the movie and I hope they treat it with the same care and passion the crew and cast have brought to the previous adaptations.

It’s a funny feeling, finishing a series. My curiosity over the fates of the characters has been satisfied and I feel the bliss of catharsis washing over me, but I’m also sad because their stories have been told, their songs sung>. Regardless of the fact that they were imaginary, I had grown very fond of them and concerned for their day-to-day well-being. And I will miss them.

There’s another series whose final book I’ve been putting off reading: The Leviathan Trilogy. Set in an alternate universe where Charles Darwin discovered DNA and scientists began designing specialized creatures for labor and warfare (at least in the Allied nations), the Leviathan Trilogy follows the exploits of a young female airman who’s posing as a boy and the heir apparent to the Austria-Hungary Empire as the two navigate the difficult and often treacherous events of a World War I fought between Darwinist beastmasters and Steampunk engines. I love a good alternate history and the author of this series, Scott Westerfield, does a fantastic job of combining in-depth research with imagination and telling a story that still revolves around the characters and the steampunk/biopunk tech supports that story rather than distracting from it.

Some day I’ll finish the Leviathan Trilogy. Even now, the ebook sits in my Kindle Library daring me to open its virtual pages. But I’m just not ready. I want to keep Deryn and Alek in my head a little longer, imagine what trouble they might plunge into next, and agonize over whether either of them can be happy in the world that’s emerging from the ashes of a World War.

All that being said, I don’t think I’ll wait long to read the final book in A Song of Ice And Fire (Game of Thrones, for you HBO fans!) once it’s eventually released. In that case, I’m so terrified for the safety of each character that I want to know as soon as possible which will survive and which will snuff it. Which is exactly the way GRRM wants it.

Are you reading a series and/or putting off reading its penultimate volume? Tell me all about whatever you’re currently reading in the comments!