I'm all in for epic books, just no longer a fan of epic series because they too often just repeat the same beats over and over again. I've recently started re-reading The Wheel of Time books, and the first one is still one of the most amazing fantasy novels ever, but mid-way through the second novel I couldn't help but feel like Rand Al Thor isn't moving forward and just being naive even worse than someone well into the heroes journey should be. Same for The Sword of Truth. And don't get me started on Dune, even acknowledging that it went more into philosophy. No offense to anyone that likes the later books in any of those series, but as far as I'm concerned, I've just kept the first ones.
Stuff like A Song of Ice and Fire avoids that because it isn't afraid to move the plot to other characters, though of course, we'll probably see the heat death of the universe and the gold master release of Star Citizen before the Winds of Winter releases.
Ken Follett is probably one of the best in the genre because he does different things. Pillars of the Earth is an amazing book, and he didn't turn it into a 6-book series or something that just drags on and on and on. So kudos to him for resisting the temptation there! (EDIT: Ah, turns out that I completely missed that he did. That's what I get for not checking.)
Stuff like A Song of Ice and Fire avoids that because it isn't afraid to move the plot to other characters, though of course, we'll probably see the heat death of the universe and the gold master release of Star Citizen before the Winds of Winter releases.
Ken Follett is probably one of the best in the genre because he does different things. Pillars of the Earth is an amazing book, and he didn't turn it into a 6-book series or something that just drags on and on and on. So kudos to him for resisting the temptation there! (EDIT: Ah, turns out that I completely missed that he did. That's what I get for not checking.)