Followers of this blog know my writing kink is telling tired stories from fresh perspectives. That’s probably why I loved Netflix’s Haunting of Hill House, which looks at the lives of five adult siblings who spent a summer surrounded by ghosts and evil spirits. Each character gets an episode to show their experiences how it affected their adulthood, and the way their perspectives link together in the end is a triumph in miniseries screenwriting.
Which is why I hope they never make a second season, though unlike “limited series Maniac,” they haven’t confirmed HoHH is a one-and-done show. I recently read the fourth Millennium series book, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, and wish the author had never picked up a pen on continuing Stieg Larsson’s trilogy. I love Lisbeth Salander as much as the next closet goth-punk badass who doesn’t know how to code let alone hack, but deciding to continue her story in the way this new author did cheapened her.
Maybe that’s why I’m so averse to writing books that require a sequel — or reading books like that, even. It’s like going to a menu tasting and loving the first thing you eat: I’m in the camp of people who look at the chef and say “what else do you have?” rather than “more of that exact same thing, please.”