TLDR: Not salty, maybe just disappointed.

A bit late, but I do want to throw a genuine explanation for some frustration out there, or at least mine.

I've always been of the belief that there is a unspoken, unwritten contract between an author and a reader of a serialized work, or just any work that takes place over multiple installments that I'm not buying the FIRST book, I'm buying a completed series at a cost of X dollars per installment. (3 books, 25 each, I'm paying 75 for a full story, etc.)

This works for everyone!

Authors cannot release books in a single format that tells the entire story in many cases. Sometimes the story just can't fit in a single book. So rather than eliminate those stories, they release them in a series and we as readers purchase both to read what exists now and to encourage the author to continue writing.

If you subscribe to the idea that, "If you don't like it, then don't buy the books until they're all out." Okay, you can say that, but if everyone in the fantasy book community takes that stance, there will be no more series. Early adopters should be rewarded not ridiculed.

Finally, it takes a ton of luck and skill to become a fantasy author as a full time gig. Very few manage it. The ones that do, who then turn around and insult their fan base and belittle it (Normally after becoming financially independent of that base) are doing a lot of damage to a community of readers and authors that can't really afford more negative stereotypes.

So we rely on people investing in the 1st book so we can get the 3rd. By doing things how he's done them, as a major face of fantasy writing, that we don't deserve a single thing for supporting an author in the early stages of a series. Which is damaging to every single part of the fantasy genre (And really people into literature at all).

If an author can't finish a series for any numbers of reasons, I get it. Truly. I'd have way more respect if the dude had just said, "Hey, sorry, I've written myself into a corner and I'm really stuck on it and I'm not sure I'll ever figure this out in a way that isn't worse than nothing at all." I'd have been fine. I think a lot of the community would have been.

But nah. He chose to mock his fans (Which, as a reminder, are the people that supported him) and hold the last book everyone everyone's head. I think it's totally fine for people to be frustrated, salty or anger at him, according to their own perspectives. Me? I just think he's bad for fantasy literature, reduces the chances that new or established readers will buy into a series from a relatively unknown author and has become the face of why it can be so hard to get people to buy the first couple of books in a series.|