Archive Panic / Literature

• 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die contains a list of 1001 movies the author considers must-see movies. What's more, it's been updated annually since 2003 with new entries added and old entries removed, with the total number of movies that have ever been on the list being 1222 as of the 2019 edition.
• Relatedly, One Thousand And One Video Games You Must Play Before You Die. It hasn't been updated nearly as often as the aforementioned book (it only has two editions, in 2010 and 2013), but it also requires a much deeper cash well in order to secure all of the console and PC platforms necessary to tackle the list... assuming you don't utilize emulation.
• The 1632 series currently consists of 23 novels, with 6 more already announced, as well as 12 short story anthologies, comprised of original short stories and stories from the Grantville Gazette, which currently sits at 81 issues. Then The Ring of Fire Press has published 23 more novels by that are exclusively stories originally appearing in the Grantville Gazette or are direct sequels to stories from the Gazette.
• The Alliance/Union universe by C. J. Cherryh. It currently spans over 30 novels, with more still being written to this day. On the plus side, the novels can be read in any order (with only a couple of exceptions for direct sequels) as the novels span large periods of time and space.
• The Arabian Nights. It consists of at least a few hundred stories, and a whopping 1001 at most. And to make things more confusing, there are more than 30 different versions of the book.
• The Baby-Sitters Club is no slouch. It has 131 main books, 15 super specials, 122 spin off series (12 books that spun off from that series), 36 mystery books (4 super mysteries), and yet another spin off series with 15 books. That’s about 300 books of reading material.
• The Boxcar Children started in 1924 and is still printing new books! There’s 162 main books and 7 spin off series of their own.
• Tolkien's Legendarium... so far at least fifteen books (counting The Lord of the Rings as a single book rather than the three volumes it's usually published as). Fortunately, you don't need to read the entire thing; you can get the overall story from just The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings; most everything published after that is either bits and pieces of unfinished work that was left out of, or alternative versions of the stories in, those three books. There also its adaptations: Ralph Bakshi's Animated Adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, and Peter Jackson's live-action adaptations of the same as well as The Hobbit, cinematic trilogies which run for a total of 17 hours in the extended version, and the TV adaptation of the The Lord of The Rings's appendices.
• Not as bad as some, but The Dresden Files is getting there; as of 2021, there are 17 books, the longest of few getting into the lower end of doorstopper range (one clocks in at over 500 pages and 175k words). While the exact number is subject to change, according to Jim Butcher there will be 25 books total (counting an apocalyptic trilogy to cap it off). Plus there's a whole load of short stories, comics and other various pieces of short fictions that aren't strictly necessary for the main story. Of course they do still clear up many Call-Backs in the novels that otherwise sound like Noodle Incidents, as well as adding in a lot of depth to various secondary or even minor characters such as Thomas, Molly, Justine and Marcone.
• Literary/scriptural example: The Archive Trawl with the greatest number of faithful participants is arguably the Daf Yomi ("Daily Folio") in which, by studying an entire densely-packed Talmud folio (both sides of a page) with commentaries an hour each day, one completes the entire Talmud (over sixty tractates, or three million words) in seven and a half years. Then there's a big party with worldwide satellite hookups. No foolin'.
• The total Dragonlance universe contains over 190 novels, and that doesn't include Dungeons & Dragons campaign guides, short stories and other official material.
• Interested in the Star Wars Legends? Good for you! Here's a list of all the books chronologically. We'll break the games and the comics to you later. Fortunately for some readers, many of those books aren't very good.
• Discworld has 40 novels in its entirety, five of which are Young Adult novels. Fortunately unlike many other series listed here, order is much less important which helps with approachability. Cast Herd specific stories tend to work better in sequence, but even that is flexible. And then there's the book on the mythology, which has two rewrites, then the book on the best quotes, then all the extraneous material... there could easily be over fifty or sixty books all total related to Discworld.
• Perry Rhodan (well, the German original at least) has, as of mid-2009, one hundred and six 400+ pages books of the main plot (covering the first 911 of over 2500 60+ page booklets, with around 20% already left out), fifty-something books of half-independent story arcs, 34 books of the Atlan-spinoff and 415 independent pocket books. Not to mention the tons of anniversary re-prints, story collections, fact books, star atlases and so on. You can fill a library just with Perry Rhodan stuff.
• Raymond E. Feist's The Riftwar Cycle has been running since 1982 and is composed of 32 books in a series of trilogies (a couple have 2 or 4 books). The in-story running time is also fairly lengthy: well over a hundred years pass between the first book and the current one, and only the most durable and long-lived characters have managed to survive the entire run.
• Honoré de Balzac's La Comédie Humaine is a novel sequence of 88 books, and represents the most fiction ever written by anyone.
• The Wheel of Time consists of fifteen books (fourteen plus a prequel), and on average, books in the main series are 800 pages long. The Other Wiki estimates the series page-count to be around eleven thousand total—while the total running time of the unabridged audiobooks is 17.5 days. And EVERY SINGLE named character plays a part in the story. The whole thing can get really confusing when trying to remember which Aiel, Aes Sedai, woman with a dress, darkfriend or lord did what to whom in what way, and then realize it wasn't even essential to the plot. Or even worse, knowing that the character is relevant to the plot, but you can't remember which one.
• A Song of Ice and Fire consists of five (of a promised seven, possibly eight) Doorstoppers, the shortest of which is about 800 pages long. There are also five short stories and two companion books, one of which is 700+ pages long. Just as with The Wheel of Time, there is an entire galaxy of named characters swirling around the world and driving the plot forward, but for the sake of the reader's sanity we're only given detailed looks into a few (read: ~20) of their lives. There is also its prequel and the 73-episode main TV adaptation, which Overtook the Manga after its fifth season and went on its own direction, so if you consider yourself a completionist you must watch them as well.
• Redwall has 22 books in the series, all of which are no less than 300 pages long. And that's not even including other Redwall material such as A Redwall Winter's Tale or Redwall: The Graphic Novel. On the upside, a majority of the novels aren't chronologically written in order, and almost none of them have the same cast as the previous one, so they can be read completely out of order without the reader getting too confused.
• The Animorphs core series consists of 54 books, with 8 more (canon) companion books and two (non-canon) Gamebook spin-offs. Even considering that most of them are quite short, it's not a series designed for the average bookshelf length.
• The Xanth series consists of 44 books (as of early 2021) with more forthcoming. All of which are between 300 and 400 pages. And between Xanth and his other works, Piers Anthony has written over 140 books since 1956. And he's STILL GOING STRONG.
• Terry Brooks' Shannara Series. Fourteen books with three more on the way. Made even longer with the connected Word & Void and Genesis of Shannara series.
• Lois McMaster Bujold is up to 14 books in the Vorkosigan Saga, 2 more not quite in series but set in universe, and at least 3 series novellas which may or may not be included in some versions of the series books. Her list of awards for said books might also induce the trope name.
• The Liaden Universe. It's difficult to count high enough to figure out how many books and short stories are in there.
• There are more than six hundred Mack Bolan "men's adventure" books... and twelve more are published every year. They've been ghostwritten since 1980, but they started in 1969. This doesn't count the spinoffs and crossovers.
• Warrior Cats has over 100 total works: as of the end of 2021, there were 42 books in the main series, 14 super editions, 15 manga volumes, 5 guidebooks, 21 novellas, 2 short plays and 6 short stories.
• The Honorverse officially qualifies. As of late 2014, the series consists of fourteen so-called "main line" novels, most of which are doorstoppers in their own right, plus five "sub-series" novels (all of which are critical to the ongoing story arc, and just as door-stoppery as the others) and six short story anthologies (virtually all of which have at least one story which is also critical to the ongoing story arc). Then there's the Young Adult prequel spinoff series, Star Kingdom, and the first of another prequel spinoff series entitled Manticore Ascendant. All told, the universe consists of twenty-nine books, many of which clock in over 500 pages. And Weber's not done yet. Good luck!!
• Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries. He published 46 titles during his lifetime; most of those were novels, while the rest were compilations of short stories and novellas that originally appeared in various magazines. Ten years after his death, the executors of his estate found some of his old manuscripts and published them as one more short story collection. Add in the two seasons of the A&E series based on Stout's works and the TV movie that kicked it off (30 one-hour broadcasts altogether), and you have quite a pile on your hands.
• The Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series (aka Master and Commander) covers 20 completed novels (and one unfinished), each about 300-400 pages.
• The Land of Oz series was kept going long after L. Frank Baum's death due to its immense popularity. There are forty "canon" books, plus several other sequels. Amazon offers a collection of Baum's works (the fourteen main books he wrote, The Woggle-Bug Book, Little Wizard Stories of Oz, and The Royal Book of Oz, which was ghostwritten by Ruth Thompson), the audiobook of which runs for 91 hours (Or just a little under 4 days).
• Goosebumps: 62 books in the first series, 25 in Goosebumps 2000, and 8 anthology books. Since the books are an anthology series, only a certain few have to be read as a series (Night of the Living Dummy, The Haunted Mask, Monster Blood)... and then came the Goosebumps HorrorLand series, which tied the major series together in a 19 book Crisis Crossover, followed by 6 Hall of Horrors books. Then came Most Wanted and Slappyworld. Add in 50 Gamebook Give Yourself Goosebumps books, and you'll be busy for awhile.
• Geronimo Stilton currently has 82 books in the main series, as well as 9 special editions (2 Anniversary specials and 7 regular specials) and 6 mini mysteries. Not enough for you? There's also 35 books Thea Sisters spinoff series (plus 12 specials), 20 books in the spin-off to that, Mouseford Academy, 16 in the Kingdom of Fantasy series (plus 2 specials), 9 in the Creepella von Cacklefur series, 15 in the Cavemice series, 12 in the Spacemice series, 11 in the Heromice series, 8 Micekings books, 8 in the Journey Through Time series, 14 Classic Tales books adapting classic literature, and 43 graphic novels (22 Geronimo Stilton graphic novels, 8 Thea Sisters graphic novels, 11 Reporter graphic novels adapting episodes of the animated series, and 4 in a series by Tom Angleberger). As of May 2023, this adds to 302 books in all, for those of you keeping score. Best part? Those are just the books published in English; some books still haven’t left Italy.
• The Magic Treehouse contains 61 books in the main series, and 41 non-fiction companion books, with more on the way. The books were meant for elementary readers, though, so they're fairly short and can be read out of order without issue.
• Good lord, Nancy Drew... The main series, which lasted from 1930 to 2003 (77 years) consists of one hundred-seventy five books. There is also 12 books in the Nancy Drew Diaries series, with 7 graphic novels, 4 in the Nancy Drew Clue Book series, 69 in the Nancy Drew Notebooks series, 51 Nancy Drew: Girl Detective books (47 regular ones, 4 "Super Mysteries"), with 21 graphic novels, 2 Nancy Drew New Case Files books, 40 Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew books, 124 in the Nancy Drew Files series, 25 in the Nancy Drew On Campus series, and 8 specials. 538 books in all, as of May 2016. Even if you read one book a day, it would take over a year to finish. Good luck trying to get through them all...
• Its male counterpart, The Hardy Boys, is no slouch, either. The main series consists of a whopping 190 books, 17 books in the Clues Brothers series, 39 in the Undercover Brothers series, as well as three "Super Mysteries", and 20 graphic novels, 2 in the New Case Files series, 19 in the Secret Files series, 11 Hardy Boys Adventures, 2 in the Clue Book series, 130 in the Hardy Boys Casefiles series, 2 crossovers with Tom Swift, and 2 specials. 437 in all. Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys also have many crossovers together, which further add to the book count.
• The Malazan Book of the Fallen series consists of ten main volumes (each of which is a Doorstopper in its own right), a separate series of six novels by co-creator Ian Cameron Esslemont, a prequel trilogy two-thirds published as of 2016, another prequel trilogy by Ian Cameron Esslemont, and six novellas. All in all, that's 25 books, with more on the way. That, and the fact that there are two authors writing in the verse, is enough to trigger Commitment Anxiety in the casual reader.
• Way of Choices is an online serial Chinese novel, with 1250+ and counting chapters, none of them terribly short. The English translation lags quite a bit behind, at this time having not broken three hundred chapters yet, but is already on the the third translator, the previous ones having given up at the sheer immensity of the task.
• The Camp Half-Blood Series: There's Percy Jackson and the Olympians (six books, with two more on the way), The Heroes of Olympus (five books), and The Trials of Apollo (five books) in the main series, The Kane Chronicles (three books) and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard (three books) in the same universe, multiple supplementary books, two films, a video game, a musical, and an upcoming TV series. With the way it's going, it wouldn't be surprising for Rick Riordan to cover every single mythology out there.
• Sweet Valley High: Almost 200 books were published in the main series alone (a Long Runner that ran from 1983 to 2003); over 600 were published including the spinoff series. There's also a TV series and much merchandise.
• The Cosmere is designed to play this trope straight or avert it depending on the reader's choice. The series is, effectively, several dozen stories that combine together to form one larger one; most of the stories (excluding direct sequels) can act as standalone works, so if you're not interested in a huge (and we do mean huge) story that's over twenty books long, you can just read one and ignore all the others. Brandon Sanderson has explicitly referenced this trope when discussing this, noting that it means you don't have to buy a ridiculous amount of books unless you're really committed to following the whole thing. The only exception to this rule is The Stormlight Archive, since that series is basically the Crisis Crossover all the other stories lead into.
• V. C. Andrews isn't too bad if you go by the books that she actually wrote (the first 4 books in the Dollanganger Series
• My Sweet Audrina + the first 2 Casteel Series books + the posthumously-published Gods of Green Mountain = 8 books). But good luck getting through the ghostwritten books. At last count, there are 93 stories under the Andrews name, and they've been steadily published since 1987 with at least one book a year, with no signs of stopping. But it's widely agreed Only the Creator Does It Right so no one's suggesting you read the ghostwritten books anyways.
• The Gerfaut war novels. There are over six hundred of them.
• In the Realms of the Unreal, written by Henry Darger is a rare single book example (albeit in volumes). It's generally considered to be the longest story ever written at an unbearable 9 million words or 15,000 pages. If that wasn't bad enough, he made a sequel, about 6 million words.
• All the audiobooks listed here, the longest of which is 154 hours!
  • Still, all of those audiobooks COMBINDED pale in comparison to longest audiobook EVER, which lasts longer than 101 and a half DAYS. Not hours, DAYS.
• The Shadowhunter Chronicles currently consists of seventeen full-length books with four more on the way, three anthology books, and one companion book, all of them Doorstoppers (aside from the last one, no book is less than 300 pages).
• Witch World spans 31 novels and dozens of short stories which have been collected in at least nine different anthology collections over the years. The novels cover three different cycles in the Witch World, the shortest being the High Hallack cycle, which spans seven novels.

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