Development Hell: The final book in the series, Strange Fate, which was originally supposed to be released in the late 1990's. However, the author took a hiatus from writing in 1998 due to personal concerns (including poor health and family members dying or falling ill). She began working on the book again in the late 2000's and it was rumored it would finally be released, but it's been over a decade since and there's still no sign of a publication date; it's unclear if the book is even finished.
Fandom Life Cycle: Peaked at Stage 2. It has a fanbase who maintain fan websites, write fanfiction and so on, and it got a slight resurgence in popularity during the 'vampire craze' of the late 2000's and early 2010's (the omnibus re-printings even appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List in 2008 and 2009), but Night World has always been more obscure compared to some of L. J Smith's other books, especially The Vampire Diaries. The fact it's taking over two decades for the series to be completed (with little to no new material released) likely contributes to this, with all but the most devoted fans losing interest or forgetting about it over time.
Referenced by...: The Supernatural episode "Live Free or Twihard" has several references to popular vampire fiction, including this one. Vampires meet up at a bar called the Black Rose; in Night World there's a chain of clubs frequented by vampires called the Black Iris, while black roses are one of the symbols of vampires.
