Proud moment for me:
I made it through the second of 8 absolutely delightful, engaging, and extremely PLEASURABLE novels in a series about a topic I love.
But the first book ended POORLY... because they knew that fans like me would be the second. It’s like it LITERALLY had zero ending. Meaning there was this absurd violation of novelistic structure.
And the second cemented my creeping suspicion that this all... all all all... was trifling crap. It’s like porn for people who like fast talking smart alecks, snide, sarcastic, and battle after battle after battle.
One amazingly engaging battle after another. So enjoyable. Exactly what I love.
Except that there's zero heart, soul, message... oh... it takes a head nod in the direction of what is noble and how should people behave...
But at the end of the day...
Lovely useless battles of stupid.
So... I did not buy the third.
I'm done.
Victory.
I’m not going to mention the name of the series because I don’t want to get into it with fans who are fine reading the same book 8 times:
Hero and partner in exotic setting fight stuff until they live or die.
That’s the book.
Sirens of Titan made me weep for three hours. This is what I expect a novel to do. Moby Dick changed the way I examine culture and society. Emma taught me to be expect the unexpected. Valuable books do valuable work. Entertaining books entertain. I get it. I consider the elevation of my human experience more valuable than being entertained for five hours. Thoughts?
Without the name of the series, I can only provide some very basic thoughts.
The first of these will likely upset you, however. There is, barring actively harming someone, no such thing as BadWrongFun™. Saying that you didn't like it because you expect more depth is fine. (I'd even agree.) But there was a very strong streak of disdain for those who do not share your tastes in your post. This, IMO, is not fine.
The second of these is that I actually thank authors who make huge series. It tells me that they aren't serious people and that I won't enjoy their works. A novel is a very long format for writing. If you can't get a good, complete, story that actually ends in a single novel, you're probably not an author I want to read anyway, so thanks for the warning.
I think our attitudes here overlap more than they diverge.