Recently, writers and publishers in the book field seem to be discovering the serial all over again. No, not the series of novels, in which each story has some kind of an ending…. I mean a serial—a single story published in several books. That's a matter of turning one into many, making each book only an installment of the whole.

That strikes me as being completely unfair to the reader, who purchases a book in the expectation that he's getting a story—only to find out that he must wait a year or two before he can discover what happens—and then may have to wait that long again. (p. 168)

The case in point is the five-part serial of Roger Zelazny that began back in 1970 with the publication of The Nine Princes of Amber. Now finally in 1978 the fifth and final (?) installment has just been issued—The...