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Aaaargh! It is very very annoying when you're reading the tense denouement of a book, and you can see that you still have a good 20 or 30 pages to go, and a HUGELY DRAMATIC thing happens at the end of a chapter, so you turn to the next page... only to find a glossary, at which you realise that A, the book is actually over, and, B, the book is actually over and has actually finished on an ENORMOUS CLIFFHANGER, and, C, the next book hasn't been written yet.
I'm not really a fan of cliffhanger endings. If you're going to publish your epic over several books, I think each book should end with at least partial closure - a sense that at least one stage of the story has drawn to a close, even though there are still unanswered questions and a long journey still ahead. But if I've got to endure a cliffhanger ending, I at least like to have some warning. If you're in the middle of a very tense and complication situation, and can see that you've only got 1 page to go, you accept that you're not going to get resolution. But it is particularly annoying when they LIE TO YOU and DECEIVE YOU and TRICK YOU so you think you've got a few chapters to go, they laugh gloatingly as they reveal that these "few chapters" are actually a glossary, or an author's bio, or an extract from a totally unrelated book that they want to sell you. It's as if a film was listed as being 120 minutes long, but after 110 minutes, suddenly cut to black in the middle of the denouement and turned up the lights and patted you on the back as they sent you merrily away to buy over-priced icecream.
EDIT: However, my wrath is lessened somewhat by remember the time a school friend said that an episode of Dallas had finished "on an enormous coat-hanger."
I'm not really a fan of cliffhanger endings. If you're going to publish your epic over several books, I think each book should end with at least partial closure - a sense that at least one stage of the story has drawn to a close, even though there are still unanswered questions and a long journey still ahead. But if I've got to endure a cliffhanger ending, I at least like to have some warning. If you're in the middle of a very tense and complication situation, and can see that you've only got 1 page to go, you accept that you're not going to get resolution. But it is particularly annoying when they LIE TO YOU and DECEIVE YOU and TRICK YOU so you think you've got a few chapters to go, they laugh gloatingly as they reveal that these "few chapters" are actually a glossary, or an author's bio, or an extract from a totally unrelated book that they want to sell you. It's as if a film was listed as being 120 minutes long, but after 110 minutes, suddenly cut to black in the middle of the denouement and turned up the lights and patted you on the back as they sent you merrily away to buy over-priced icecream.
EDIT: However, my wrath is lessened somewhat by remember the time a school friend said that an episode of Dallas had finished "on an enormous coat-hanger."
