Good point (and drat the spoilers - I haven't read all the Barney books yet!!).Lucky Star wrote:That is what I have always thought too. It seems to have happened quite a lot with her major series'. The price of being too good a writer I suppose.
Mind you, even writers who set themselves a definite limit and stick to it don't always manage to maintain an increasing or even consistent level of excitement and originality. With Harry Potter, for example, I felt that the plots started out excellent and got steadily better over the first three books, with Prisoner of Azkaban being the best of the lot. But Goblet of Fire floundered (far too long, for a start), and though Order of the Phoenix picked up the pace again a good deal, I felt the last two books (especially the final one) just went into a downward spiral of over-lengthiness, over-complicatedness, cliché, tedium and pointlessness.
That was only seven books' worth over 10 years, so I'd say Enid did pretty well to produce as many brilliant and memorable books as she did over a far longer period with a much greater output!
(scurries to hide from potential legions of offended and enraged Potter fans )