Today’s comic may or may not have been inspired by my recent reading of a highly-recommended late-1980s science fiction tome. Ahem.

Look: I understand the appeal both of creating and enjoying certain kinds of ambiguous non-endings in stories. I really do. They drive me absolutely batty, however. A fair-to-middling bit of storytelling redeems itself with a solid closing, and the best story crafting in the world amounts to diddly squat when the author leaves me actively regretting the loss of the previous few hours’ time spent with their characters. It’s that simple.

(This applies to filmed stories as well, of course.)