Tired of Trilogies

One of the best things about a well written novel, especially if it is fantasy or sci fi, is that it makes you want to go back to the world again and again and explore it from different angles. Things like "The History of Middle Earth" would not exist, and certainly wouldn't be in several volumes, if Tolkien's Middle Earth hadn't captivated thousands of people. So it makes sense that once an Author has gone to all the trouble of creating a fictional universe for a novel, they (and their fans) will want to revisit it. I've read many books over the years that have had me looking for sequels and prequels. I am getting a little tired of all the series and trilogies, however. 

I was at the library recently and 99% of the books that I picked up or looked at more closely turned out to be: "part 2 of the _____ trilogy" or "part 5 of the _____ series" and so on. Series are great, I love LoTR and Harry Potter and the Temeraire Series and all the rest of it, but I think there's such a thing as overkill. And having read a few series/trilogies/cycles/whatever-you-want-to-call-'ems I know, when I see this advertised on the cover of the book that there will be one of two problems with it: a) I won't understand anything because I haven't read Book 1 or b) the world wasn't interesting enough to write three whole books in it, why in the world did they write seven? Let's face it, not many people can pull off the kind of genius detailed world-building that Rowling did, for example. 

Also, Rowling planned out the whole seven books before writing them and the seventh ended Harry's adventures with finality. Same with Tolkien, the whole story of LoTR worked because it was well-planned from start to finish, it was really one story, just too long to fit into one book (the version I have with all three in one book it is so large it's falling apart, it's also very tiring to hold the thing up when you're reading). Many of the other series I've read lately do not have this nicely rounded completeness and coherence. You usually feel like the sequels were added on as an afterthought or that the story really should have been one book but was warped and stretched and dragged out to make it into a trilogy or a series. 

I'd love to see more authors (and publishers) taking a tip from Anne McCaffrey's Pern. One of the best things about Pern is that each book stands alone as its own story. It begins, it grips you and keeps you turning the pages, and then it ends. You don't have to look for the sequel to find a sense of conclusion. You don't need to search for the prequel to figure out what the hell is going on. However, I at least, found myself looking for more and more books in the series because I wanted to revisit the world. This is not to say that they aren't connected, if you've read two or three of the books you know that each additional story you read enhances your understanding of events that happened in the first one, or gives you a different view of character you liked, or just a better understanding of the world itself and how the society functions, but you're not forced to read them in a specific order. 

Hmmm, looks like this will be shorter than my other posts. That's probably a good thing. As always, I'd love to hear your views on this subject: are you also tired of trilogies?