Is "canon" meaningless?

[Aotrs Commander]

What? Fahrenheit 451 is inconsequential because it doesn't have *sequels*? Am I reading you correctly? Why should a story go on to make a series in order to have literary worth?

I said such carries no weight with me - and a quick google search to determine what that was and that would be born out in this case. If wiki is accurate, it is about, principally, a future society that burns books and an examination of, prsumably of what that society would look like and, presumably, how bad it would be. Beyond that one concept exploration, what does it offer? How many stories could you tell about that concept?

(This leaves aside the fact that it has nothing to offer me even then, since it would appear to be principally about People/society, which is something I simply don't care about unless the people are doing something interesting.)

So yes, I can say with a high degree of certainty that I would read it, shrug and go "okay" and it would leave no lasting impression.

Anecdotally, I can say that the only thing I can even think of that I rate highly that is NOT part of a larger something else would be an old atomic sci-fi book called Rip Foster Rides the Grey Planet, and I find it tragic that it does not have more to it than that, since it would have been a very entertaining universe to explore. (Granted, I'm writing this at half-past three in the morning, others may come to mind in the morning, but I wouldn't bet on it.)

So yeah, I will go out and say: if something doesn't attempt to do any world building beyond which it requires to tell a single story, it will almost certainly be of little to no lasting interest to me, for the simple reason it won't invite me to think about it. (And generally, things that TRY to make me think about some message presented in them go down like a lead balloon, since they very rarely present a message I don't already find obvious.) It might be fun to partake while it lasts, but it will almost certainly leave no lasting mark. (This applies to all media: for example, to action movies. I've seen quite a few, but none of them have made any particular impact on me.) If something is worth exploring, it's worth exploring to the full extent of its capability, which is typically beyond the length of most single books or movies.

(And yes, you may correctly postulate that that means I don't read any comtemporary or historical non-sci fi/fantasy fiction. Unless you want to make an arguement that the Three Investigators qualifies - though with the sheer number of books I'm pretty sure that doesn't qualify under the "doesn't have continutity" thing.)