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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24683
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think the question really boils down to: what/whose story are you trying to tell? And is it a single story? Look at Jim Butcher's Dresden Files stories, for example. Those are almost all centered around the titular Harry Dresden, and he is the POV character for most of the books. The story is his story. Eventually, there are some peripheral characters who get stories, and become the narrator for a time, but it's all in service of telling Harry Dresden's story. And most of the books end with threads left unfinished, so as a reader, I'd be exceptionally annoyed if, when I picked up the next book, I didn't get some amount of closure to the outstanding threads. David Weber's Honor Harrington novels work in the same way. Once the universe is large enough, and some of the peripheral characters have been flushed out enough that the reader starts caring about them as well, switching protagonists is less jarring.

You can compare this to Terry Pratchett's books, which all take place in the same setting, but have many different protagonists. But in his case, when you finish a book, the story is complete. It doesn't mean that everyone is dead, but there aren't outstanding threads to the story. He hasn't introduced a villain who escaped, or some pending disaster that the hero has to solve. The same thing is true of Lois McMaster Bujold's books; again, a shared universe, but each book is a story in itself. While I'm happy to spend more time with a given character, I don't feel like something is incomplete if I don't get to do so. With the next book I read, the story is richer because I've read the other books, but I don't feel I'm missing something if I haven't read the other books.

Original score: 9