In her review of Lois McMaster Bujold’s latest work, The Sharing Knife which was published in two volumes: The Sharing Knife: Beguilement and The Sharing Knife: Legacy, Sherwood Smith notes that she waited for both volumes to be published before reading them:
I waited a year because someone had warned me that The Sharing Knife: Beguilement was actually the first half of a book summarily chopped in half. I didn't want to read the first half of a book and then wait a year, so I waited until the second came out.
Many fantasy and science fiction stories are multi-volume works, and thus readers face the question of reading the different parts of a multi-volume story when they are published or waiting until the final volume has been published and the work is complete.
Which is better: Reading volumes as fast as they are published or waiting until the end is reached?