Countdown to Harry Potter Fever - Order of the Phoenix and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter. Books. Movies. A franchise of unbelievable proportions.

Harry Potter has caused havoc of the good and bad kind- some people who barely picked up books are reading them like mad; while others once attempted to break into JK Rowling's house to get the famed final chapter (a moot point as soon as the 7th book comes out). People have written fan fiction stories, some of them hundreds of pages long, others focusing on making, err, unlikely character match-ups.

So this July, part of the Harry Potter franchise will be finalized in a blaze of glory- the new movie, and the final installment of the book series will be released within DAYS of each other.

After the 7th book is released, and bought in droves, there will be two more films to make...and then what? Will JK Rowling retire in relative comfort and live off of the royalties?

She has told the press that she plans to continue writing, but does not intend to write any more Harry Potter books, save for perhaps an encyclopedia of the Harry Potter universe, using her unpublished notes.

It's hard to predict whether this cult following (IS it technically a cult following?) will die off in the ensuing years, or remain just as strong- after all, people are still writing Lord of the Rings fan fiction, aren't they? (Although one might argue that the films had a hype of their own) But I have found that the thrill of anticipation is something quite different from the joy of discovering a good story and reading all the way to its conclusion. That special, crazed excitement that comes with knowing you wait on bated breath with millions of other people around the world- a feeling that I believe is unique to our age of
Mass media.

Through the Internet, we can now read Harry Potter hints, spoilers, speculations, interviews and wild news stories about crazed fans across the globe. We can discuss with people in other countries what might happen in the next book, and we can keep checking for updates at sites like the Leaky Cauldron, to see if any sample pages of the book have been released. And we can order knit scarves from Ebay that look just like the ones worn by the kids in the movies.

All this makes it a little bit strange to consider what kind of hype might (or might not) have arisen at the publication of Return of the King, or Hound of the Baskervilles. Or even The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

On the flip side, books don't often get a lot of 'hype', and while in some respects its refreshing, on the other hand it makes me wonder if it doesn't put things out of perspective on what will and will not be an enduring classic. It's a new era for books, and it's hard to say if in 30 years time, the Harry Potter books will still have the same effect on people that they do now.Was the Harry Potter craze just one of anticipation, or was it based on an enduring storytelling?