I try to ascribe to Lois McMaster Bujold's dictum about novels in a series...which is that they should all stand alone. The novel I have finished ends on a bit of cliff-hanger, but that's because the main question of the story HAS been resolved. It's just that part of what happens is that that in solving one problem, they discover an even bigger one. Yep. I didn't do that on purpose, though...I started the novel with just an image in my head, and *I* didn't know what was going to happen until I wrote it.