5 Favorite Novellas: A Capricious List
You can find varying definitions for a novella depending on where you look, but I generally consider it longer than a short story and shorter than a novel. There are a surprising number of stories that fall in that cavern between short story and novel, and I’ve been enjoying finding and inhaling novella over the last few years. There are thousands of novellas out there. You can find classics, translated works, literary fiction, and all sorts of genres. My favorites are, to no one’s surprise, the science fiction and fantasy ones!
Now, for print novellas, the one publisher that has been going hard with science fiction and fantasy novellas is tordotcom publishing. Accordingly, three of the five novellas I have on my list of favorites (at the moment, I’m a capricious soul) are published by tordotcom. They aren’t the only ones publishing novellas, but my favorites list highlights them for sure. If you have any favorites or opinions on any of mine, feel free to share!
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers gives readers a kind glimpse of a future where robots and humans have gone their separate ways. Well, at least until the robot Mosscap encounters the tea monk Dex and asks the question, “What do people need?”. This is a tricky question even in the close to utopian setting of the novella, and I found it a moving read about hope with a gentle touch of philosophy.
The sequel to this novella, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, hits shelves in July of 2022. This is a sequel I am definitely excited for, and while I’m not expecting it to hit the same way as A Psalm for the Wild-Built did, but I do have high hopes for enjoying it.
Penric’s Demon by Luis McMaster Bujold starts off a fairly lengthy novella series in which the young man Penric is suddenly in possession of a demon named Desdemona. Whether or not she is Penric’s demon or Penric is Desdemona’s human is up for debate.
Penric himself expects to live a fairly boring life trying to please his family and stay out of the way without causing trouble. He fails spectacularly at this and ends up on his own set of adventures where he has to grow into himself and an awareness of his (and Desdemona’s) place in the world.
A fun series that manages surprising character depth in such short books.
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo is the first of the Singing Hills Cycle, and it is also one of the first novellas I ever read outside of the classic American ones assigned in school (think Of Mice and Men or Steinbeck’s The Pearl). As such, I may forever hold a fond spot for it in my heart.
The novella follows cleric Chih as she goes to find a story that she can take back with her, and instead encounters questions about what stories are made of and how they change with the person telling them. This novella skirts around empire, anger, and just who is left to learn from those stories.
The second entry, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, is out and also wonderful. The third entry in the series, Into the Riverlands, comes out in October of 2022.
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells is not actually the first entry in The Murderbot Diaries, which as of January 2022 has 5 novellas and 1 full-length novel. The first novella in the series is All Systems Red which is a fun read, but it is lacking one of my favorite characters, ART, which is introduced in the second novella, Artificial Condition.
The premise of The Murderbot Diaries is that an artificial construct, Murderbot, has hacked its controller module, but continues to play along because it doesn’t want things to change. Cue unfortunate things like emotions and gaining friends to tilt its entire world on its access when all it wants is to be left in peace to watch media.
I adore the sass and character development in this series. The seventh installation in the series has been confirmed although we have yet to have a release date for it.
All the Flavors by Ken Liu feels a bit like cheating since the novella has not actually been published as a standalone piece. It was published as part of his collection The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. However, it is definitely longer than a short story and shorter than a novel so I’ve kept it on the list. I also now realize that this is the only standalone novella on my list, although of course there are many more that I simply haven’t listed available.
All the Flavors takes place primarily in a mining town located in Idaho, and has interweaving narratives. Guan Yu, the Chinese god of war, has a perspective interspersed with that of the daughter of the landlord renting to the Chinese workers. The way Liu looks at integration, flavor, and leaves the ending open made for an interesting read that I enjoyed.
I’ve really come to adore novellas. Occasionally their brevity leaves me hungry for more content, but I like how it feels like a peek at another world and requires less mental fortitude than wading through a full-length novel. They are great to just sit back and read without worrying about finishing. So yes, I’m a novella fan. How about you? Any novellas on your list of things to read?
