Task #17: Read a sci-fi/fantasy novella (under 120 pages)

[Book Riot]

Use this space to discuss books you're reading or that might fit the 17th Read Harder task.

[Nicole]

Binti would be perfect for this!

[Karen]

I looked up the Hugo Awards for novella and found Wakulla Springs by Andy Duncan

[Bonnie G.]

I may fudge this and read long short stories -- I have been dying to read Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation: Stories.

[Bonnie G.]

Mercedes wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "I may fudge this and read long short stories -- I have been dying to read Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation: Stories."

Chang's king. St..."

Thanks for the info -- I love language and have always found linguistics and linguistic anthropology fascinating. Several people have passionately recommended Chiang's work, and now another endorsement. This is the year I get to it!

[Amber]

Yes to Chiang! Also Becky Chambers has a novella out, “To be taught, if fortunate”

[Rachael]

Apparently The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde works here

[Sarah]

Amber wrote: "Yes to Chiang! Also Becky Chambers has a novella out, “To be taught, if fortunate”"

I love Becky Chambers but the novella is 160 pages. :-(

[Stephen]

I am planning on ignoring the page limit here because Book Riot is just using a bad definition. Novellas are normally defined by word count, "between 17,500 and 40,000 words" (which, granted, no one but the publisher or awards committees will count - but you can go off of what the publisher and awards committees say). I looked over a number of Novellas I have on hand/I have read and most are over 120 pages. Tor.com started publishing a bunch of novellas a few years ago, often with fewer words per page than are common in novels, so the page count definition would eliminate most of them.

With that in mind, a few favorites:
All Systems Red - This focuses on a brilliant soap opera watching security cyborg who calls itself Murderbot. It won both the Nebula and the Hugo awards, and I'm sure a few others. Just read it.
The Gameshouse - Actually a collection of 3 novellas.
Empire Star for a classic by AOC Samuel R. Delaney
The Ballad of Black Tom - this also would work for 2 since it is a point of view shifted retelling of HP Lovecraft's most racist story, the Horror at Redhook.

[Candace]

Nicole wrote: "Binti would be perfect for this!"
I read Binti last year and it is amazing! I don't often read sci fi and this book kept me engaged.

[Amber]

Would This Is How You Lose the Time War work or is it too long?

[Amy J.]

I'm going with Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal.

It's actually under 100 pages so it allows me to also use it for a prompt on another challenge.

[Amy J.]

Nicole wrote: "Binti would be perfect for this!"

I really wanted to read Home for this, since I read and loved Binti last year, but it's about 40 pages too long?

[Chrissy]

One of the stories in Exhalation is 111 pages: The Lifecycle of Software Objects, and it was pretty good.

[Bonnie G.]

oh Chrissy that is perfect! Thanks! 111 pages is definitely a novella.

[Bonnie G.]

and thanks Stephan. that definition is helpful. Also, I added All Systems Red. I don't read much scifi but I have likes some and this one sounds great.

[Stephen]

Amber wrote: "Would This Is How You Lose the Time War work or is it too long?"

It's 200 pages so it doesn't fit book riot's definition, but it's definitely a novella (the words per page is very low) and a good choice for anyone who doesn't normally read sfi-fi/fantasy so long as they don't mind the page length.

[Eujean2]

The Cybernetic Tea Shop has been on my TBR for awhile now, so that is my choice. Turns out that I quite like novella length and I have quite a few on my list.

[Hinda Rochel]

I'll probably read Crying Over Split Light (Kindle and free)

[Alicia]

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps and A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson are AMAZING.

Tor.com has a lot of great sci-fi and fantasy novellas to check out

[L Y N N]

Amber wrote: "Yes to Chiang! Also Becky Chambers has a novella out, “To be taught, if fortunate”"

Which I found to be an excellent read! I love Chambers' writing!

[Mihaela]

I read Martha Wells' Artificial Condition:The Murderbot Diaries. Nice read if you like cyberpunk. I think I shall read the others,too. Ted Chiang is a great choice. But I highly recommend The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula Le Guin. Some stories fit the novella genre. I loved The Onew Who Walk Away from Omelas. Such great writing, great imagination, always exceptional.

[Lianne]

I'm going with The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard.

[Emilyn]

I happen to have the audiobook of The Test by Sylvain Neuvel checked out right now. Perfect!

[Inez]

I'm going for The Metamorphosis by Kafka.

[Eliza]

Going with Binti - although The Scribbly Man is a close second (it's a novella but a little over BR's limit).

[Lindsey]

Amy J. wrote: "Nicole wrote: "Binti would be perfect for this!"

I really wanted to read Home for this, since I read and loved Binti last year, but it's about 40 pages too long?"
Ditto this! I really enjoyed Binti so I think I'll bend the rules :)

[Sarah]

I'm going to try Herland as it's been on my TBR forever. I think the page count is slightly off the target for this challenge though :(

[Marie]

Bonnie G. wrote: "I may fudge this and read long short stories -- I have been dying to read Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation: Stories."

We just read Story of Your Life for my book club and everyone loved it. Chiang is a unique voice in SF.

I don't think it's fudging - Story of Your Life (the longest story in the collection) is described as a novella when I do an online search for it.

I recommend looking at collections & anthologies for novellas that are under the 120 page mark - they're a lot easier to find bundled with short stories than on their own.

[Stephen]

Marie wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "I may fudge this and read long short stories -- I have been dying to read Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation: Stories."

We just read Sto..."

On those lines, a friend recently suggested I read Chiang's "The Lifecycle of Software Objects". In Exhalation: Stories it's about 110 pages. But it has also been printed along (The Lifecycle of Software Objects) it's 150 pages. And that's how I'll have to mark it on Goodreads for my readharder shelf (if that's what I read).

I think that really tells how arbitrary a line 120 pages is. But since the Book Riot people are playing fast and loose as it is (a memoir in a novel category, a conversation in a memoir category...) I feel no guilt going with a novella ignoring the page limit.

[Bonnie G.]

Marie wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "I may fudge this and read long short stories -- I have been dying to read Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation: Stories."

We just read Sto..."

Thank you! That is great to hear it is considered a novella. I was comfortable with my choice, but now I feel even better about it :) I am really looking forward to reading Chiang. I have heard such great things.

[Marie]

Stephen wrote: "On those lines, a friend recently suggested I read Chiang's "The Lifecycle of Software Objects". In Exhalation: Stories it's about 110 pages. But it has also been printed along (The Lifecycle of Software Objects) it's 150 pages."

Lifecycle has the mark of a padded-out term paper: large font, unnecessary white space...I think it even had drawings on some pages. I agree the page count is somewhat arbitrary. Before I picked something else, I was going to read The Ballad of Beta 2, which is listed as 124 pages. But how many of those are the blank pages you find at the end of the book?

I think the BR people were trying to clarify what a novella was. But the punctuation of this task makes it a bit confusing. Not to go all Jeff-analytical, but I take

"a sci-fi/fantasy novella (under 120 pages)"

as a guideline as to what a novella is, whereas

"a sci-fi/fantasy novella under 120 pages"

would be a novella that needs to be under 120 pages.

[Stephen]

Marie wrote: "Stephen wrote: "On those lines, a friend recently suggested I read Chiang's "The Lifecycle of Software Objects". In Exhalation: Stories it's about 110 pages. But it has also been printed along (The..."

From the Youtube announcement video, it's clear that you're correct about what they mean--that they are trying to define a novella by page length instead of word count. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Okt...

I haven't seen the published individually copy of Lifecycle, but I know that the margins and font size are more generous for a lot of novellas that are being published outside of collections.

[Mya]

At 11,000 words, The Terracotta Bride by Zen Cho is slightly shy of the word count for a novella but it is an interesting enough story I am mentioning it anyway. :)

Things that might help those who double dip:
The author is a Malaysian woman, the story incorporates components of Chinese/ Malaysian mythology, and has queer (LGBTQIA) aspects.

[Mya]

The four titles in J.Y. Yang’s The Tensorate Series are each a novella. The first two are:

The Black Tides of Heaven
The Red Threads of Fortune

The author is Singaporean, and identifies as nonbinary and queer.

I’ll be reading The Ascent to Godhood for the “last title of a series” challenge.

[Mya]

Stephen wrote: "Amber wrote: "Would This Is How You Lose the Time War work or is it too long?"

It's 200 pages so it doesn't fit book riot's definition, but it's definitely a novella (the words per..."

Simon and Schuster and Publisher’s Weekly both refer to it as a novel and not a novella, though the descriptor “short” is used. That could be a marketing choice, thinking that the public won’t pay for novella length. It’s so much easier to sort this out once the Hugo nominations are in. People who care about fitting properly into the categories determine word count.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Aw...

[Michelle (RavenLily)]

Kingdom of Needle and Bone
The Test

[Sarah]

All Systems Red!!!! So so funny.

[Clay]

I love sci-fi novellas, which is why this one is so hard - I've already read all the Binti and Murderbot stories and This is How You Lose The Time War (and the first of the Tensorate series - wasn't for me).

Thanks for the recommendation for Forest of Memory, that might be the first book I read for the year.

[[deleted user]]

I really loved Mem by Bethany C. Morrow

[Sabrina]

if you don't mind going over the page limit a bit, I've heard good things about the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire . I plan on using the first book Every Heart a Doorway (which is 173 pages) since nothing else really interests me

[Tamara]

For the sci-fi/fantasy fans: Is there an Ursula Le Guin novella that fits into this category? I see some lost novellas have been printed in one collection, but is there a way to just read one?

[KandiH]

The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold.

[Carolina]

The The Chronicles of St Mary's Series by Jodi Taylor incorporates many novellas. She writes about time-travel and is funny. I would highly recommend this series, and there is a 0.5 novella to start you off The Very First Damned Thing, although it might make more sense to start with #1

[Kimberly]

Stephen wrote: "I am planning on ignoring the page limit here because Book Riot is just using a bad definition. Novellas are normally defined by word count, "between 17,500 and 40,000 words" (which, granted, no on..."

Murderbot is so much fun! I highly suggest that series. Start with All Systems Red.

[Deb]

2BR02B - Kurt Vonnegut

[Russell]

I just finish The Test by Slyvian Neuvel. Great book. very east to get into the slightly more advance version of the world of the boom. only 112 pages.

[Russell]

I just finish The Test by Slyvian Neuvel. Great book. very east to get into the slightly more advance version of the world of the boom. only 112 pages.

[Rachel S]

If you’re willing to fudge the page limit by 8 or so pages, I highly recommend Mrs. Caliban. When I heard the category of sci-fi/fantasy novella, that was what I thought of immediately. Brilliant read!

[ChezJulie]

The posthumously published by Octavia Butler includes a novella called "A Necessary Thing." The tricky part is that it was published only as an e-book, and the e-book doesn't include page numbers, but GoodReads lists the whole book as being 97 pages. And it's only $1.99 on Kindle.