How popular are they? I dont think I've ever seen one in a bookshop. Or have I?
Posted by Minister (Member # 2213) on :
You've probably seen them in collections; instead of a dozen to two dozen short stories, three or four novellas by the same author in a book. Probably more commonly, they'll be used as the title and main story in a collection of short stories -- one novella and several short stories, with the book being named for the novella. _First Meetings in the Enderverse_ or some such is, I think, a collection of a few novellas into a book.
Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :
Kage Baker has an excellent novella published by itself entitled "Empress of Mars." I highly recommend it.
Posted by cklabyrinth (Member # 2454) on :
I think I read somewhere that Farhenheit 451 is actually a novella. Or maybe it was published as a novella first, then a novel.
Also, The Demon Princes series by Jack Vance, I believe, is a set of five novellas, each with a stand-alone plot.
[This message has been edited by cklabyrinth (edited July 15, 2005).]
Posted by EricJamesStone (Member # 1681) on :
You can also find novellas in the major genre magazines.
Posted by Robyn_Hood (Member # 2083) on :
For those who, like me, can't remember the exact length for a novela, it is anything from 17,500 to 40,000 words.
"Call of the Wild", by Jack London is a novella, and one of my personal favourites.
Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :
There are a lot of novellas being written now, for the 20-something market, that are also illustrated. Many of them are following a Japanese literary tradition.
Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :
Jack Vance: The Dragon-Masters; The Last Castle.
But often they're in collections. The Man-Kzin Wars is mostly novellas.
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
If you go to the SF/Fantasy section of any used book store, many many of the books published prior to 1975 (arbitrary cutoff date) are much shorter than novel length, for which I use 60,000 words as a minimum word count.