2024 Reading and Viewing Challenges

New Year, New Challenges!

Perhaps I am a glutton for punishment. I always set myself more than one reading challenge per year. Some carry over from year to year, and some are new. Some are broad and some are themed. And in many cases, books read will help me meet more than one challenge. But still: in the past few years, I set myself perhaps too many challenges that were difficult to overlap. So this year, I’ve cut a couple that I’ve totally blown in the past few years, and decreased the number of books for others.

Of course, I’m also making some formal movie, television, and live theatre viewing challenges this year because why the heck not? (Although at least one of them is simply formalizing a goal I have every year: more live theatre!)

 So, in order from “most expansive” to “least expansive,” here are my 2024 Challenges. I’ll start with the reading, then move on to the viewing.

TO BE READ CHALLENGE

The idea (formulated by RoofBeamReader at his blog several years ago) is to pick 12 books (plus 2 alternates in case you find yourself unable to finish a couple of your main choices) that have sat unread on your bookshelf for a year or more. Books published in 2023 wouldn’t be eligible, nor would re-reads. This year, I’ve decided to include audiobooks and e-books in the challenge (in the past it’s been mostly, if not all, print books), and so I’m listing three alternates (one for each format) instead of two. I did not do well on this challenge in the past three years, but here’s hoping 2024 will break that streak. Titles are not listed in any intended reading order. Books title followed by an asterisk are books that were on my 2023 list, but which went unread. Here’s the list:

1.       Ice Land, by Betsy Tobin (2008) *

2.       Let Me In, by John Ajvide Lindqvist (2004) *

3.       The Mystery of the Sea, by Bram Stoker (1902, reissued in 1997) *

4.       The Book of Lost Saints, by Daniel José Older (2019) *

5.       Dune, by Frank Herbert (1965/2014) *

6.       Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir (2019) *

7.       The Mythology of Salt and Other Stories, by Octavia Cade (2020) *

8.       Cemetery Boys, by Aiden Thomas (2020) *

9.       Pangs, by Jerry L. Wheeler (2021) * (2023 alternate title, moved to main list)

10.   Becoming by Michelle Obama (2018)

11.   Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by Alan Alda (2005)

12.   The Unwanted by Jeffrey Ricker (2014)

ALTERNATES:

1.       All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business, by Mel Brooks (2021) (audio alternate)

2.       Golden Boy: A Novel, by Abigail Tarttelin (2013) (e-book alternate)

3.       Merlin’s Booke by Jane Yolen (1986) (print book alternate)

I plan to come back to this post and add “date completed” for each book, and a link to a review if I post one.

366 SHORT STORIES CHALLENGE

Every year, I challenge myself to read one short story per day. Some years I keep the pace pretty well, and some years I fall behind and then scramble to catch up (and some years, I catch up and fall behind again, and some years I blow past the goal handily). 2024 is a Leap Year, so the goal is 366 short stories. I used to post thoughts on each individual story over on my now-defunct LiveJournal. This year I plan to revive my “Sunday Shorts” feature and review a story or two in-depth each Sunday. I’m defining “short story” as anything from flash fiction to novella-length.

GOODREADS CHALLENGE

Goodreads allows members to set a challenge. In previous years, I’ve set goals ranging from 125 to 150 books. For 2024, I’m setting a goal of 120 to start with (10 books per month), and we’ll see what happens. Of course, any book read for the TBR Challenge, or the other challenges mentioned in this post count towards this one.

GRAPHIC NOVEL CHALLENGE

I own far more graphic novels and trade paperback collections of classic comics than I’ve read. In 2017 I started trying to turn that around, and I’m again setting a goal in 2024 of reading one graphic novel per week, so 52 for the year.

NON-FICTION CHALLENGE

As with graphic novels, I tend to get intrigued by and purchase far more non-fiction books than I end up reading. In an effort to clear some shelf-space, justify the money spent, and increase my knowledge a bit, I’m going to challenge myself to read at least 12 non-fiction books, but I’m not going to make a list. There are already 3 non-fiction books (all memoirs) on the TBR Challenge which will count towards this.

READ THE BOOK / WATCH THE MOVIE CHALLENGE

I have so many books in my collection that are the basis for classic (and sometimes not-so-classic) movies that I thought it would be fun to read some of them and then see how the movies compare. In previous years I didn’t do so well on this challenge, but I’m game to try again. I intend to write reviews/comparison posts as I’ve done previously, under the Page-to-Screen feature title and tag. I’ve never set a numeric goal for this challenge, but let’s aim for 12 “Page-to-Screen” posts this year.

MOVIE CHALLENGE

I own a lot of DVDs. (I know, you’re shocked. Shocked!) Every year I say, “This is the year I’m going to make an effort to watch them!” And then, somehow, I … don’t. One year, I did a list of 12 and two alternates as I do for the TBR Challenge, called it the TBW Challenge … and failed it miserably. So this year, I’m setting myself a challenge akin to my graphic novel challenge: one movie per week, 52 for the year. This includes movies on DVD, streaming services, and any trips to an actual movie theater (which have become rare for me).

TELEVISION CHALLENGE

Did I mention I own a lot of DVDs? And that I’m subscribed to a lot of streaming services? I did? Well, you won’t be shocked to know that it’s not all about the movies. So I’m setting myself a “TV Series Watch” challenge akin to my Short Story Challenge: an average of one full episode of a television series (regardless of length) for each day in the year, which (again) this being a Leap Year means 366 episodes.

LIVE THEATRE CHALLENGE

I did pretty well with this one in 2023, even though I never posted about it (because I posted extraordinarily little here in 2023, but that’s a subject for another post), so I’m making it official for 2024: I want to see at least 1 live theatrical performance per month. Most of them will be in New York City, but I’ll count any play, musical, opera, ballet, or staged reading I see anywhere, regardless of whether it’s fully professional productions, college, community theatre, whatever. (Music concerts, author signings, and conferences/conventions do not count towards this.)

ACCOUNTABILITY

So how am I going to hold myself accountable? I’m planning to bring back my monthly Reading RoundUps. I’m not going to rename/rebrand because I like the alliterative title (which falls well in line with Series Saturday, Sunday Shorts, and a few other blog series I’m hoping to make regular features in 2024), but those posts will also track the Viewing challenges.

I would love to hear what YOUR Reading, Writing, or Viewing Challenges are for 2024. Let me know in the comments!

Book Review: SLEEP NO MORE

TITLE: Sleep No More (October Daye #17)

AUTHOR: Seanan McGuire

369 pages, DAW Books, ISBN 9780756416836 (hardcover; also e-book and audio)

MY RATING:  5 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: Many, if not all, of us have wondered what our adult lives would be like if some important fact or event of our childhood had been different. It is not an unusual thing to daydream about even if we never discuss it with another person, but no matter how vivid our imagination we can never really know how that other life would play out. Time travel and the ability to peer into alternate Earths are not tools we currently possess. Luckily, they do exist in the worlds of fiction – along with many other ways for us to see what those other lives may have been like. One of those methods, a grand illusion that affects not just the Kingdom of Mists but the bordering kingdoms as well, was set in motion by the long-missing Titania, Queen of Faerie, at the very end of the sixteenth book in the October Daye series (Be the Serpent), and in book seventeen, Sleep No More, we get to experience the depth and breadth of that illusion. Which means we, along with our narrator Toby, get to see firsthand what Toby’s life would have been like had she been raised not just by her emotionally abusive and magically manipulative mother, but also by a father who loved her and with a doting older sister who didn’t go missing before October was born.

For long-time Toby fans, this book is a double-edged sword. It’s cool to see what a close relationship October and her sister August might have had if their lives had been a little different, or to see a Simon Torquill who never descended into evil as far as he did in the real world. It’s also painful to see how a Sylvester Torquill devoid of love and a Quentin absent Toby’s influence might have turned out. McGuire does a fantastic job of pacing out the reveals of how our series regulars are different with altered memories.

But all of that is balanced by the reader’s knowledge of the real world the characters are shielded from by Titania’s working, and the pain of watching Toby, and much of her extended family, come to realize that the real world needs to return, not because their lives were necessarily better in it but because if Titania succeeds in making her illusion world-wide and permanent things will get much, much worse.

Because make no mistake – Titania is a faerie Supremacist. She’s never liked the shapeshifters and part-animal descendant lines among the Fae, and she’s not very fond of changelings (half-human, half-fae) either. McGuire has never pulled her punches in expressing Titania’s unsavory qualities – but most of the time we’ve seen them, it’s been in novellas and short stories as opposed to on full display as the centerpiece of a novel. And of course, not everyone thinks Titania’s vision for Faerie is bad, which adds levels of complication for Toby and the few allies she has.

There are those who might question why, seventeen books into a series, we would need an entire book where our lead character is not herself. Could this have been done earlier or maybe not at all? I don’t think it could have been done earlier – Toby and her found family needed to be in a certain formation and at a certain point in their interpersonal development in order for this story to work. And so did the readers. Any earlier and the impact of a complacent Toby who accepts her place, who doesn’t recognize most of her loved ones would not be as effective. And I do believe this story needed to be told – while I have no insider information, I think the things Toby and her gang have learned about themselves by the end of this book will heavily inform their actions in upcoming books, for better or for worse.

There are so many moments I want to call out as effective character-building or relationship-changing moments or just really cool scenes – but they would all be spoilers. Suffice it to say that I cried once or twice, but also cheered. The final chapters are a whirlwind of action and emotion. And, for those concerned: NO CLIFFHANGER. Everything important is resolved. Which doesn’t mean there aren’t unanswered questions – it’s an on-going series, after all.

The book contains the usual bonus novella, this time narrated by Rayseline. I don’t want to say too much about it so as to not spoil certain moments in the main novel, but I will say this: while I am not a believer that every villain needs a tragic backstory followed by a redemption arc, I do think Rayseline, like Simon before her, deserves the redemption arc she is on. This novella is an excellent start to that, the events of the main novel notwithstanding.

Final note: The eighteenth book in the series, The Innocent Sleep, releases in October of this year, and tells many of the events of this book from the POV of Toby’s husband Tybalt. I’ll be posting my review of that close to, if not on, release date.

I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Sleep No More released September 5, 2023.

Book Review: SOMEONE ELSE'S STORY

TITLE: Someone Else’s Story

AUTHOR: Laird Ryan States

128 pages, The Seventh Terrace, ISBN 9781990082245 (paperback, e-book)

MY RATING:  5 stars out of 5

REVIEW: Someone Else’s Story perfectly melds various types of horror (gothic, cosmic, body) with the classic stylings of the weird pulp genre in a sharp, fast-paced story that touches on the ways in which we lie to ourselves and others to protect ourselves from the pains of our past and sometimes our present.

Tom Bradstreet: investigative journalist with a death wish; occasional troubleshooter for a British spy agency that keeps tabs on the supernatural; unwilling immortal; and usually the supporting character in other people’s adventures. Having exiled himself to Edmonton, Canada to drink himself to oblivion, Tom thinks he’s out of the spy game, but they pull him back in to investigate a controversial artist named William S. Frankenstein, whose works are pure body horror and whose abilities may be supernatural.

Tom is, personality-wise, a contemporary of characters like John Constantine and Harry Dresden: world-weary, acerbic, keeping people who could love him at an emotional distance while at the same time feeling every emotional high and low relationships bring. His character comes through clearly in every line, a bit lovable despite his clear attempts to be otherwise.

The main antagonist is exactly who you think he is, but there are layers to his characterization that develop him beyond the way he’s usually presented in sequels to the work he originally appeared in. He is just as world-weary as Tom but is far angrier about it. I enjoyed the juxtaposition between the two in how they see the world, how they cope with their own personal histories, and how they deal with the world around them. Frankenstein’s wife is also an intriguing character and if I have any complaint about the book, it’s that we didn’t get a deeper look inside her thoughts and motivations. Then again, maybe that’s a good thing, because she was easily the scariest part of the book.

Forewarned being forearmed, readers should note that there is a lot of graphic gore and violence throughout the book, as indicated by the mention of body horror earlier. Fans of body horror especially will enjoy this book, but so will fans of occult detectives, cosmic horror, and classic horror. States brings it all together satisfactorily. This is the first Laird Ryan States book I’ve read, and now I plan to seek out his earlier work.

I received an advance reading copy of this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Someone Else’s Story published July 7, 2023.

Book Review: PERILOUS TIMES

TITLE: Perilous Times

AUTHOR: Thomas D. Lee

485 pages, Ballantine Books, ISBN 9780593499016 (hardcover; also e-book and audiobook)

MY RATING:  4 stars out of 5

Perilous Times by Thomas D. Lee blends Arthurian tropes with a near-future, post-climate change dystopia which asks, among other ideas, how bad things need to become before King Arthur returns as prophesied. The “once and future king,” said to be destined to return in the time of England’s greatest peril, has yet to reappear – despite two world wars and multiple other conflicts that surely could have benefitted from Arthur’s strength and expertise. Along the way, the novel also investigates the nature of heroism, the ways in which doing the right thing sometimes leads to the wrong result, and how hard it is to alter our own ingrained beliefs and sense of self-worth.

Lee tweaks the “Arthur will return” trope by giving us a version of our world in which it is not Arthur but his core knights, ensorcelled by Merlin, who secretly return when England is in peril. Kay, Lancelot, Galehaut, and others find themselves occasionally revived long enough to do what needs doing to preserve the realm. This time, Kay and Lancelot, who have a not-pleasant history, find themselves on opposite sides of a battle between a group of environmentalists (and other revolutionaries) and the oil barons and oligarchs who control a collapsing political state and whose policies have resulted in a flooded, impoverished, crippled “United Kingdom.” Equally important to the narrative are Miriam, the idealistic but insecure environmentalist Kay rescues from death when he first awakens; Regan, an older friend of Miriam with secrets of her own; and Lancelot’s also-immortal government spymaster Marlowe (yes, that Marlowe).

Into the already near-apocalyptic world the characters inhabit (Lee’s descriptions of flooded towns, disease- and prejudice-plagued refugee camps, and massive oil rigs are viscerally palpable) comes magic that may save the world or may doom it. The magic is as much of a threat as the changed climate is, depending on who ends up wielding it. At the heart of many Arthurian retellings is the idea of “Might for Right” (as opposed to “might makes right”) and Lee plays with that concept throughout the book, with characters debating the proper use, if any, of force to solve problems. The various POV characters allow for a nuanced discussion in the context of many of our current societal problems – not just climate change, but white supremacy, xenophobia, misogyny, and more.

Lee also gives us a more diverse cast than traditional Arthurian retellings (a trend I’ve noticed the past handful of years and for which I’m happy): Miriam is a woman of color; her peers include an older woman, a transgender character, and a lesbian couple; Kay, Arthur’s adoptive brother, is a man of color with pagan beliefs; Lancelot is homosexual (and yes, Lee does give us an in-flashback tweak to the standard Camelot love-triangle). This allows the author to explore the idea of who gets to be a “hero” and how that might be perceived by less open-minded people. Through Kay and Lancelot, the author also gets to investigate how we process grief and grudges and what both might look like for the eternally reincarnated.

Arthurian purists, who want the king and his knights portrayed only in the noblest of lights, may want to pass this one up because the author does not shy away from showing the characters’ flaws. But for those like me who enjoy retellings in which “infallible” legends are revealed as having been fallible/human should pick this up, as should those who like their fantasy creatures mixed with modern real-world concerns.

I received an advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Perilous Times published on May 23, 2023.

Book Review: THE SALT GROWS HEAVY

TITLE: The Salt Grows Heavy

AUTHOR: Cassandra Khaw

106 pages, Tor Nightfire, ISBN 9781250830913 (hardcover, e-book, audiobook)

MY RATING:  4 stars out of 5

The Salt Grows Heavy cements Cassandra Khaw as one of the modern masters of the horror novella. Tonally, the book is very different from Khaw’s magnificent, ethereal 2021 novella Nothing but Blackened Teeth, which just proves the author’s range, as both books kept me engrossed through very different means.

Salt is narrated by a mermaid who married a king, but this is no happily-ever-after tale. The King has tortured his wife (including cutting out her tongue) and forced her to bear his daughters who, just prior to the start of the novella, have devoured their father, his court, and most of his kingdom. Among the survivors are the now-free mermaid and the court’s mysterious non-binary Plague Doctor, who flee the castle in search of safe haven. Which, this being a horror novella, they do not find, encountering instead a group of nearly feral children and the men they worship as gods. And this is when the story gets really disturbing.

The mermaid’s narrative voice is lush and detailed, bordering on archaic, while still being relatable to the modern reader. The weight of her experiences at her husband’s hands, the pride and fear she expressed about her daughters, inform every sentence. The developing bond between mermaid queen and plague doctor as they learn each other’s secrets, is the beautiful core of an otherwise horrific and bloody story; the fits and starts of awkward mutual attraction are so real that I recognized myself in each moment. But fair warning: this is not a cozy romance. The mermaid also narrates, in visceral detail, moments of brutal body horror that disturbed me even while I was unable to look away. The mermaid and the Plague Doctor each have experienced debilitating trauma at the hands of people who should have cared for them, through which the author explores the abuses of power endemic to so many fairy tales.

In The Salt Grows Heavy, Cassandra Khaw comingles threads and themes from fairy tales both famous (The Little Mermaid) and less-so (The Three Army Surgeons), along with works as seminal as Frankenstein and The Lord of the Flies – a combination which in lesser hands maybe would not work, but in Khaw’s hands becomes a vessel for exploring othering, outsidership, and the myriad ways in which we find ourselves controlled and confined.

I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The Salt Grows Heavy was published on May 2, 2023

Book Review: THE HITHERTO SECRET EXPERIMENTS OF MARIE CURIE

TITLE: The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie

EDITORS: Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Henry Herz

350 pages, Blackstone Publishing, ISBN 9781665047036 (hardcover, also e-book and audio)

MY RATING:  5 stars out of 5

SHORT REVIEW: An excellent collection of stories that consider what might have happened had Marya Skłodowska (who grew up to be Marie Curie) used her scientific knowledge to combat threats to her family and friends. While most of the stories feature a supernatural threat, a few are more standard mysteries. The tales are grounded in the truths of Marya’s childhood: the early deaths of her mother and elder sister, the Russian occupation of Warsaw, and the lack of public education for girls. Many of the stories are followed by author’s notes explaining the science Marya uses to solve problems and help her friends, which I hope will add to the editors’ intent of inspiring children, especially girls, to go into STEM fields.

LONGER REVIEW: The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie posits a world in which the teenage Marie Curie, née Skłodowska, uses her scientific knowledge to protect family and friends from threats ranging from murderers to the supernatural. While a few of the stories stray from the concept (either by not including a science-based solution to the problem, or by having the title character do something downright villainous), most fit the bill.

Marya Skłodowska grew up in Warsaw, which was then under Russian dominion. Girls were only allowed to attend school to a certain age, and Poles were treated by the Russians as second-class citizens in their own city. When laboratory instruction in the sciences was removed from the curricula for Polish students, Marya and some of her peers attended a “flying university” that changed locations to avoid Russian detection. Most of the stories take place during the time Marya and her friends were students at a regular “gymnasia” (school) for Polish girls, but a few take place during the “flying university” years, and at least one during the year Marya spent living with relatives in the Polish countryside. Only one (“The Beast” by Stacia Deutsch) features an adult Marie Curie and is a neat twist on the typical time-travel story.

The volume opens with “Uncrowned Kings” by Seanan McGuire, who herself knows more than just a little bit about using hard science in science fiction and horror. After the death of her eldest sister by typhus, Marya stops believing in God and starts trusting in science. When something that seems like typhus rears its ugly head six years later but only affecting children and teens including another of her sisters, Marya follows the evidence to find the true source of this latest scourge: a mythical rat-king in the sewers. McGuire’s tale sets the tone of the book perfectly: showcasing Marya’s determination to not let others fall victim to preventable disease, her curiosity about the scientific underpinnings of the universe, her devotion to family and friends, all ensconced in a story that includes some fantastical element. “The Cold White Ones” by Susanne L. Lambdin also uses the return of typhus to Warsaw as a launching point but with a different supernatural problem at the core.

Marya’s grief and anger over the untimely deaths of her mother and eldest sister, Zofia, are palpable in many of the stories, not just McGuire’s. Sometimes the emotions spur the action, sometimes the action helps Marya process her grief – I’m thinking particularly here of Alethea Kontis’ beautiful “Marya’s Monster,” in which Marya returns from a St. Andrew’s Day birthday party to encounter a wolf-like monster under her bed. I don’t want to say too much more about how the story progresses, except that it is a stunning look at how we process grief and loss.

Other favorites in the anthology that feature a supernatural menace of some sort as Mylo Cabria’s “Three Ravens,” Scott Sigler’s “A Glow in the Dark,” and Jonathan Maberry’s “The Night Flyers,” which closes on the book on as solid a note as McGuire’s story opened it, focusing as it does on the other bane of Marya’s existence: the Russian overlords controlling Warsaw. The story is especially affecting as in 2023 we watch Russia’s continued war on Ukraine.

Not every story features a supernatural element. In “The Magic of Science,” co-editor Bryan Thomas Schmidt teams with author G.P. Charles to give us a wonderful “cozy mystery:” a girl in Marya’s dorm wakes up to discover her skin has turned blue. Later that day, a cook at the school dies. Supernatural explanations are put forward by her fellow students, but Marya is sure there is a rational scientific explanation. There is, and the path to it is well-developed, a very “fair play” kind of mystery. Steve Pantazis’ “The Prize” also seems to lack, or at least downplays, a supernatural element, pitting Marya and a rival classmate against the impending death of the classmate’s father by metal poisoning.

Many of the stories are followed with an explanation of the science that underpins the story, which I think enhances the book’s ability to interest young readers in the sciences and encourage them, especially young girls, to pursue STEM studies.

I received an electronic advance review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie was published on April 11, 2023.

Novellas and the Romance Genre

I had the pleasure of getting to know romance author Ginny Frost at a writers retreat a couple of years ago. Since a lot of her work is novella length, I invited her to be a guest here and talk about her relationship with novellas and how they fit in the romance genre.

I’m Ginny Frost, and I write sexy books. Romance is my genre of choice because I love a love story. You know, the part where they fall in love? Whether it’s Elizabeth and Darcy or Han and Leia, the genre calls to me. The novella works wonderfully for love stories.

For me, the shorter format allows me to get to the point of the tale fast. And the point is falling in love. Novellas allow me as an author to focus on the romance (sexy stuff or not). I can write the details about their fears, wants, and needs without having to establish a lengthy backstory. My characters fall into bed quickly and then sort everything else out afterward. Keeping the story concise forces me to push the characters to deal with their issues. They can’t languish in ennui. They must move the plot forward!

Being able to write a short, fulfilling tale is an art form. As a writer, we need to convey everything to our readers in under 40,000 words. Novellas challenge us to tighten our writing and find new ways to express complex ideas. Not to mention, they are much easier to edit than a 100,000-word monster. But I digress…

Recently, there’s been a trend in romance to do MAPs—multi-author projects. Several writers will publish a series of novellas using the same setting, prop, or theme. I’ve taken part in two MAPs and love having my short pieces exposed to other readers. (Wow, that sounded dirty. Good thing I write spicy!) My most recent novella is part of a magical series with seven books. With the shorter format, all seven of us were able to produce and self-pub the novellas within a year. We had time to work on other projects because the stories were under 40,000 words.

Let’s talk about pricing. Unfortunately, the trend is for authors to sell books at a minimum profit. Readers want free or $0.99 titles. It’s hard to mark your work for only a dollar when it takes years to write it. Novellas are a terrific way to lure readers with a book in a low price range. Readers are willing to try out a new author for a dollar. Short works under $2 can entice readers to check you out and then grab that $20 “book of your heart” later.

As a reader, I love the novella. It’s short and sweet. It gives you a taste of the author’s work. With many book titles available, novellas help me weed through the masses to find hidden gems. Romance is not the only genre using this format. I’ve read sci-fi and cozy mystery novellas. These authors show off their skills by creating a satisfying story in such few words. (I’m looking at you, Martha Wells.)

My conclusion? In a world with millions of authors to choose from, mastering the novella format will get eyes on your books. Read widely to see how other authors squeeze a full story into 40k. Then go do it. You won’t regret a thing.

Thanks for letting me visit today. Check out my books here, including my $0.99 newest novella, Artist. I’m all over social media—Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I’ve got a fantastic blog for authors called Apps for Writers. And if you like a free book, check out my newsletter for a free prequel to Stonewater Stories.

Ginny Frost is a hybrid author with two traditionally published novels and seven indie titles. She writes contemporary romance with a sexy, funny kick. In her downtime, she plays clerk at the local library—the perfect job to feed her reading addiction. She lives in upstate NY with her very own kindhearted ogre, their two smart and sassy daughters, and an evil cat named Flash.

So Who Publishes Novellas These Days?

When genre readers think of novellas, they tend to think of either TorDotCom, who release a steady stream of awards-nominated novellas every year (including this week’s release Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo, which I’ll be reviewing later today, and next week’s The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi), or of magazines like Asimov’s, AnalogSF, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction which have regularly featured novelettes and novellas in their monthly content over their decades of publication.

But there are plenty of other magazines and small press publishers bringing out novellas every year in a variety of genres, and I’d like to mention some of them. This is far from a complete list, and I encourage readers to mention any I don’t in the comments!

Neon Hemlock Press puts out novellas in the horror/SF/fantasy genres, with a focus on LGBTQIA+ creators and stories. They are currently in the last days of their annual novella crowdfunding event, where you can back (a.k.a. preorder) their 2023 slate in print and/or e-book formats. Go check them out before the crowdfunding effort ends on Thursday, March 16th at 4pm.

Speaking of queer-focused publishers: several items in the catalogs of both Lethe Press (including Octavia Cade’s The Stone Weta) and Rebel Satori Press are novella-length, spanning all the genres of speculative fiction and moving into historical, romance and mimetic fiction as well.

Looking novel-length queer romance? Check out Bold Stroke Books. I’m a particular fan of ‘Nathan Burgoine’s “Little Village” novella series, and I’ve been meaning to check out some of their lesbian romance novella collections.

Stelliform Press’s novellas focus on the on-going climate emergency and intersectional views of environmental justice, and range in genre from horror (The House of Drought by Dennis Mombauer) to fantastic science fiction (Weird Fishes by Rae Mariz), and every point in between. Their latest, Another Life by Sarena Ulibarri, comes out May 25th.

If the classics and mimetic fiction are more your thing, look no further than Melville House Publishing. Their “Art of the Novella” collection reissues classic novellas, some in solo book form for the first time ever. They also have a “Contemporary Art of the Novella” series if you’re looking for modern mimetic works at novella length.

Aqueduct Press’ Conversation Pieces series brings feminist science fiction to the demanding reader. While not every volume in this long-running series is a novella (some are poetry or short story collections, others works of non-fiction), quite a few are. Recent releases include To The Woman in the Pink Hat by LaToya Jordan and Apollo Weeps by Xian Mao.

On the mystery side of things, The Mysterious Bookshop’s Bibliomysteries series are usually novelette length excursions into everything from noir to cozy mysteries.

And in addition to the magazines listed at the start of this post, I would be remiss in not mentioning Clarkesworld, which also regularly includes novellas in their pages.

It's NOVELLA MONTH!

For no other reason than “I feel like it,” I’m declaring March “Novella Month” here on the blog. As far as I can tell, there is no month-long celebration of what has become for me, and many of the readers I know, my favorite length for fiction. Among the writers I know and whose work I love, a good many excel and revel in the novella realm. My goal for the month is to simply celebrate the form with book reviews, quotes from other readers, and hopefully some guest-posts by or interviews with novella writers, editors, or publishers, regardless of genre. I’ll use the hashtag #NovellaMonth when I post on social media.

So What Is a Novella?

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) define novellas as ranging from 17,500 to 40,000 words, and most other genre fiction awards/organizations appear to agree: the Hugo Awards, the Romance Writers of America RITA Awards, British Fantasy Awards, Paris Literary Prize, the Nero Wolfe Society’s Black Orchid Award, and the Shirley Jackson Awards to name a few alongside SFWA’s Nebula Awards. (The Horror Writers Association’s Stoker Awards lump novellas and novelettes into a “Best Long Fiction” category.)   Even sites that simply discuss the definition of novella quote or refer to the SFWA definition. Some blogs stretch the upper limit to 50,000 words, but none of the major recognized awards seem to. In terms of page length, if the average single-spaced page has approximately 500 words, novellas would range from 35 to 80 or 100 pages.

Per a few conversations with fellow writers, stories in the 150-200 page range tend to be described as “short novels” (for instance, C.S.E. Cooney’s wonderful The Twice-Drowned Saint, recently re-released by Mythic Delirium Books). In my mind even 150-180 page length work fits under the novella umbrella – but I’m not the one creating literature awards season criteria, so take that for what it’s worth. (Also, please don’t come at me with “that’s not a novella!” if I review or talk about books that are less than 50 pages or more than 100 under the #NovellaMonth tag. It’s not a hill worth fighting over, I promise.)

What Is It About Novellas, anyway?

For me, the joy of novellas is that they can be the same type of quick reads as short stories (depending on my mood, other distractions/chores, etc.) but with the world-building and characterizational depth of novels. Robert Silverberg, whose long out-or-print collection To Open The Sky is one of my most-often re-read books, composed of 5 linked novellas originally published in Galaxy magazine, said it more eloquently, in the introduction to his collection Sailing to Byzantium: “[The novella] is one of the richest and most rewarding of literary forms...it allows for more extended development of theme and character than does the short story, without making the elaborate structural demands of the full-length book. Thus it provides an intense, detailed exploration of its subject, providing to some degree both the concentrated focus of the short story and the broad scope of the novel.”

I’m pretty sure I loved the form before I consciously knew what it was, even having read To Open the Sky for the first time sometime in 5th or 6th grade, although I readily admit that the novellas we were assigned to read in high school didn’t work for me – another quick internet search shows that English Class favorites like The Old Man and The Sea (26,601 words), Of Mice and Men (29,160) and Ethan Frome (34,500) all fall into that definition of novella up above. I struggled with all of them in high school (with apologies to Eugenia DelCampo and the other wonderful English teachers I had), probably due less to quality than to the fact that I have never liked being told what I had to read. I’ve never attempted to read those books again. Perhaps I should give them a second chance. On the other hand, one of my most-reread classics is A Christmas Carol, which clocks in at 28,500, and I also loved The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (25,500), both of which were assigned/recommended by my high school English teachers.

I had no idea that these books were anything other than really short novels – until I read Stephen King’s collection Different Seasons, sometime in 1982 or ’83, in which’s Afterword he discussed how hard it was to get stories of this length published, being too long for the short story magazines and too short for book publishers. That has shifted a lot in the last ten years as many small press publishers, and even some of the bigger houses, are more than happy to publish novellas as stand-alone books rather than in collections. (I’m planning to run a list of such publishers, with a focus on the small presses, sometime this month.)

To Novella or Not Novella?

As a writer, all my published work has been in the short story realm, perhaps bordering into novelette. I’ve started two different novellas over the years, but they’re both incomplete. I haven’t been writing much fiction at all since at least 2018, but I’m thinking I might motivate myself to revisit one of those projects this month.

A small selection of the novellas I’ll be reading or reviewing this month (the bottom half of the pile have already been read)

So, reader friends – what do you love about the novella form? What are your favorite novellas? Please weigh in in the comments. Maybe you’ll introduce me to something new – or maybe you’ll convince me to re-read one of those classics I struggled with in high school!

Book Review: THE RED LAMP

TITLE: The Red Lamp

AUTHOR: Mary Roberts Rinehart

312 pages, American Mystery Classics, ISBN 9781613161029 (softcover, hardcover)

MY RATING:  3 stars out of 5

SHORT REVIEW: The atmospheric “seaside gothic” setting, a plethora of interesting potential suspects, and the possibility of supernatural activity in The Red Lamp make up for the repeated instances of the main character being in the wrong place at the wrong time in this mystery from “the American Agatha Christie” Mary Roberts Rinehart. If you can get past the main character’s frequent mis-steps and overuse of the “if only we had known how important [item] would be” trope, the rest of the cast, as well as the setting itself, will pull you in and make for a mostly enjoyable read.

LONGER REVIEW: The Red Lamp is narrated by literature professor William Porter mostly through the use of a journal he kept during a particularly troublesome summer holiday on the property he inherits after his Uncle Horace dies. Locals insist the house is haunted. Porter is skeptical, but can’t deny weird stuff is going on, especially when local sheep are ritualistically slaughtered and a volunteer deputy goes missing. Porter can’t help being in the wrong place at the wrong time multiple times throughout the book, becoming the chief suspect as disappearances and bodies pile up.

And that’s what I struggled with the most with this book: just how many times can a man who knows he’s under suspicion and being watched realistically put himself in situations that only increase the police’s suspicions. If it were being played for humor, as a pastiche of period mystery novels, I might feel differently, but there’s no indication Rinehart was sending up the genre or herself. Porter complains of his rising anxiety over being suspected often enough that at one point I actually shouted, “Then stop going places alone!”

I also was not a fan of the overuse of the trope where the narrator interrupts his own journal with phrases like “if only we’d realized at the time how important [thing] would be later…” as if the author didn’t trust her audience to pick up on clues, or as if the narrator is asking the reader for forgiveness for his overweening cluelessness.

What did I like about the book? The atmosphere of the seaside setting. The large manor house and smaller lodge and boathouse are all as much characters as the humans, and the rural surroundings of wood and farmland and dirt roads add a nice sense of menace at key moments. I liked the slow development of the possible supernatural aspect and how the author kept me wondering right up to the end as to whether the big reveal would be supernatural, mundane, or a combination of both. The broad cast of characters, from Porter’s “psychically sensitive” wife, lovesick niece and the niece’s heroic love interest, to the suspicious local doctor, neighboring “recently rich” couple and fairly incompetent police, kept me guessing and provided plenty of suspects outside of the protagonist to choose from.

What I liked and what I didn’t like ultimately balanced each other out. I think had the book been about a quarter shorter in length, with fewer contrivances to make the narrator the chief suspect, I would have enjoyed it more.

This book has been on my shelves in one form or another for quite a few years, having picked up older paperback editions at various used bookstores. American Mystery Classics brought it back into print a few years back, and it’s that edition that I added to my TBR Challenge as an alternate title last year. It’s the title from last year I didn’t read, so I made sure it was first on this year’s challenge. I’m glad I read it, despite the flaws. Mary Roberts Rinehart has been called “the American Agatha Christie” and according to some accounts even outsold Dame Agatha. American Mystery Classics has been steadily bringing her catalog back into print, and I intend to read a few more of her titles, probably with one of her series characters.