A Little Investment, A Lot of Payoff

I have noticed a trend that has become much more prominent with the rise of the e-book, and that is the prevalence of the novella.  What is a novella you ask, the definition is: a short novel or long short story...which is kind of oxymoronic.  I like to think of a novella as a way for author to explore a side character, give out a bit of a history, contemplate the future, or add and extra story to flavor a beloved series or book. I will usually consider something a novella when it hits between the 50-100 page mark.  Anything shorter to me is a short story, anything longer a full novel.  I have a couple of novellas in print form, but most of them I have found are available almost exclusively as ebooks.  This makes sense because you don't have to pay full blown publishing and printing costs for a small book, it also allows you to put the story out for cheap, or sometimes even free as either a way to hook new readers, or maybe just a thank you to already loyal readers.  Here are a couple of my favorite novellas both in electronic and hard copy form.

The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland-For a Little While-This is a story about Mallow one of the characters in The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making.  It gives you a tiny bit of her history and shows how she became ruler of Fairyland.  It also gives you a bit of the history of the Green Wind which I really liked.  This is a bit of a dark story, not really one I would read to my young nephews, but the amazing words and beautiful imagery that made so many people fall in love with the first book are all present in this great little package.

Countdown-This handy little novella give you the history behind the zombie uprising in the Newsflesh trilogy. I read this before I started the actual books to see if it was something I wanted to get into, and let me tell you, by the end I was hooked!  This gives a blow by blow account of the events leading up to the Uprising, and introduces us to some characters that play a huge roll in the books.  I would recommend this to anyone who is trying to decide weather to start this series or not...or anybody who has read it and wants to know the specifics of the virus.

The Coelura-This was the first novella I ever remember reading, I was on a Anne McCaffery obsession (one that has never ended I'm happy to say) and I was sad that it was so short.  That being said the author used this short book to build this insanely rich and amazing universe, and set a great story smack into the middle of it.  She eventually wrote a second book in this same universe about 15 years later, Nimisha's Ship which together with the novella are two of my favorite Sci-Fi stories ever.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard-This fun little book helps all of us Potterphiles prolong our utter addiction to the universe that is Harry Potter.  These clever tales which were mentioned in the main books help us enter the wizarding world that much more.  The added commentary by Dumbledore adds a lot of flavor and ties it into the series as a whole very well.  It is not another Harry Potter story, but rather a piece of his world that we can all read.

Errant-Is a novella is part of the Killer Unicorn series. This story is set in the 18th century, much earlier than the modern times the rest of the series is set in.  You can read this without having read the full books, which is a good way to see if you are interested in the series or not.  I like this novella because it drives home the ancientness (that's a word right?) of this unicorn killing business.

Hopefully these have inspired you to go try a new series or author.  These cheap (or free) quick reads do not require a huge investment of time or money, and who knows you may just end up with a new favorite!

What do you think of novellas?  Have you ever started a series or author because of a novella?  Do you have to buy all the accessory books to your favorite series for it to feel complete?