Series of science fiction novels

[mtbc]

A fortnight ago I mentioned reading the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic. Not only is it a good piece of science fiction but it is also a slender volume, my library's copy coming in at under 150 pages. It has been some time since I read, say, Matheson's I Am Legend but I doubt that's much larger. Decent fiction need not be lengthy. It is not as if even Orwell's 1984 is all that fat a book.

These days a high fraction of acclaimed science fiction novels appear to be fat volumes. That is okay: it gives me a good few hours' reading. However, they are also either obviously part of a larger series (cycle or whatever) or less obviously so: I should learn to be less surprised when they reference events I don't know then end inconclusively. I am all for having plenty to read but if I am new to the author then I am not about to invest quite that much time in them to get a complete story, especially when so many are mediocre.

What happened? Did we reduce the tax on words or fire all the editors? Am I looking at the wrong publishers? I don't mind sequels per se, nor do I mind reuse of built worlds: e.g., Banks' Use of Weapons is not his first Culture novel but hardly benefits from one having read others. Or I don't mind when one can stop early without missing much, probably occurring when it was not yet clear there would be a sequel, except that is not easy to tell at a glance.

Much as I liked, say, Egan's Axiomatic I need not restrict myself to short stories. I would simply like to find the section of the library that offers us science fiction novels that do not expect us to read a set of related books; I fear that they would not need much space to house that subset. In the meantime I find myself looking out for reprints of classics that I missed the first time around, back when authors could still fit a story into one book.

Comments

[mindstalk]

It is widely claimed that on average consumers want longer novels, as being more bang for their buck. I've known individuals who say just that about themselves. And of course computers mean it's easier to edit a longer novel without having to re-type things repeatedly.

Re-using characters and setting has obvious benefits for both author and reader. Deliberately telling a multi-book story has the standard "see what happens next" serialization benefit.

Bujold is an excellent SF author who's like Pratchett in writing standalone novels that re-use characters.