|
There's no doubt that book lengths have increased over the years, at least in science fiction and fantasy. Back in the 30's/40's when most fiction in the genre was serialized in the magazines, a novel was often 40-50K words.
By the 70's most genre novels were up around 60K or more - and hovering around 180-210 pages in paperback. However, as the 70's ended, the growing popularity of big fat fantasies such as The Sword of Shannara, led to a steady growth in the length of fantasy novels, and to a lesser degree SF.
By the time the 90's rolled around, most SF/Fantasy that I saw (and I was managing a bookstore then) seemed to be running around 3-400 pages, or 75-100K words, and lengths seem to have stabilized in that range at least as far as the BPHs are concerned.
|