How Long Do You Think a Sci-fi Novel Should Be?

[JWT]

I know there are many outstanding science fiction novels that run to 500 pages or more, and plenty of readers love immersing themselves in those worlds. Personally, I find myself gravitating towards shorter, tighter novels of around 225 to 300 pages that get to the point without sacrificing the story.

When you’re choosing a new sci-fi novel, do you have a preferred length? Does a very long book make you more or less likely to buy it, or does the page count not matter if the story is good?

Does your answer change depending on whether you’re reading on a Kindle or reading a paperback? For example, I sometimes wonder whether people are happier tackling a 500-page novel on a Kindle than they would be carrying around the same book in paperback.

John Westley Turnbull

[Quoth]

As long as it needs to be.

I have no preferred length for any genre, though I find "murder mysteries" that don't have a murder till 1/2 way through a bit odd. Often that is building the repeating protagonists in the start of a series and can work.

Some multibook series are not really series as it's a single main story and can seem too long with deliberate cliff hangers. The 14 volume "The Wheel of Time" might be better as 5.

Some long books are good and some seem padded.
The Magician was one of Raymond Fiest's earlier works and later revised. It's a bit long, but splitting it in two for the USA market doesn't really work although there is a big shift in the story.

OTOH The original Foundation trilogy was created from serials and could work as a single omnibus, yet the much longer 1980s to 1990s Foundation books are huge, yet nearly worthless. I think the publisher pestered him to return to writing SF and IMO combining the "Robot" and "Foundation" universes explicity was a mistake.

Very many of the classic SF of 1930s to 1950s can't be much more than 70K words. In contrast I find Iain M. Banks, Peter Hamilton, Ken MacLeod etc a bit tedious.

Dune (1965 /1966) was maybe one of the first longer SF, but really if it didn't have space travel it would be rated as Epic Fantasy as it's essentially magic based. Fantasy was often still traditional novel length even in 1970s (though exceptions existed).

Romance and Detective/Mystery novels have hardly changed in length in the last 100 years and are still the most popular. Adventure / Thrillers have got much longer compared to 19th C to 1950s.

[Quoth]

Possibly the change from typewriter to text editor during the 1980s facilitates longer novels.

I used to have to type weekly reports on a typewriter and I have written long hand. I'd not recommend those! Jota on an Android phone with a BT keyboard is better.

I'll dig out the typewriter and build a rotary duplicator if civilisation utterly collapses.

[JSWolf]

I prefer reading on my Kobo then I do a pBook or Kindle. The book can be as long as it needs to be. However, some books can be overly lone because they have too many long descriptive passages.

One thing that make a difference is the formatting on screen. It has to be enjoyable and the default Kindle formatting is not enjoyable. I edit eBooks so they are enjoyable to read. But the Kindle changes that and make it less enjoyable to read.

Yes I can do things to make a Kindle more enjoyable to read. But with the current firmware on the newer Kindles, that's becoming an issue. I have to use KF8 to get a smaller line height. But KF8 does not have kerning. KFX forces a fixed line height so that's not enjoyable.

[rantanplan]

How Long Do You Think a Sci-fi Novel Should Be?

That's a strange question and the only way I can think of to answer it is YES.

[Sirtel]

Generally I prefer longer books in any genre, including SF. This doesn't mean I don't buy or read shorter books, but I do have a tendency to choose longer works. My eyes lit up at the thought of a big, juicy 1000-pages SF novel.

I almost never read paper books these days, but when I did, my preference still was for longer books.

[rjwse@aol.com]

I went to school in Waco. One of the city's claim to fame was Madison Cooper who had written The World's Longest Novel, "Sironia, Texas." It turns out it was actually not the longest, that in the 19th century it was common to have triple-decker stories, books so long that it was expedient to bind them into 3 covers. Star Wars has turned into endless blather, so has Star Trek and Dune. When you encounter a good thing it is natural to want more. And what happens? The good original story gets watered down, diluted, eventually destroyed. I think a good story finds its own length. If well-written and self-encompassing, that could mean extra-short to extra-long. When you finish it, guess what? You want more and don't want it to end, but if you do get more, guess what? It's too long and ruined.

[Yapyap]

I’m also in the “as long as it needs to be” camp.

That isn’t to say “as long as the author can manage to make it” (every book can benefit from proper editing; plenty of books in the world that could have used tighter editing), but in general, I like longer books (or book series), especially when it comes to the science fiction & fantasy genres, as I enjoy both world-building (which doesn’t necessarily mean endless descriptions) as well as more quiet “character” scenes, not just nonstop action.

I’ve never wanted to read thick paperbacks though, regardless of genre. Never been a fan of paperbacks in general but thick ones are just even more uncomfortable to hold open and read than thin ones.

Thick, well bound hardcovers with proper spines (bundles stitched together .. whatever all that is called in English, section sewn binding?; not just having a bunch of paper pages glued together) .. sure, thick ones are no problem either.

[DrNefario]

I tend to think a "normal" length book, these days, is about 350 pages.

If I'm trying a new writer I probably wouldn't want anything longer than that without strong recommendations.

I'm perfectly happy with shorter books, and with multi-volume series.

It has also been said that maybe the novella is the perfect length for SF. Enough space to get the idea across and then get out. Dune started as a novella. Flowers for Algernon is arguably better in its novella form. Etc.

I guess for high-concept SF I probably don't want it to be too long. Longer series are for something you relax into, like a fantasy epic or a space opera.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

It has also been said that maybe the novella is the perfect length for SF. Enough space to get the idea across and then get out. Dune started as a novella. Flowers for Algernon is arguably better in its novella form. Etc.

I don't read novellas at all, whatever their genre. There are a few exceptions, but very, very few.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Quoth

As long as it needs to be.

Originally Posted by Yapyap

I’m also in the “as long as it needs to be” camp.

This is where I'm at too. I don't have a length preference for novels (the length of a series tends to matter greatly to me however!)

It's down to how well an author can hold my interest. Too much treading (and retreading of) water and I'm out. I've read doorstopper tomes that were too short and novellas that were too long.

It's one of the reason I like reading ebooks with no visible progress indicator. Knowing how close (or far) I am to the end tends to unduly influence my opinion of how the author is doing thus far.

[icallaci]

I am also in the "as long as it needs to be" camp, but my observation is that books have been getting progressively shorter lately. I read fast, so shorter books sometimes end just as I am getting involved, which means that, like Sirtel, I generally prefer longer books.

[j.p.s]

In addition to being in the "as long as it needs to be" camp, I am not happy that there are books out there that are longer or shorter than "they need to be" because they were written to meet some page count target.

[JSWolf]

A good example of a books that is extremely too long in Battlefield Earth. It should have ended a lot sooner then it did. It was just way too wordy and went on for way too long.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

A good example of a books that is extremely too long in Battlefield Earth.

The problem there, though, is that cutting it to the proper length of quality writing would result in a book that consisted of nothing but covers, title page, and copyright page.

Hard to sell something like that even at $0.50 in the bargain bin.