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

[DNSB]

Fredric Brown was a master of the short-short story.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Fredric Brown was a master of the short-short story.

Yep. He's the author of the two sentence 25 word story.

[DNSB]

The one that I still remember after too many years was one he wrote in 1948. 2 sentences, 15 words. It was later expanded but the original is the one that sticks in my mind.

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door...”
—Fredric Brown

[Dr. Drib]

And don't forget these two updated versions, special to Mobileread:


The last man on earth sat alone in a room. He realized there was no one else alive who could supply him with a Kobo Card Image.


The last man on earth sat alone in a room and rejoiced that there was no one left alive who would again ignore the Posting Guidelines.

[Adam Scribentis]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The one that I still remember after too many years was one he wrote in 1948. 2 sentences, 15 words. It was later expanded but the original is the one that sticks in my mind.

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door...”
—Fredric Brown

I remember reading that (the expanded version)!

[bdub]

The story should be as long as required to tell it.

I often reach for short fiction to read at lunch. I usually read short stories then. However, I'll read novels of all lengths.

If you do want shorter science fiction, look at books published in the 50s and 60s.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by bdub

The story should be as long as required to tell it.

…

If you do want shorter science fiction, look at books published in the 50s and 60s.

Yes.

Or books & short stories from 1920s to 1940s. Many on Gutenberg.

[Courant]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The one that I still remember after too many years was one he wrote in 1948. 2 sentences, 15 words. It was later expanded but the original is the one that sticks in my mind.

“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door...”
—Fredric Brown

That's an incomplete story. It reminds me of the shorter version of the monomyth: The hero fell into a hole. The hero got out of the hole. I forgot who said it, and couldn't find out by googling.

[DNSB]

To me that story stands alone. Yes, it does leave you thinking about who/what would be knocking on the door since the only person on Earth is sitting inside the room. A nice little horror story that leaves you thinking. You supply the details.

Your reasoning is likely why the story was later expanded though to me, the expansion was unnecessary.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

To me that story stands alone. Yes, it does leave you thinking about who/what would be knocking on the door since the only person on Earth is sitting inside the room.

Not the only person. The only man. It's clear that it was a woman knocking.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Not the only person. The only man. It's clear that it was a woman knocking.

True. Political correctness overcame me. I will admit that when I first read the flash story, I did not think of a woman. I thought about alien non-human beings, polite robots etc. I had already read quite a few of Fredric Brown's stories by that point ranging from his science fiction such as What Mad Universe to Martians, Go Home and The Mind Thing to his mysteries such The Screaming Mimi and Night of the Jabberwock which predisposed me to thinking that whatever knocked might not be human.

In the extended version, the Zan who knocked on the door was definitely not human though there were some biological similarities.

Sadly, since his wife and children renewed the copyright on the extended Knock story in 1968, it will not enter the public domain in the US until 2044.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

True. Political correctness overcame me. I will admit that when I first read the flash story, I did not think of a woman.

The language probably helped in this case. In English, there is a single word for both a member of Homo Sapiens and a male member of Homo Sapiens; in Estonian, these two are completely separate words, and the first thing that I think of, seeing the word "man", is man as in male. Because we have another word for just a human being.

[Sats]

Then there is a possibility than "man" refers to "adult male" as opposed to "boy" and there is some kind of plague that wipes all humans that hit 18 except that one *shrug* Or maybe they all migrated to Musk colony on Mars and Earth is uninhabitable... Man does not even has to refer to human man... Or living man, for that matter.

[DNSB]

Polite zombies?

[Sats]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Polite zombies?

Whyever not? Or the knocking person is alien, and the man is well preserved corpse in ancient tomb. And that assumes knocking has agency and is not a piece of crumbing masonry hitting the door before it, too, turns to dust.