Why are successful SF writers so susceptible to padding?

[DomaDoma]

So, I'm reading the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy. Needed a long, long cooldown from the Novels of the Change to take these characters' problems seriously, but that gives me a standard for comparison: ISOT's scenes all contribute to the story, and those that don't appear to be contributing at the moment (by which I exclusively mean Pete Giernas in book two) are kept to a decent minimum of pagetime. The Novels of the Change, by contrast, start dithering to the point of not requiring a cohesive build to an internal climax as early as book two.

It's quite the broad phenomenon, when I think on it. As his career progresses, Harry Turtledove's characters' mental stutters take over as though it's a progressive neurological condition. David Weber... yeah, I am never going to let him live down his 800-page suffocation of the eponymous events in Ashes of Victory, which is particularly insane when you consider the tightness of the first three Honor books. J.K. Rowling had the disorder in its early stages, and seems to have escaped the full devastation mainly by jumping ship to the mystery genre [we do not discuss Casual Vacancy in polite company.]

I haven't read any Stephen King published for the past fifteen years or so. I hope Mr. Conciseness hasn't gotten any worse than It or The Stand. Someone tell me.

The only thing I can say for sure is that this was not a thing before there was a de facto 300-page minimum on published novels. But as to why it seems to be endemic only to the speculative genres, I'm coming up blank.

[Traab]

I honestly cant say ive noticed. I mean, maybe I just happen to pick authors that dont do that very noticeably, or else they find a way to make the padding be of use and value to the overall story.

[Gnoman]

What you see as "padding", other people see as "characterization", or "worldbuilding", or "description". There is no inherent virtue in brevity, and a story that is just a quick zoom from point A to point B is often unfulfilling as a story.

I must confess that I don't see the problem with the authors you mention (all except the first, which I've never even heard of). Turtledove does tend to keep mentioning certain things about his characters, but he's also known for writing extremely long series (6 books for Derlavi, 5 for The War That Came Early, 8 for the combined Worldwar-Colonization-Homeward Bound Saga, 10 for the Timeline-191 epic, etc) with dozens of POV characters.

Bringing up character tics like he does are essential for reminding you which Polish Jew that decided to side with the alien invaders against the American-Nazi-Soviet-British alliance you're currently reading about, or helping you realize that you're looking through the eyes of the enlisted Confederate WWI veteran that got blacklisted by his superiors after he disgraced a Confederate aristocrat by proving to be right about his servant being a traitor, not the enlisted Confederate WWI veteran that spent months as a POW in a US hospital next to a black enlisted Confederate soldier and is starting to question the social structure the Confederacy is built upon. If you look at his shorter works with fewer characters (The Case Of The Toxic Spell Dump has one book and one POVC, Ruled Britannia is one book long and has only two POVCs, there's never more than two or three POVCs at any given time in the Atlantis trilogy) the "problem" is much less prominent.

I won't discuss Weber right now, as we already have an Honorverse thread going.

Harry Potter is fundamentally not about "Harry v. Voldemort", but about Harry's life as he goes from abused, bullied child to a fulfilled adult. It is fundamentally a boarding school story, and borrows heavily from them.

King is a heavily descriptive writer. That is what Stephen King fans want from him.


As to why the "problem" seems so much more common in speculative fiction, the answer is simple. Most speculative fiction makes no claim to high art, while a great deal of work outside of it does. The current trend in art and aesthetics is very much MINIMALISM IS GOD!, so only works that have no such pretentions will dare to allow wordiness.

[DomaDoma]

Plotwise, Harry Potter's core is mystery. Except perhaps book seven, which really was Harry vs. Voldemort and which easily gets the prize for dragging the most. I've seen no one but me defend the camping chapters, and I regard them as the Belly of the Whale. Apart from the Dumbledore revelations, I can't defend them on any of the grounds you listed (what worldbuilding they entail would flow much more readily if the heroes were in the thick of the world).

Now, Harry himself, yep, shy famous boy growing up who wants acceptance. Nothing pertaining to that can be deemed padding. And keep in mind that the first book of the Novels of the Change, Dies the Fire, goes into extreme detail about the handcrafts the characters need to pick up. ISOT goes perfectly well without in-depth discussions of sailing and whaling and the fine points of pre-Homeric Greek, but it's more immersive in the later series - gives more of a sense that the characters really have been thrust into another world. That's not what I'm talking about here.

It's the scene that's written to establish points all of which we have heard for the fifth time now. The friendly visit that's just a friendly visit, not so much as a philosophical discussion in sight. The entire subplot which, at best, could be cut and never missed, and at worst starts pressing pointless wrinkles into neighboring plots. The setup that takes so long, it's about as tense as an unused extension cord and the book, unable to pay it off before the sequel, has to hastily slap together something unrelated but suitably exciting for the end.

I'm talking about writing that has no discernible purpose - not for motion or for depth. And I'm wondering why it so often creeps up on the writing habits of SF writers who initially get it.

[veti]

It may be as simple as: publishers love padding. Higher pagecount translates directly to a higher cover price, which means more profit for all concerned. In extreme cases it may run to a whole separate book (or film, in the case of the final instalment of Harry Potter).

One example I encountered, quite recently, was Connie Willis's Blackout/All Clear. In Willis's defence (she's one of my favourite writers), there are a number of separate stories woven in there, and some of them are really good. But the barrier to reading them is pretty high.

[Rodin]

I always hear Ashes of Victory get a lot of crap, but it was actually the first book in the series I read (found in the parking lot of an Albertson's while I was pushing carts there for a summer job) and it got me interested enough to read the whole series. It's always been in my top 5 of the books, nestling somewhere in there with On Basilisk Station, Flag in Exile, Honor Among Enemies, and Echoes of Honor. Heck, I even consider it the capstone of the series - where he should have ended it and gone on to work on other universes.

[Ellen]

Years ago, I remember reading something a book reviewer said (quoting from probably-not-too-spot-on memory), "It's a little known fact that there are a lot of really good SF&F novels of about 150 pages being published these days. Unfortunately, most of them are hidden away in fairly mediocre novels of 300-500 pages."

Some people blame Tolkien. After he came along, everyone knew that REAL fantasy novels were at least two inches thick.

In the case of Rowling, I think she began to suffer a bit from her own success. No one was willing to tell her when the book needed a bit more editing to cut it down to size (to be fair, some editors may have felt like art critics who'd been told to tell Leonardo da Vinci to fix that weird smile on the Mona Lisa's face.

[Velaryon]

I'm not sure all of his novels really count as SF, but Neal Stephenson has got to be the worst I've ever seen at padding out his books with unnecessary stuff. The only one I ever finished was Cryptonomicon, which could have been told in a third of the pages that it actually was, if not less. I seem to remember him spending nearly two whole pages talking about just how much milk Randy likes in his corn flakes.

Anyway, part of the reason why sci-fi and fantasy books seem to be so long is that it apparently works. Publishers care about what people will buy, and if people are willing to buy, for example, 14 novels of The Wheel of Time totaling approximately six million pages, then publishers are happy to sell it to them.

[Gnoman]

Has nothing to do with Tolkein. Long stories were the norm until very recently - consider the Iliad (15,693), the Divine Comedy (14,233 lines), Don Quixote (900 pages), all the way to the Victorian era with A Tale Of Two Cities (450+ pages, depending on edition). The obsession with making works as short as possible, with terms like "doorstopper" considered to be insults, is a modern invention. That doesn't mean that there were no good short works in the past, just that the notion of "it must be as short as possible, because any words that are not absolutely necessary are a horrible thing called padding" did not exist.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, you should note it is all writers, not just SF ones.

An unknown or ''not so successful'' writer writes a fairly small ''focused'' novel. Exactly like movies: you might note most are less then an hour and a half and quickly paced.

But once a writer is successful, fans want more. Think of anything your a fan of: is there ''too much''? Well, not for most people. Think of any short, small book you liked. Would you have liked a couple hundred more pages? Think too of a good movie, would you add another 30 minutes?

Again think of movies: you get the ''theatrical cut'' that is short and focused, then later you will get an ''extended cut'' and a ''directors cut'' and maybe more...often pushing the movie past two hours. And if your a fan...you will buy each cut (and the Target exclusive one, and the Wal-Mart exclusive one, and more).

Now books are a bit different....people just want ''one'' book. People just don't go for the idea of owning several copies of one book. They just want one ''final copy''. So publishers put out the big ''padded'' book for everyone right from the start.

Though not all writers are equal. Some can ''pad'' a book nicely and people won't even notice. And if your a fan, people won't notice at all and will love it. Though some writers toss in more ''fluff'' in the ''padding'' and don't make the book any better....bigger, but not better.

[Algeh]

This may have to do with publishing dynamics and the career arcs of writers.

Disclaimer: I have not ever made an effort at getting anything published myself, but when I was a young and optimistic middle and high school student I was considering being a writer and read a lot of SF/fantasy genre writing advice. That was a long time ago, and the advice may have changed - I don't know, I hang out with the filkers now instead.

Anyway, at that time one of the suggestions was that first books by unknowns being shopped around should be relatively short, so as to be less overwhelming-looking to the readers going through the slush pile. Also, a first novel will be lovingly gone over by the writer, the writer's friends, the workshops the writer goes to, etc., before being mercilessly gone over by an agent and publisher if the writer should be so lucky, and no one but the writer will be in a particular hurry until the part where money actually changes hands, so there's lots of time to go through, revise, tighten up bits that drag, and generally polish the book. Lots of people are reading the book and giving lots of advice at a time in the writer's career where they're still trying to please other people in the hopes of getting their book published, and no time crunch because the book isn't yet sitting in a pile of things the publisher has invested in and would like a return on for most of that process.

As time goes on, if a writer becomes popular, there is instead a pressure to get each book out as quickly as possible. Book drafts are still read by a small group of beta readers and (hopefully) by someone at the publisher, but it's important to get that book printed, out the door, and making money as soon as possible since it's by a "known" author and books by author so-and-so sell well, and why would anyone want to sit on something worth money as-is trying to poke at it and make it tighter? The fans will make the effort to read the brick, wouldn't appreciate editorial "meddling were it to become known, and will talk the books up to their friends to try to convince more people to read them. Also, authors develop more pull in terms of being able to turn down changes they don't like if their books are known quantities that sell well.

That being said, I miss the days of short, stand-alone SF/fantasy novels. I've read through my share of long series composed of increasingly thick books, and I miss the books I used to read that were under 200 pages long and had no sequels because the author went on to write something completely different next. (I remember a lot of Tanith Lee's novels being that way, although she also had a few multi-book series.)

[Khedrac]

I think there are multiple factors, some not yet mentioned perhaps:

One is that bookbinding techniques have improved to where publishing a big fat paperback is possible, it did not used to be a viable option which generally imposed a physical limit on authors.

Another used to be what I called the "John Campbell effect", though this more applies to the latter half of the 20th Century. John Campbell was the editor of Astounding Science Fiction which was the one magazine that every author wanted their stories published in. John was a major influence on the early development of people like Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov (just read their collections of short stories with the accompanying notes about how they got them published). Initially they were writing for John, only after they were successful did they know that they could get published anywhere. My theory is that while John was still alive, they also knew that if they wrote a piece of drek and John saw it (even if it was never submitted to Astounding) he would call them on it the next time they saw him; thus while John remained alive even the successful writers were conscious of his standards and wrote accordingly. Then he died and they stopped worrying about what he would say.

Another factor is probably much the same reason as to why Hollywood often seems to produce more remakes and sequels than anything else. Publishers can be risk-averse, thus if something is successful they want more of it. Just look at the later Pern books by Anne MacCaffrey - I think she knew she had carried the series on too far, but her fans and publishers demanded more. One way to produce more for a series is bigger books.

Another reason might be word processors. Now everyone (or nearly) writes on a computer it is much easier to produce and edit vast tracts; in the days of type-writers any correction of a manuscript could be major task. Another effect of this is that it looks as if editors are, more and more, relying on the automated spelling and grammar checkers widely available forgetting that they have their limitations (it may be grammatically correct, but that does not make it meaningful in context). (At times I wonder if today's editors are doing what used to be the editor's job at all, or if they are too busy running the place due to other staff cutbacks...)

[Darth Ultron]

That being said, I miss the days of short, stand-alone SF/fantasy novels. I've read through my share of long series composed of increasingly thick books, and I miss the books I used to read that were under 200 pages long and had no sequels because the author went on to write something completely different next. (I remember a lot of Tanith Lee's novels being that way, although she also had a few multi-book series.)

Another thing to point out: It is standard for a publisher to ''trim'' a little out of any story/written work. For any of dozens of reasons like page space, formatting or such. And a typical writer will write ''more then is needed'', and a typical publisher will even ask for ''slightly more then they need''. The reason is obvious. If they want to fill a 200 page book, it's all ways good to have 200+ pages to work with then the other way around: they don't want to have 200 pages and only 180 pages of story.

Though, once your a ''successful writer'' they often don't trim as much...or any at all. It's well established that book readers will buy large, long books.

[dps]

I think another factor is the increasing trend of fantasy/SF works being parts of a series, rather than stand-alone stories. The publishers like series, because if the first book is successful, there's a built-in audience for the sequels. The authors like series, because they get to write huge, epic stories, and that's what the publishers want to pay for anyway. So that minor character that we seem to spend more time than needed on in Book 2?--he's a major POV character in Book 8.

[DomaDoma]

I'm not sure all of his novels really count as SF, but Neal Stephenson has got to be the worst I've ever seen at padding out his books with unnecessary stuff. The only one I ever finished was Cryptonomicon, which could have been told in a third of the pages that it actually was, if not less. I seem to remember him spending nearly two whole pages talking about just how much milk Randy likes in his corn flakes.


I don't know if Stephenson's digressions are even on-point enough to qualify as padding. I get the sense it's more "this is a fascinating microanalysis I really wanted to publish in a scholastic journal, but it'll be way more widely read if it's a sidebar in my novel instead."


One is that bookbinding techniques have improved to where publishing a big fat paperback is possible, it did not used to be a viable option which generally imposed a physical limit on authors.

Unrelated gripe, there: why is it that Wizards of the Coast and Marvel think they can get away with crappy binding adhesive just one notch above the gum they use for promotional flyers in every compilation they put out?

Anyway. All plausible answers. And I guess books have become so much longer in the first place because that way, the spine serves as a more effective advertisement on the shelves. Self-published books do not appear to have this problem. (But also the thing where word processing is more convenient to a long novel than typewriting.

[Anonymouswizard]

This is interesting, I used to like long books with lots of 'padding', and didn't see anything wrong with it. That all stopped when I read Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker (which I consider to be his best book because it's all nice and self contained while remaining shortish) and Alloy of Law, and began preferring shorter books which moved at a decent clip without significant sacrifice to the worldbuilding. The reason I'm currently loving Night Watch is because it's split into three substories which each move at a decent pace, I can expect a thing to happen about once a chapter and so I'm hooked to see 'what's the next thing'.

I however found The Reality Dysfunction annoyingly padded despite loving the character development I was seeing, and I've had to put it down after getting about a quarter of the way into it (or was it a third). I've had to do this with Revelation Space as well, despite loving the story it just doesn't move quickly enough to make me read it as fast as I did The Skylark of Space (which I finished within about two days, my exams were not happy).

I think others have gone over the reasons why books become 'padded' well, and a padded book isn't always a bad book, but when I have to sit through endless chapters of sex to get to the ghosts I was promised I'm not going to be happy when the ghosts finally show up. For other people it's different (although Skylark had the problem of taking half the book to get into the promised outer space it at least dedicated it explicitly to getting the cast there).

The again I'm the person who loves Asimov because he doesn't waste time describing stuff that doesn't matter.

[Velaryon]

I don't know if Stephenson's digressions are even on-point enough to qualify as padding. I get the sense it's more "this is a fascinating microanalysis I really wanted to publish in a scholastic journal, but it'll be way more widely read if it's a sidebar in my novel instead."

There's interesting analyses, and then there's spending two whole pages rambling about corn flakes. Clearly, the man has never met an editor in his life.

[Rynjin]

There's interesting analyses, and then there's spending two whole pages rambling about corn flakes. Clearly, the man has never met an editor in his life.

No, see, every writer has an editor. You can't get published without one.

So here's the scary thought: That's what it looks like AFTER the editing...

[Velaryon]

No, see, every writer has an editor. You can't get published without one.

So here's the scary thought: That's what it looks like AFTER the editing...

Maybe he's got some leverage over them so that they can't make him cut any of the nonsense?

[Khedrac]

No, see, every writer has an editor. You can't get published without one.

So here's the scary thought: That's what it looks like AFTER the editing...
This seems to be a problem with a lot of modern "editors" - they don't seem to spend their time editing, but doing whatever else their jobs now involve.

It's not just novels, one of the worst examples I have seen was in a so-called 'quality' newspaper quite a few years ago (probably The Independent, about 15 years I think).
The had a special double page spread article about the different types of fish in English rivers, and presumably was written by an authority on the subject.
Now, in English there are two plurals for the word "fish", but one of them is much less valid than the other - "fishes" whould only be used when there is a good reason not to use "fish".
Now in this article there was a need to differentiate between multiple fish of one species and multiple species of fish, so it would have been acceptible to use "fishes" for one of the plurals to distinguish them. Acceptable, but not correct - correct would have been to use "fish" for both.
So the article used "fishes" as the only plural throughout - it was actually quite difficult to read.
I can imagine the author saying "I am the fish expert, I say what goes", but the editor should have been responding "you are the fish expert, I am the person resonsible for the quality of the English we print, and I say that one of the plurals must change."

Sometimes I wonder if the author got it right and the "editor" overruled them!

One really silly example that so few people know about these days where computers have changed common practice from what is correct to what is supported by Word Processors: if beginning a paragraph with a quotation, the text should be aligned to the paragraph markings not the quotation marks, the quotation marks should lie outside the text alignment!

[Lethologica]

Eh, I'd call that a case where 'correct formatting' is evolving.

Also, while the vignette about fishes is entertaining, I'm not sure how it supports the conclusion that editors either don't spend a lot of time editing, or do spend their time on a lot of silly stuff that is not editing.

[AMFV]

The reason is that some padding is good! I mean it. If the book is all action and all plot development all of the time, it's a lot more tiring to read, and therefore is something that people are more likely to be frustrated by and give up on, because it becomes a chore. With the right amount of padding you get points where there's breaks in the action and lulls, those are as important for books as they are for anything else.

[BWR]

Some people like fatty meat, some people like lean meat, and how much fat is 'too much' or 'too little' depends on who you ask.

Personally, as long as the meat is good and prepared well - or at least covered with enough spices to mask inferior quality - it doesn't matter if it is fat or lean.

On the subject of editing, it often isn't the editors' fault. My aunt has worked in papers for 40 years or so and had one particularly horrifying example where one person, an experienced journalist or editor (can't remember which) with years of education before the years of experience, was being let go and asked to teach her cheaper, uneducated replacement all she needed to know in a couple of days. The bosses didn't seem to understand (or care) that you needed a proper education to do the job.
There are good editors, it's just that money and higher refresh rate of news lowers standards.

[dps]

Maybe he's got some leverage over them so that they can't make him cut any of the nonsense?

Just being a big name can give an author that leverage in some instances.

[Velaryon]

Just being a big name can give an author that leverage in some instances.

Right, as far as I know Stephenson has been this way all along. Also, he's sold several million books, but he's hardly the sales juggernaut that a Stephen King or even George R.R. Martin would be. I haven't read Snow Crash, but if it's as full of pointless asides and extraneous details as Cryptonomicon, it's a wonder he made it through the editing process in the first place.

Actually, upon checking his Wikipedia article, Snow Crash is not Stephenson's first novel after all. It seems The Big U and Zodiac both came out in the 80's. On top of that, they were apparently only 320 and 280 pages, respectively. That's very hard to imagine; I almost wonder if those same stories, written by another author, would even break 100 pages.

I know I'm being hard on him, but when I hear the word "padding" thrown out in the context of books, I can think of no worse offender. He's still got good stories, but you have to wade through so many random digressions and pointless details that don't add anything to the reading experience that it just gets tiring (for me, anyway) trying to read him.

[Closet_Skeleton]

It may be as simple as: publishers love padding. Higher pagecount translates directly to a higher cover price, which means more profit for all concerned. In extreme cases it may run to a whole separate book (or film, in the case of the final instalment of Harry Potter).

Its totally the publishers' fault.

Publishing is expensive, paper is cheap. Writers are literally encouraged to write books that can be sold at higher prices. If the writers aren't paid by the word then that's an even better profit for the publisher.

This is the explanation I remember reading at some point
http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/killing-even-more-sacred-cows-of-publishing-1-novels-must-be-a-certain-length/




Some people blame Tolkien. After he came along, everyone knew that REAL fantasy novels were at least two inches thick.


Lord of the Rings isn't long by modern standards.


Has nothing to do with Tolkein. Long stories were the norm until very recently - consider the Iliad (15,693), the Divine Comedy (14,233 lines), Don Quixote (900 pages), all the way to the Victorian era with A Tale Of Two Cities (450+ pages, depending on edition). The obsession with making works as short as possible, with terms like "doorstopper" considered to be insults, is a modern invention.

That would be cherry picking if it wasn't so random. The Iliad and The Divine Comedy aren't even novels.

The normal length for novels has varied a lot, but 120-200 pages used to be the norm. You can't say what's normal based on stories from different cultures and centuries, only average length in one country over decades will actually tell you anything.

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2011/12/a-dickens-of-a-list.html

A Tale of Two Cities is a short Dickens novel. 19th century novels were long. 20th century SF novels (eg, what's actually relevant to the thread) used to be a lot shorter on average because they were part of the pulp publishing tradition which didn't start until the end of the 19th century when Dickens had been dead for over a decade.


The reason is that some padding is good! I mean it.


because any words that are not absolutely necessary are a horrible thing called padding" did not exist.

There's a difference between;

Padding: long stretches of text a given reader finds unnecessary

and;

Padding: stuff the writer literally just put in to make the book fit an arbitrary word count.

The problem is that for the general reader who doesn't have access to authorial confessions the subjective definition is easier to use than the objective one.

[gomipile]

I'm not sure all of his novels really count as SF, but Neal Stephenson has got to be the worst I've ever seen at padding out his books with unnecessary stuff. The only one I ever finished was Cryptonomicon, which could have been told in a third of the pages that it actually was, if not less. I seem to remember him spending nearly two whole pages talking about just how much milk Randy likes in his corn flakes.



There's interesting analyses, and then there's spending two whole pages rambling about corn flakes. Clearly, the man has never met an editor in his life.

It wasn't corn flakes, it was Cap'n Crunch. Also, I remember that scene contributing significantly to Randy's characterization. It helped set up and justify his response to an awful situation he ended up in later in the novel.

[Velaryon]

It wasn't corn flakes, it was Cap'n Crunch. Also, I remember that scene contributing significantly to Randy's characterization. It helped set up and justify his response to an awful situation he ended up in later in the novel.

What cereal it may or may not have been is irrelevant (I could swear it was corn flakes, but it's probably been 10 years since I read the book so maybe not). And what awful situation are you referring to later in the novel that his cereal preferences related to? Because I definitely did not see anything of the sort.

[DomaDoma]

What cereal it may or may not have been is irrelevant (I could swear it was corn flakes, but it's probably been 10 years since I read the book so maybe not). And what awful situation are you referring to later in the novel that his cereal preferences related to? Because I definitely did not see anything of the sort.

It's been a shorter time for me, and I can't even remember the first detail of how Randy got out of that little legal pickle in the Philippines, which I'm sure must be what's being referred to here. But I would not be at all surprised if the overanalysis of milk-cereal ratios DID become a factor. I clearly remember that book dedicating two pages to Avi snooping on some guy reading a Penthouse letter - more accurately, two pages for quoting the Penthouse letter - and that absolutely did become a crucial plot point down the line. So, from a plausibility standpoint, it checks out.

[Vinyadan]

Has nothing to do with Tolkein. Long stories were the norm until very recently - consider the Iliad (15,693), the Divine Comedy (14,233 lines), Don Quixote (900 pages), all the way to the Victorian era with A Tale Of Two Cities (450+ pages, depending on edition). The obsession with making works as short as possible, with terms like "doorstopper" considered to be insults, is a modern invention. That doesn't mean that there were no good short works in the past, just that the notion of "it must be as short as possible, because any words that are not absolutely necessary are a horrible thing called padding" did not exist.

Μέγα βιβλίον, μέγα κακόν ! "A large book is a great evil". This is stuff people said more than two thousand years ago. Things come and go, depending on time, place, and people.



But once a writer is successful, fans want more. Think of anything your a fan of: is there ''too much''? Well, not for most people. Think of any short, small book you liked. Would you have liked a couple hundred more pages? Think too of a good movie, would you add another 30 minutes?



Italo Calvino was a phenomenal writer and the author of possibly the best written fantasy book ever (The Nonexistent Knight). His longest book is about 250 pages long. I think it takes a great writer to write well and briefly. He could do this, and really create complete works, because there was an underlying reflection about various themes that was tidily tied up with the book ending. When you are that good, there simply is nothing left to add.

There had been hope for the digital age to bring back novella-sized books, but the American book market seems to have stopped this development when it made e-books more pricey than the paper equivalent.

[Anonymouswizard]

Italo Calvino was a phenomenal writer and the author of possibly the best written fantasy book ever (The Nonexistent Knight). His longest book is about 250 pages long. I think it takes a great writer to write well and briefly. He could do this, and really create complete works, because there was an underlying reflection about various themes that was tidily tied up with the book ending. When you are that good, there simply is nothing left to add.

I'd say there are two types of heat writers, those who can write a lot and have you loving every bit of it, and those who can write amazing stories with no more than they need. Personally I significantly prefer the latter.


There had been hope for the digital age to bring back novella-sized books, but the American book market seems to have stopped this development when it made e-books more pricey than the paper equivalent.

Really? Here (UK) ebooks are generally about two thirds the cost of a paperback (for an expensive ebook), or the cutest of a paperback if only the hardback had been released. Then there's a good number of then available for £0.99 or less for whatever reason. Sure, you have to fork out for an initial investment for a reader (in theory, there are apps for it now), but by the time you've bought 60 full priced ebooks you've saved money if you got a cheap reader.

(Source: I own a basic Kindle, and have over about a year got enough (legally) free and paid eBooks on the to have paid for it, although in this case it was a present)

[Gnoman]

I certainly don't know where that came from - I've bought several books on Kindle immediately on release, and they were all priced at 50%-75% of the dead-tree price. This is fortunate, as otherwise I'd read very few new books due to refusing to buy physical books from Amazon.

[Rodin]

There was a bit of a kerfuffle about it with Amazon a while back where they were charging too much for Kindle books - to the point where they actually got sued over it. They wound up having to give out refunds for the "unfairly charged" amount, however much that was. I think I got like $5 or something out of it and I don't even have that many ebooks to begin with. I'm sure the total amount was pretty big.

[Vinyadan]

It was a large thing. I don't know how it's called in English (cartel? racket? conspiracy?), but five very important publishers imposed Amazon a kind of price model in which they could decide the minimum price for the ebook, after having agreed on this decision among themselves. Apparently, it was a way to increase prices on Amazon and allow Apple to sell at the same price. Apple settled for paying 450 million dollars.

[Anonymouswizard]

It was a large thing. I don't know how it's called in English (cartel? racket? conspiracy?), but five very important publishers imposed Amazon a kind of price model in which they could decide the minimum price for the ebook, after having agreed on this decision among themselves. Apparently, it was a way to increase prices on Amazon and allow Apple to sell at the same price. Apple settled for paying 450 million dollars.

But then there'd be fewer people reading old books. I only picked up one of my top 3 (Galactic Patrol*) because it was about 90p. It would also basically since down ebook sales, I certainly wouldn't shell out for one of all I was saving is storage space (and backups I think, but over the lifetime of a Kindle I've had like two books become unreadable she to water damage), I'd just give the printed book to a random sibling (got like for of the things) and nab one of theirs. Surely the publisher decides the price anyway?

* I'm not find of the other entries where the series is much more American and capitalist, but I adore Galactic Patrol.