It’s a truth rarely acknowledged that I get more out of SFnal short stories than fantasy. Novellas, on the other hand, are a favourite of mine regardless of genre. The best have just enough world-building to support their plot, and focus on characters and situation to deliver a thrilling adventure or emotionally resonant ride (or both! Both is good) – for today’s Fantastic Five, I’m sharing some favourites…

Looking at my favorites, I am forced to acknowledge that Tor.com absolutely dominate the fantasy novellas I’ve read (this isn’t true in SF, where I’ve found some amazing titles from independent presses). This is neither an accolade for Tor.com nor a criticism of other presses: it’s a failure of my reading – and now that I’ve noticed it, I shall be seeking out fantasy novellas from other publishers, because in my experience, reading more widely only makes things even better! This doesn’t take away from the amazing work Tor.com have done in recent years, or reduce just how much I loved the titles I’m going to focus on today.

While today’s prompt was intended to describe how long it takes to read a novella – one sitting, a single serve – I’m going to double down on the idea to only talk about stand-alone novellas: single serve in every sense, although they often leave us longing for more.

The Terracotta Bride – Zen Cho

The Drowning Eyes – Emily Foster

Sunset Mantle – Alter S Reiss

Fireheart Tiger – Aliette de Bodard

Ring Shout – P Djèlí Clark

Okay, okay, I can’t leave it at five; so here’s five favourite novella series and five favourite serialised fictions to round us out:

For series of novellas, I remain a big fan of Witches of Lychford, The Tensorate and the novellas by Aliette de Bodard that continue the adventures of Thuan from Dominion of the Fallen. I remain very sad that the Echoes of the Ascended – a series of interlinked novellas – never seems to have developed past its second arc. However, I’m very much looking forward to returning to the Singing Hills novellas by Nghi Vo.

I also love the episodic fantasy offered by Realm.FM – where each season is made up of 8-16 single-serve episodes: Tremontaine, The Dark Tome (review coming shortly!), Born To The Blade, Bookburners, and Dark Heights.

What novellas and short stories have my Wyrd and Wonder co-hosts featured this week? Check out the Fantastic Fives from the rest of the team: A Dance With Books | Dear Geek Place | The Book Nook | Jorie Loves A Story

Want to join us in sharing your own fantastic fives? We’d love to see them – check out our weekly topics and share your links in the master schedule. We’ll be sharing our Fantastic Fives each Sunday through May, but you’re welcome to post any day (and tackle the prompts in any order, because that’s the sort of super-relaxed party we like to run).