Speculative fiction novellas or short story recs! I prefer if novellas are standalone since I don't have the attention span for anything longer that might exist in the book series it's part of. Femslash is a plus.
Standalone novellas seem to be increasingly rare as they turn into series, but here are some I've particularly enjoyed that either are or can be read as standalone, and one short series:
- Sarah Pinsker's And Then There Were (N-One) -- A really fun whodunit that also made me think thinky thoughts or the "road not taken" variety. The novella was published in Uncanny Magazine and can be read there, or it's also available as part of Pinsker's short fiction collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea. Not femslash per se, but the female protagonist is married to a woman.
- Kelly Robson's Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach -- interesting time-travel story with parallel narratives and unusual POV characters.
- Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Elder Race -- does a cool thing where you have two POV characters, one of whom sees the happenings through a sort of fantasy lens (demon, wizard, etc.) while the other is aware of the science-fictional nature of what's happening (advanced alien civilization, etc.)
- Nghi Vo's The Singing Hills Cycle novellas are a sequence set in the same universe and sharing the same framing approach: a wandering cleric who collects stories -- but each novella centers on a different story, and so they can be read as standalone. The first one, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, is particularly strong, IMO, and my second favorite is Into the Riverlands.
- Not standalone, but there are only two novellas currently out (third is coming out this year, I believe) and the are femslash: Malka Older's Mossa and Pleiti novellas, which are sort of Sherlock Holmes pastiche on Jupiter, if Holmes and Watson were both women and in a romantic relationship. Neat worldbuilding, especially with the Jovian frontier giving it a sort of gaslamp Victorian feel. The first book is The Mimicking of Known Successes and the second The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles/
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2025-01-15 05:04 am (UTC)Standalone novellas seem to be increasingly rare as they turn into series, but here are some I've particularly enjoyed that either are or can be read as standalone, and one short series:
- Sarah Pinsker's And Then There Were (N-One) -- A really fun whodunit that also made me think thinky thoughts or the "road not taken" variety. The novella was published in Uncanny Magazine and can be read there, or it's also available as part of Pinsker's short fiction collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea. Not femslash per se, but the female protagonist is married to a woman.
- Kelly Robson's Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach -- interesting time-travel story with parallel narratives and unusual POV characters.
- Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Elder Race -- does a cool thing where you have two POV characters, one of whom sees the happenings through a sort of fantasy lens (demon, wizard, etc.) while the other is aware of the science-fictional nature of what's happening (advanced alien civilization, etc.)
- Nghi Vo's The Singing Hills Cycle novellas are a sequence set in the same universe and sharing the same framing approach: a wandering cleric who collects stories -- but each novella centers on a different story, and so they can be read as standalone. The first one, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, is particularly strong, IMO, and my second favorite is Into the Riverlands.
- Not standalone, but there are only two novellas currently out (third is coming out this year, I believe) and the are femslash: Malka Older's Mossa and Pleiti novellas, which are sort of Sherlock Holmes pastiche on Jupiter, if Holmes and Watson were both women and in a romantic relationship. Neat worldbuilding, especially with the Jovian frontier giving it a sort of gaslamp Victorian feel. The first book is The Mimicking of Known Successes and the second The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles/