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What short book series is worth more than its page count?
Sibling topic: What long book series is worth its page count?
What short series does such a good job that it feels long and substantial? What short series punches above its page count?
Just like last time, I won’t put a qualifier on “short” and leave that open to interpretation.
This is actually a tough one... way tougher than the long series thread. Especially since you've left the definition of "short" open to interpretation. But based on my own interpretation, I can nominate at least a few short-ish series that I recently read that felt much longer than they actually were (in a good way!), and more impactful than their word count would suggest.
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells is comprised of 7 books... but five of them are only around 160 pages, and two are 250 and 350 pages. And ironically, I found the shorter books far far more compelling than longer ones.
Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor. The first 3 books are each around 300 pages, but with the 4th being 600 pages, and the 5th is still an Audible exclusive (for now).
And while Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold is actually 7 books too, and each longer than Murderbot's, all of them are only 200-300 pages, so I still think it qualifies... especially considering the truly epic scope of the series.
And here are a bunch of comic book series that do similar with their limited word count per comic:
Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis
Fables series by Bill Willingham
Saga by Brian K. Vaughan
Y: The Last Man Series by Brian K. Vaughan
Preacher series by Garth Ennis
Locke & Key series by Joe Hill
Kingdom Come by Mark Waid
Invincible series by Robert Kirkman
Maus series by Art Spiegelman
I would have also included Sandman, but fuck Neil Gaiman.
And I don't think it's a coincidence that several of these comics have been made into TV series as a result of how impactful and compelling they were.
Might we throw in Lucifer by Mike Carey as well?
Absolutely understand the sentiment, but Sandman is held up as an example of "Comics as art" for a reason. Libraries, second-hand, and other ways exist to read it without giving him money.
Authors do get paid from library copies fwiw. But others do choose not to engage with certain authors work. Fuck Neil Gaiman and all his work is as valid as "buy him second hand only"
I’ve just started the 5th Murderbot book, Network Effect, and I know what you mean - it’s not quite as gripping as the shorter stories. I can’t quite pinpoint why, but maybe it’s the timeline shifts? The flashbacks seem to pull you out of the main plot.
Its been a while since I read Network Effect, so I could be misremembering... but I seem to recall feeling like it spent way too much time spinning its wheels, and not enough progression the actual story. All the others books before it were super tightly written, and had to be because of their incredibly short length. And Network Effect felt like it might have originally been intended to be the same length as them, but then padded out afterwards to make it a full length novel. IMO, it was still good, but just not as good as all the shorter ones before it.
Ha! Oh how the turntables. I love this question. Thanks for making me think about this.
At first I was going to ignore the "series" qualifier in your question. I will include my first ideas as honorable mentions.
Animal Farm - This book is widely recommended, but I will add my voice to the chorus. It's widely considered to be a criticism of communism. Interestingly, the first time I read it, I thought it served much more as a criticism of late-stage capitalism than of communism. The issues at the farm only start once they leave the idealism of capitalism and start to integrate the type of corruption that I have seen most in mature capitalist societies. This is probably an effect of me growing up in capitalism with very little interaction with communism.
Then I figured out some good series that I could consider short.
His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass series) - Not a terribly short series, but quite short compared to what books I usually end up reading. I often will reread the main trilogy when I want something shorter to listen to. This series is absolutely fantastic. I cannot say enough good about it. If you consider these children's books (I think you can make a good argument either way), they are special in that Pullman respects his reader to be smart and willing to think for themselves. I don't like to be spoonfed ideas in my literature, and that seems quite common with some genres.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Fantastic science fantasy series (see my post in the other thread with regard to science fantasy). It's a fun read, but not really something that has been pivotal in my life. The prose is fantastic, and I wish my memory was better so I could reference it more in my life. "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't" is possibly the single best sentence of prose, imagery, and world building in existence.
Now for my actual pick:
The Dispatcher, by John Scalzi - Fantastic three part series of very short books. Amazon says the first book is 128 pages, and it is frequently called a novella, so I would say this definitely fits into the category of "short". It is a fantastic execution of what I consider true science fiction. Take the current world, change some aspect, and explore how humans change, adapt, and overcome in a new world. In this series, anyone who is murdered disappears and shows up at their home. If you die from natural causes, bleed out, starve, etc. you still die. But if someone takes an action that directly causes your death, you just show up in your home perfectly safe. Each of the books explore some aspect of how this would affect society. They are written as detective novels, where the character has to explore and uncover some mystery. Absolutely fantastic books. The audiobooks are fantastic as well.
I may or may not have similar topics planned about individual books rather than series. The turntables might keep turning!
Love it! I have some more I’ll shout out in those threads then.
The Dispatcher is really good! The audio book is done by Zachery Quinto
Seconding His Dark Materials. I first read it as a younger teenager, and it affected me emotionally more than anything else I had ever read. I've re-read it as an adult, and the emotional effect is less now but it really does hold up. I recommend wholeheartedly it to anyone who hasn't read it.
If you haven’t yet, pick up the first two of the book of dust trilogy (third is slated for release next year). The first serves as a prequel to The Golden Compass, and the second follows Lyra and Pam after The Amber Spyglass. The second in particular is much more grown up than the His Dark Materials trilogy, and addresses some very complex topics. It’s longer and unfinished, so I couldn’t recommend it for this thread, but still highly recommended.
A few series of short books come to mind:
Feel-good, but still philosophical and well-written.
Absolutely, Becky Chambers. I miss her work and very much hope she comes back to writing soon (I believe she's dealing with family issues.)
I don't remember if the Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K Leguin came up in the other thread, , but that's a great series. Though there are (now) five books, each is 75k words or less.
Tamora Pierce's The Song of the Lioness series. 4 books, about 50k words each. It skews YA, but I really enjoyed it, and the MC really grows up across the series.
While I was looking things up, I came across this reddit post with a pretty comprehensive list of fantasy novels/series with word counts for each book.
All Creatures great and small and sequels by James Herriot - a country veterinarian tells stories about his practice. It is charming and funny.
I Claudius and Claudius the god - historical fiction about emperor Claudius.
James Clavell Asian saga including Shogun. Some of the included books are long but it is a short series.
I mentioned this in the other thread but the trilogy deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon is in my top fantasy list. Vatta's War series is excellent space opera, detective series, space battle.
A couple that might not be as excellent as you are looking for but I had fun with:
A deadly education and sequels by Naomi novik.
Island in the Sea of time and sequels by s m sterling
Edit adding the king must die and Bull From the Sea by Renault. Retells the myth of the labyrinth
This is a wonderful recommendation. The 1940s Yorkshire countryside really comes to life through his storytelling. It's hilarious and poignant and full of quirky characters and anecdotes, which are based heavily on his own life but fictionalized. (Although according to sources, the mercurial character of his boss was actually toned down from real life, which is a trip.)
Some of his joy for life and his deep empathy has really stuck with me over the years. Also, of course, his completely relatable exasperation at clients who will not take the practical advice of the vet they hired. People are people all over the world and throughout time.
I'm glad we both appreciate these books.
I haven't read them yet but I have been recommended Gerald Durell's Corfu series as books Herriot lovers might enjoy.
glances at shelves full of massive books uh...
Peter F Hamilton's memorable Commonwealth space saga is just two books (not including the sequel trilogies), technically a short series, right? It's a low book count? Let's not look too closely at the page count, even though you deliberately mentioned that ;)
(By that criterion you can also include Hyperion, and it's weird that this rhymes)
Tales of the Ketty Jay (steampunk) by Chris Wooding is pretty good
Highly impactful to a lot of people, often sold as one volume these days but originally three shorter ones: the Myst novels.
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny.
I usually find that fiction for adults is either one book (so not a series) or a bunch of chonky volumes. I'm seeing some people evading this reality by recommending excellent comics, web novels or books for younger readers. My probably not new coming from me, but new to this thread, recommendations of YA/kids authors with slim but very good books are Diana Wynne Jones (Howl's Moving Castle, Chrestomanci, Dalemark) and Jonathan Stroud (Bartimaeus, Lockwood & co, Scarlett and Browne).
EDITed as I thought of more stuff.
I saw that The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings/The Silmarillion were included in the long series thread, and I would actually contend they fit better in this short series thread.
This comes to ~700,000 words across those volumes. I would also guess that the majority of people who read the series don't read The Silmarillion and that cuts the series down to ~575,000 words.
There are tons of extra stuff that Christopher Tolkien published that explores the history of J.R.R Tolkien's work (i.e. The Twelve Histories of Middle Earth) and there's even people who have written "alternate" Silmarillions in a way that use different parts of Tolkien's work instead of how Christopher compiled it. I haven't explored these, but one day. But those aren't necessary to enjoy the main series and get a complete experience.
I see that others have already brought up the easiest way to cheat this metric, by recommending comic books. They convey ideas in a much more direct manner. Less words, but still a lot going on. Which is why my pick would be Calvin and Hobbes. Comic strips are the shortest story format I know of, but are in no ways lesser in being able to make me smile.
Binti trilogy are great stories of Afro futurism. Really good sci-fi short stories.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/bafcb622-dcf1-4e53-89fa-bf925158f6e3
Exhalation is an anthology that's easy to consume in bite sizes.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/8909e9ae-3a30-4328-8365-138e51431ad8
Stories of Your Life and Others is another short story collection from Ted Chiang, absolutely fantastic.
Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire comes immediately to mind. It wonders what happens to the kids who went on portal fantasy adventures (in the vein of Narnia, Wonderland, or Peter Pan) after they come home and try to go back to their lives.
I anticipate this one ending up quite long, based on Seanan's prolific writing, but as novellas they definitely punch above their weight. There are 9 published and a 10th due next year!
I'm looking forward to the new one. Hopefully it's as good as the rest
Genuinely she hasn't let me down, I think there's only one of her series I didn't vibe with under Seanan McGuire or Mira Grant
Curious which one? I really liked the Newsflesh trilogy. I felt much more connected to the characters than is typical for YA, and the story was interesting and engaging. I tried, but I couldn't get into the sentient tapeworm one.
Middlegame, I read the first but didn't connect at all. I plan to try again.
Newsflesh is one of my favorites despite being an early series and being weaker for it. She has since said that she couldn't write that series now if only because she no longer believes that people will come together in moments of crisis like a global zombie pandemic . And obviously the technology has aged in a way that makes it less relevant today . But I think 's still a good heart of a story there about how even in those most "pull together" moments there will be people who take advantage to gain power and control... I mean, I can't think of anything that compares.
But I'm a big fan in general of her series. I actually support her on patreon which means I get a short story every month, some of which are wonderful stand-alones and some of which are backstories into her October Daye or Incryptid series. The tapeworm series was another zombie story but one where she could make some of the zombies actual people. I liked it once I slotted it in that category.
Sad but unfortunately true!
I mostly read long/big series or one off books, but I'd consider The Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson short and worth reading.
Spider Robinson's Callahan's Crosstime Saloon and its sequels. Page counts range 160-maaaaybe 200ish, but they are absolutely full of hope, joy, and optimism towards humanity (loose definition, aliens and robots and werewolves totally count).
Also puns. Lots of puns.
I'm there for puns. Putting it on my list!
Best punster gets their tab covered. And by best, I mean by pun standards, obviously.
I always tell people, "A groan is as good as a laugh."
I opened up Callahan's Lady (300 pages in its original mass market format) one day and wow. Just wow. Didn't know what I got myself into, haha.
And before anyone asks any unseemly questions, yes, I did finish. Thank you and adieu.
I think I first posted this in the wrong thread, so if you think you're hallucinating, you're not, I am. You're my hallucination.
Have you been looking for a well-written, long-form fantasy from a remarkable era (1980s-90s), is written by a woman, has dragons, an interesting magic system[1], and rich character development? I encourage you to give the Dragon Prince series by Melanie Rawn a try. I know I'm not the only one here that likes her work. This series by Rawn weighs in at a little under 600 pages to almost 900 pages each, if I recall.
In terms of plot complexity I put it about midway between LOTR and Game of Thrones. There are a good number of characters, the scheming is not nearly GOT levels but it carries the interwoven plots in a mature way, the world builds over time and really makes you appreciate the depth of the characters as they grow throughout the series, and best of all the series completes its planned story arc in the first trilogy and if you want more you can get into the second trilogy, Dragon Star, which takes place a bit later but with a lot of familiar faces.
The books all have phenomenal cover art by Michael Whelan, a steadfast artist in the fantasy and sci-fi novels of the 80s and 90s. Unfortunately for some, the first book in Rawn's series does have a bit of what might be considered a romance-y cover to it, it's not the He-man sort of cover he's done for other fantasy novels, but they are still dragons battling in the background so that's something. Don't let it scare you off of a great series.
One of my all-time favorite books was actually written by three women: Jennifer Roberson, Kate Elliot, and Melanie Rawn. The Golden Key is 800+ pages of treachery and inter-personal drama with some very dark magic. I won't say more than that. I love it. It did get a prequel a number of years after The Golden Key was published, but I don't know if the two books really make a "series" that fits the criteria of the thread. Just wanted to mention it and rep some female authors who started in the 80s and are still writing or wrote for a long time.
[1] The author is a descendant of a woman at the Salem Witch Trials.
I'm not generally a horror fan, but Clive Barker's Books of Blood is a loosely related anthology series of his short stories, along the same lines as Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man. The quality is uniformly good - I think Barker's much better at short form than as a novelist.
"The Midnight Meat Train" and "Rawhead Rex" are widely known among the stories, both made into movies. I think they're ham-handed sadistic gorefests (I'll grant the stories are better than the cinema versions), but YMMV. "In the Hills, the Cities" and "The Body Politic" are genuinely chilling. "Age of Desire" has haunted my imagination ever since I read it, for better or worse.
Also, and it's probably too obvious to mention, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories are genre-defining classics, now in the public domain.