I’m all for anthologies, as a reader and as an author. Love the length, love the variety and love the themes.
What I hate is when the novellas are connected to the author’s series that I haven’t read. If the novella is a prequel, great! If I like it enough, I will look for the series. But if the series is already in progress, and this book is story number 136, then I’m going to need more than a few vague references. Even if the writer is a bestselling author of a bazillion books. In fact, if the series has a bazillion books, I’m going to need a family tree, cast list and timeline. And that’s just to start.
One of the reasons why I read anthologies is because I’m trying authors new-to-me. After all, isn’t that the main reason why publishers put together anthologies? It doesn’t help if the novella is based in a complex world and the story occurs after an event of apocalyptic proportions that affects a cast of thousands. (All of whom show up in the 100 pages of the story.) I don’t know what happened before this story. I haven’t learned enough about the people to care. Worse, the author doesn’t talk about the previous events because s/he wants you to buy the previous books in the series.
Not going to happen. Because the author has already ticked me off.
If the story is loosely related to a previous book, fine. If a fan-favorite character pops up in the novella, I’m not going to complain as long as it makes sense in the storyline. But I think what really bugs me about novellas that are attached to a large body of work is that the story doesn’t focus on the hero and heroine.
And when I’m reading a romance, that’s all I care about.
It’s funny that you mentioned this today. . . just went to the bookstore, got me a buttload of books, including the first couple of Christmas themed ones for the year. It’s an anthology, as most are. . . and it’s a story from the same location with some of the same people from the series I just so happen to be reading right now (HelenKay Dimon’s Hawaii ones, to be specific). And since I totally forgot about that, I was pretty excited to see it, since I’m on the third and newest release right now. There is only one anthology that I can think of, that I at least knew it was connected to another book or more, but it definitely didn’t take away from the story. . . I haven’t read any (short stories or full novels) that it was necessary to read any book before, but with anthologies, I think a plus with using already established characters is that it’s a new to you author, and you like that sample, then you can go back to start hunting the previous books.
Lois
I’m in agreement with you on anthologies. I like them because I get new authors I’ve never read or my favorites working together. But when the book is in a series it’s tough because you may not know what’s going on unless you’ve read the series to that point.
Hi Susanna, I hear you! I love anthologies/novellas as the key focus is (hopefully) the couple and their relationship…. luckily there isn’t/shouldn’t be too much room for anything else! btw, I’m looking out/hoping for e-versions of your latest books in pdf versions so that it works on my reader – no luck so far, grrr!
I am in full agreement on what you said. I love them for there length, the chance to read someone new, etc… but definitely hate when it is part of an author’s series and I do not have the books that it goes along with…
[...] a while things (ah-hem, I do the best I can on this blog). For fans of anthologies, check out this post about anthologies from mid-October. Not that Shamelessly is an anthology, it isn’t. I’m just [...]