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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 14m

In the light of this week’s Critical Friends episode, especially struck by how Electra focuses on both The Witch Roads’ scale *and* its concision/economy. Her description of this reminds me of why I still love Steph Swainston work - it’s a tough balance to strike, but so productive.

Critical Friends Episode 16: Length and Breadth

Dan Hartland is joined by Redfern Jon Barrett and Nileena Sunil to discuss those novels that feel too short or not long enough: what's behind that feeling we have that a text is lacking something, …

strangehorizons.com

Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 37m

Always happy to carry an Electra Pritchett review - you can rely on her for incisive genre analysis worn enviably lightly.

Case in point, here she is on The Witch Roads by Kate Elliott (@tordotcom.bsky.social): "If epic fantasy is about scale, then Elliott has written the best I’ve read in years."

The Witch Roads by Kate Elliott

The Witch Roads may be Elliott's most concise and economical book yet.

strangehorizons.com

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

In which @casella.bsky.social and I both discuss novels of two halves, and in which Nileena Sunil and @yarntheory.bsky.social both sing the praises of @indrapramitdas.bsky.social.

This would be impressive co-working with @mealofthorns.bsky.social had we done any actual co-working.

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

I'm glad! It's such a rich one that I'm confident we'll return to it in some fashion.

Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

Yep yep. I would be extremely keen to return to this topic - novellas specifically - if some useful texts come along. Will keep my eyes peeled.

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

Uh-oh, I'm in danger.

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Is there a single paradigm of the novella, though? Like my brief nod to Boccaccio in the episode, I think there are a number of novella-types we might select from literary history. But the 19th-century German version seems to me, too, the most identifiably specific.

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Reposted by Dan Hartland

Wm Henry Morris @wmhenrymorris.com · 1d

1. This is excellent.

2. As @redfernjon.bsky.social points out, marketing categories are blurry & often arbitrary

3. This is esp. true of SF&F where many of the works labeled as novellas are short novels but aren’t marketed as such

4. More SF&F writers should learn to write actual novellas

Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

📣 NEW CRITICAL FRIENDS!

In a new ep of the @strangehorizons.bsky.social SFF criticism podcast, I talk with @redfernjon.bsky.social and Nileena Sunil about books that might be longer, and others that could be shorter.

How to read a text that offers too little, or too much, stuff? Some ideas.

Critical Friends Episode 16: Length and Breadth

Dan Hartland is joined by Redfern Jon Barrett and Nileena Sunil to discuss those novels that feel too sure or not long enough: what's behind that feeling we have that a text is lacking something, o…

strangehorizons.com

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

Are we talking about needing more SFFnal Sorrows of Young Werther? Because I think you might be talking about needing more SFFnal Sorrows of Young Werther.

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

Having now listened to the latest AMoT, I note that both @casella.bsky.social and I spend some time of our respective episodes talking about novels of two halves. Zeitgeists are so uncanny.

(I’d love to say we plan this stuff. We do not plan this stuff.)

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

Yes. I should probably have asked Redfern to talk more about the pressures of the market on authors, but it didn’t feel fair.

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

It was a fun discussion! Plenty more to say, of course - as always.

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

You have a point! (You absolutely have a point.)

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

(It is not a real thing. This won’t be the first time you are disappointed in us.)

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

Have you considered taking the Critical Friends Drabble-to-Trilogy Challenge?

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

(S̶o̶r̶r̶y̶ g̶l̶a̶d̶ s̶o̶r̶r̶y̶ glad to hear it!)

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

Oh crumbs.

(A section of our discussion that was cut from the episode focused on another scholar, Judith Leibowitz [in Narrative Purpose in the Novella], who argued for the novella as a genre (!) defined by the “kind of shaping material” it deploys, its “double effect of intensity and expansion.”)

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

Counterpoint: what if a novel is just a novella that is slightly long

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

[email protected] on reading long and short books critically: "You can have breadth and have that work really well. You can have depth and have that work really well. It's not like there's one direction

"I think it’s really when the novel feels dissatisfying based on what it’s trying to do."

Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

📣 NEW CRITICAL FRIENDS!

In a new ep of the @strangehorizons.bsky.social SFF criticism podcast, I talk with @redfernjon.bsky.social and Nileena Sunil about books that might be longer, and others that could be shorter.

How to read a text that offers too little, or too much, stuff? Some ideas.

Critical Friends Episode 16: Length and Breadth

Dan Hartland is joined by Redfern Jon Barrett and Nileena Sunil to discuss those novels that feel too sure or not long enough: what's behind that feeling we have that a text is lacking something, o…

strangehorizons.com

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

It was a blast, thank you! Also, we’re all really looking forward to that new novel now, so no pressure.

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

It’s not that we knew you’d need us. But it’s that we knew you’d need us.

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 1d

📣 NEW CRITICAL FRIENDS!

In a new ep of the @strangehorizons.bsky.social SFF criticism podcast, I talk with @redfernjon.bsky.social and Nileena Sunil about books that might be longer, and others that could be shorter.

How to read a text that offers too little, or too much, stuff? Some ideas.

Critical Friends Episode 16: Length and Breadth

Dan Hartland is joined by Redfern Jon Barrett and Nileena Sunil to discuss those novels that feel too sure or not long enough: what's behind that feeling we have that a text is lacking something, o…

strangehorizons.com

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 2d

Paul March-Russell on EJ Swift: "in electing to write against the white noise of voices prophesying doom, Swift’s turn to the utopian is courageous ... [it's] a viable demonstration of how we can meet the greatest challenges that face us as a community."

A review, and a novel, which demands notice.

Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 2d

"When We are Wolves Again is not only the novel we have been waiting for from E. J. Swift, one of the UK’s brightest younger talents in speculative fiction, but the novel we also have been waiting for as readers." Amen to that. strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

When There are Wolves Again by E.J. Swift

When There Are Wolves Again is, put simply, the most important, the most courageous, the most uplifting novel I have read in years.

strangehorizons.com

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 4d

All of which is to say: yes, I made a typo for Aisha's name above; yes, as an editor I am reliant on our proofreaders (sorry, @jampersand.bsky.social); and, yes, listen to the great @darthj.uno and @mickallister.bsky.social's latest SH@25, in which some of us talk about the mag.

SH: it's nice. 🙏

Celebrating 25 Years with The Strange Horizons Editorial Collective

In this special episode of Strange Horizons at 25, Senior Podcast Editor Kat Kourbeti and Editor Michael Ireland welcome current members of the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective for a series of…

strangehorizons.com

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 4d

Anyway, the strange - ho ho - alignment struck me. What a thing, eh?

By the way, that Battlestar Galactica review? It was bang on, you know: "the Cylons sometimes appear to make little sense." Little did 2005 Dan know. But 2006 Dan would:

Write 'Em Until We Can't: Battlestar Galactica Lays Down Its Burdens

Battlestar Galactica is simultaneously a show compulsively attached to continuity and one with a logic which often doesn't bear the most superficial of inspections.

www.strangehorizons.com

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