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- Path: sparky!uunet!noc.near.net!bigboote.WPI.EDU!bigwpi.WPI.EDU!phillies
- From: phillies@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (George D. Phillies)
- Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.misc
- Subject: Lengths of novels
- Date: 11 Jan 1993 21:32:07 GMT
- Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
- Lines: 16
- Distribution: na
- Message-ID: <1isp0nINNbfr@bigboote.WPI.EDU>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: bigwpi.wpi.edu
-
- Question: What has been happening to lengths of published
- novels in the last decade? I have had severla people blandly
- assert that lengths have not changed since ERB's time, so
- that 80 +/- kilowords is a novel and 250-300 kilowords is
- that unholy of unholies, a trilogy. I have been able to refute
- these people by grabbing, e.g. Scott and Barnett's The Armor
- of Light (a truly fine work), which is in the 250-300 kiloword
- range, all by itself. Melanie Rawn's Dragonfire series appears
- to fit the same estimate. Does anyone have more systematic
- counts? I really do not feel like sitting and counting
- large numbers of works other than my own (I have a novel that's
- up to about 120 kilowords, and perhaps half-done; I've previously
- posted sections to rec.arts.comics).
-
- George Phillies
- phillies@wpi.wpi.edu
-