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It seems that there has been a recent rebirth of the novella. I've been finding all sorts of books that are collections of three or four novella-length pieces - most of them in the urban fantasy and paranormal romance categories. Also, some publishing houses, notably Subterranean Press and Aquaduct Press, have been publishing a number of works in the novella to short novel range. And one finds novella-length pieces on various author and magazine websites all over the net. In the list below of novellas I've devoured this past year, if a novella was not acquired as a standalone publication (paper or edoc), I've tried to indicate the name of the book, or website I found it in/on.

As for the novellas themselves, there's quite a range. Many of the urban fantasy/paranormal romance novellas are much of a muchness. I was delighted to find a novella by Michelle Sagara set in her Cast universe, and found the novellas by Yasmine Galenorn and C. E. Murphy interesting enough that I intend to explore their novels.

On the other hand, I was very excited to read more tales set in Elizabeth Bear's New Amsterdam - Abigail Irene Garrett is a character I am very fond of. The same is true of the late and much lamented Kage Baker's steampunk sequence of novellas associated with her Company books. And I do like Diana Gabaldon's Lord John sequence of novels and novellas. And my devouring of Margaret Frazer's published oeuvre would not have been complete without the domina Frevisse novella.

Marjorie M. Liu, The Tangleroot Palace (Never After)
Marjorie M. Liu, Armor of Roses (Inked)
Marjorie M. Liu, Hunter Kiss (Wild Thing)

Yasmine Galenorn, The Shadow of Mist (Never After)
Yasmine Galenorn, Etched in Silver (Inked)

Mercedes Lackey, A Tangled Web (Harvest Moon)
Mercedes Lackey, Moontide (Winter Moon)
Mercedes Lackey, Counting Crows (Charmed Destinies)

Rachel Lee, Drusilla's Dream (Charmed Destinies)
Catherine Asaro, Moonglow (Charmed Destinies)
Michelle Sagara West, Cast in Moonlight (Harvest Moon) 
Cameron Haley, Retribution (Harvest Moon)
Karen Chance, Skin Deep (Inked)
Eileen Wilkes, Human Nature (Inked)
Maggie Shayne, Animal Magnetism (Wild Thing)
Meljean Brook, Paradise (Wild Thing)
Tanith Lee, Heart of the Moon (Winter Moon)
C. E. Murphy, Banshee Cries (Winter Moon)
Sharon Shinn, The Wrong Bridegroom (Never After)

Elizabeth Bear, In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns (Asimov's)
Elizabeth Bear, Seven For A Secret
Elizabeth Bear, The White City
Elizabeth Bear, Ad Eternum

Diana Gabaldon, Lord John and the Succubus (via author's website)
Diana Gabaldon, Lord John and the Haunted Soldier (via author's website)
Diana Gabaldon, The Custom of the Army (via author's website)
Diana Gabaldon, Lord John and the Plague of Zombies (via author's website)

Margaret Frazer, Winter Heart (Smashwords)

Kage Baker, Rude Mechanicals
Kage Baker, Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea
Kage Baker, Speed, Speed the Cable

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The Last Hawk, by Catherine Asaro, is one the one hand firmly a part of her Skolian Empire space opera/romance series, and at the same time, an interesting entry into the body of science fiction and fantasy works that address, from various perspectives, "the battle of the sexes."

It follows one of the classic plotlines of the "battle of the sexes" novel: a man from a society where male and female roles are much as we see them in our own 21st century North American society is somehow transported, alone and in need of help, to a land where women rule, and what our society thinks of as the "natural order" of gender roles, abilities, characteristics and interests are reversed.

In this case, the lost man is Kelricson, brother to the Skolian Imperator and one of the most powerful psis among his people; he is also a cybernetically enhanced soldier. with ship and cybernetics damaged in battle, Kelricson crash-lands on Coba, a Restricted planet - one which has requested to have no contact whatsoever with the Skolian Empire. With his cybernetics damaged, his psi powers malfunctioning, and his ship destroyed (by the inhabitants of the planet, to prevent him from escaping and bringing word of their civilisation to the empire) there's little Kelricson can do to get word out of his whereabouts.

Kelricson's personal beauty, and his unusual gift for playing the game of Quis (although as it turns out, it is far more than a game, but an information network and a way of thinking, formulating and exploring new ideas, and negotiating conflicts and debates), make him both interesting and valuable to some of the most powerful women on the planet - the Estate Managers, hereditary rulers of the various city-state - and over the course of 18 years in captivity, he moves from the estate of one woman to another, by gift, trade, theft and conquest, fathering two children along the way.

Where the novel departs from the classic scenario is that Kelricson does not, of his own, spark a rebellion among the downtrodden men of Coba, nor does he convince one of the women who own him along the way to give up everything to either change her world, or follow him into exile from her people. There are signs that a desire for a more egalitarian relationship between men and women was already beginning to surface even before his arrival, and while he does influence some men further in this direction, there's still no sign of revolution at the end. And it is true that his last wife - who ends up the overall ruler of the planet - has some doubts about many of the ways that life on Coba is organised, and is likely to spend her reign engaged in significant social reforms, when Kelricson finally escapes, he does so alone, and whatever changes will come to Coba, will come as a result of the actions and choices of the people of Coba.

I enjoyed reading this more than I expected to. I'd been getting a little tired of Asaro's brand of space opera/romance, but this book came at me quite out of the blue, and was in some ways like reading a strange combination of Herland, The Odyssey and The Glass Bead Game. An interesting book indeed.

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More Skolian space opera romance, by Catherine Asaro
Skyfall
Catch the Lightning

Two more volumes in the very long, and still interesting, saga of the Skolian empire and its powerful psion rulers, the Rhon telepaths of the Ruby Dynasty. Skyfall takes us back almost to the to the beginning of the time period in which the series to date, explaining just how the heir of the Ruby Dynasty, Roca Skolia, ends up marrying Elrinson Valdoria, a minor more-or-less feudal leader on an only recently re-discovered Raylicon colony, founded thousands of years ago during the first flowering of this interstellar empire.

Catch the Lightning, on the other hand, comes near the end of the series, and recounts the adventures of one of Roca and Elrinson’s grandchilden, Althor, as he becomes trapped by treachery in another dimension – where he too manages to find a Rhon telepath to fall in love with and marry, on an alternate Earth.

Formulaic by now, especially with respect to the romantic conventions, but still fun. Brain candy is a good thing to have during the holidays.
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My excuse is that I had a week of relative down-time (work was slow) and I really wasn't feeling very well, and I wanted some light reading that was interesting and engaging but not intense or overly challenging. And I'd gone out and bought a number of books in this particular series based on my enjoyment of the first one. So I read seven more of Catherine Asaro's Skolian Empire books.

The sheer fun of a sprawling space opera continues, along with enough strange dynastic and family secrets, ancient artifacts from long-lost civilizations, political intrigue and adventuring to satisfy just about anyone who'e into that sort of thing.

Schism
The Final Key

These two books are set before the time period of Primary Inversion, and focus on first introducing us to Sauscony Lahaylia Valdoria Skolia and her very unusual family, and thenshowing us how Sauscony becomes the kick-ass warrior and Imperial Heir that we met in Primary Inversion.

The Radiant Seas

This book immediately follows the events of Primary Inversion and covers about 15 odd years in familial and political developments for the Skolia family and the Empire they head. It ends with a really big space war, which is of course a necessity in a space opera, sooner or later.

Ascendant Sun
Spherical Harmonic
The Quantum Rose
The Moon’s Shadow

All four books cover roughly the same time period, from the perspectives of, respectively, Sausony's brother Kelric, her aunt Dyhianna, her brother Havyrl and her son Jaibriol. I found it very cool the way the four books interlocked, each one telling a little more of the events in the year or so following The Radiant Seas as the invlove the family of Skolia, and the politics of the Skolian and Eubian empires, until in the final book of the quartet, all the lines pull together and you finally have the full story of what's going on.

One thing I will note that became annoying for me was the increasing emphasis put on some of the more annoying of romance tropes, including the ones about people meeting for just an instant and becoming totally obseesed with each other, and forced marriages turning into real love. Sure, with telepaths, you can, I suppose, get an instant grokking of eachother - but not all of the relationships that form in weeks or even days are between two telepaths. And sure, royal families have been forced into political marriages for as long as humans have had royal families - but that's not always the reason behind the forced marriges in this series. I found The Quantum Rose particularly disturbing on this count, and it is my least favoured of the series to date. The later books of this series are definitely not for someone who in not able to deal with such tropes as extensions of romantic or sexual fantasies that, one hopes, are not sought after in real life.

The space opera aspect of these books is, for me, far preferable to the romance aspect, which I am largely ignoring at this point.

So, mixed feelings. There are three more volumes in this series, and I do intend to read them all, and I'll probably check out Asaro's other series to see if the blend of sf and romance remains acceptable, but I really hope that whatever romance there is in them is a little more realistic and a little less Wuthering Heights.

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Primary Inversion, Catherine Asaro

There’s something deeply satisfying about a good, old-fashioned space opera, with warring galactic empires and star-crossed imperial heirs. Catherine Asaro’s Primary Inversion is even more fun than most because it’s the Skolian Imperialate heiress, Sauscony Valdoria, who makes most of the bold moves and eventually sweeps her opposite number – Jaibriol Qox, the Eubian imperial heir – away to a safe haven where they can marry and create the foundation for peace between their respective empires.

For those who really like to rock out on a planet-smashingly good space adventure, Primary Inversion is heaven. There’s action, anger, angst, space battles, really, really dastardly villains, cloak-and-dagger rescues, dark family secrets and rivalries, twisted politics, murky plots, empaths and super-tech and all manner of exploits in the best space opera tradition. And it’s the first volume of a series of space operas, too. Yummy!

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