For two years I primarily read short stories. I’ve posted about this before so won’t rehash the details, but recently I’ve noticed I have little energy for reading them. There are many factors here, including a massive academic workload, but I think I burnt out on the short form. I realized this when I finished Nancy Kress’s excellent novel Beggars in Spain. I loved the book, the first SF work I’d enjoyed in years, and had that novel-readers joy of wanting to get back to the story to see how things pan out.

This is a joy you can’t get from short stories. As Poe said, short stories are best read in a single sitting. But since I had pushed myself to read wide and deep in the short story field, discovering new authors, I now realize I was burnt out from jumping into so many different landscapes and voices. I’d initially loved it, the surprise and joy of finding a story you liked from a previously unknown source. And I had so many of these moments, from Nelson Algren to Joyce Carol Oates, that I didn’t see that there could be any negative to this approach. Recently, enjoying Kress’s work, I recognized this short story fatigue. So, on to novels for a bit.

Don’t get me wrong. I love short stories. Love them. They do things novels can’t and the way they do them appeals to much of what I love in literature: intensity, experimentation, voice, a fully realized idea. And I know I will go back to devouring them soon enough (I’m real keen on reading Datlow’s Inferno as well as some other anthos and more Jeffrey Ford and Faulkner and John Sayles, of the ones that pop in my head right now). But given how tired I am at the end of the day, having to start from scratch with a “new” story every night is too draining, but returning to a novel with characters I’ve already gotten to know sounds like the right fix. So, I guess it is time to redress the balance, since I’ve starved myself of novels for two years.

I wonder how this will effect my short fiction . . . if at all?

So, on to Peter Straub’s Shadowlands, which I’ve wanted to read for years. Then Blood Magic. Then the Asiatics. Then The Pilo Family Circus. Then Prodigal Blues. Then It Happened in Boston? Then . . . who knows?

JSR

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