October is, as I noted in an earlier essay, a season for ghosts and ghouls. Days are shortening, winter is coming (at least for us folks in the northern hemisphere). It’s a season for melancholy entertainment.
Of course, autumn is also a busy season—even if, like the overwhelming majority of my readers, you don’t have to worry about getting crops in. You might not have the time, or the inclination, to read something long (there will be plenty of time for that in the cold days ahead). Happily, novellas are there for you. You might want to try one or more of these five.
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy (2017)
Danielle Cain learns that her good friend Clay has killed himself. This is unexpected; it’s out of character for Clay. Seeking the reason why, Danielle visits Freedom City. This former ghost town was commandeered by Clay and fellow idealistic anarchists, who were determined to create a living utopia. Utopias are notorious for collapsing almost immediately. Freedom City seems to be the exception, but Clay’s death suggests paradise is not quite what it seems.
Success depends on a particularly innovative method of forestalling underrising governments. Thus far, the system has worked, if not perfectly, then effectively. Given the mounting death toll, perhaps too effectively.
There is considerable room in the novella for perplexity as to whether the exact mechanism chosen to ensure anarchy actually qualifies Freedom City as a true anarchy, as it relies on a unitary enforcement system not subject to citizen input, functionally equivalent to putting robots in charge. Murder-y robots.
Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones (2020)
Sawyer is helping a chum carry out a teenaged prank when he sees, to his horror, a mannequin they were using for the prank stand up and walk away. OK, that’s odd, but not necessarily scary. It becomes scary when Sawyer learns that the chum who was the target of the prank has died in a bizarre traffic accident. As does her whole family. Is Sawyer going to be next? Is his family? What about the other friends involved and their families?
Sawyer and his friends arguably deserve what is coming. Their families are innocent. Clearly logic and decency demand that Sawyer save the families by killing all his friends; that should assuage the vengeful mannequin.
I am sure that somewhere out there is a Stephen Graham Jones piece in which characters make sensible life choices leading to beneficial outcomes. This is not that work. Points to Sawyer for his dedication to applied logic; however, his premises need work.
The Secret Skin by Wendy N. Wagner (2021)
June Vogel escaped the Vogel mansion Storm Break, trading a life of pampered abuse for the austere but rewarding life of a spinster artist. Storm Break represents only misery for June. It speaks legions, therefore, that June allows familial duty to lure her back to Storm Break to tend to her young niece Abigail while Abigail’s dad and his new wife honeymoon.
Returning to Storm Break, June discovers that the mansion now offers more than unhappy memories and an odd and understandably melancholy niece. Storm Break has become a classic horror Bad Place, reshaping its inhabitants to fit its demanding standards, lashing out at those who fail to conform. June is determined to protect her niece—but who will save June from Storm Break?
In many ways reminiscent of The Haunting of Hill House, The Secret Skin differs in one very important way: the protagonist in Hill House has no idea what she is walking into, whereas June is all too familiar with the history of her childhood home. It’s the difference between someone who blindly blunders into a minefield and someone who is well aware of a minefield but traverses it for the greater good.
And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed (2021)
Courtesan Winsome spent her short life catering to depraved oligarchs, until one day an oligarch played too rough and killed her. Just another story of an inequitable and unjust society…if the story ended in Winsome’s death.
The who, why, and how of Winsome’s resurrection is unclear. What is certain is that Winsome is now ready, willing, and able to take bloody revenge on the homicidal oligarch and his class. What is also certain is that whatever Winsome is now, it’s beyond the power of the moneyed classes to resist, or even survive.
The horror in this novel is more intimate than that is usually found in Mohamed’s cosmic horror works. This is horror born out of human malevolence and greed facilitated by a rigged economy and oppressive social hierarchies, horror rooted in the fact that absent inexplicable resurrections and arcane spirits of vengeance, there would be no hope for redress.
Seven Dead Sisters by Jen Williams (2022)
Alizon finds herself in a cage on a cart, on her way to be burned alive for murdering her father. It doesn’t matter that the murder was a reasonable response to horrific abuse (which previously resulted in the deaths of all her sisters). Alizon’s death will teach other women that they cannot defy the patriarchy.
In desperation, Alizon calls upon uncanny allies. The Fair Folk are unreliable—in fact, they have (as far as Alizon can tell) always failed her—but a slender hope is better than none. In this case, the results are spectacular, if not exactly what Alizon had in mind.
However awful you think Alizon’s father and the men of the village are, the actual truth, doled out by Williams to the reader in tiny, enticing spoonfuls, is much, much worse. Many horror stories involve minor transgressors suffering disproportionate punishments. This is not one of those.
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No doubt there are many worthy horror novellas not mentioned here— if one of your favourites has been omitted, feel free to mention it below. In fact, we currently live in a golden age of novellas of all genres—I’ve been assembling a handy list of publishers that currently put out novellas, which you can peruse below; if I’ve missed any (as is quite likely), please do mention it in comments.
- Annorlunda
- Apex
- Aqueduct Press
- Blind Eye Books
- Book View Cafe
- Crystal Lake
- Giganotosaurus
- Hodder
- Innsmouth Free Press
- Luna Press Publishing
- Meerkat Press
- Neon Hemlock
- NewCon Press
- Nine Star Press
- Paper Road Press
- Prime Books
- PS Publishing
- Queen of Swords
- Saga
- Small Beer Press
- Solaris Satellites
- Subterranean
- Tachyon
- Tordotcom (you knew that, right? If not, I have very good news for you.)
- Twelfth Planet Press
In the words of fanfiction author Musty181, prolific book reviewer and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll “looks like a default mii with glasses.” His work has appeared in Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis) and the 2021 and 2022 Aurora Award finalist Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by web person Adrienne L. Travis). He is a four-time finalist for the Best Fan Writer Hugo Award, and is surprisingly flammable.
