Novel built of short-story “episodes” like a TV show

[Tallyfire]

(This question emerged from this thread.)

Does anyone know of any sci-fi/fantasy books that are built (like many TV shows are) out of “episodic” short stories that are all linked to one overarching location/group of people? Some short stories would further the plot, while others are mostly character development or world building.

The only books I know of are the first two Witcher books, which are collections of short stories about the Witcher character. Most of the stories are standalone, while other stories develop an overarching plot over multiple tellings. The only other examples of books in this format I know are series of novels, where each book is an “episode,” but that’s something different in the end.

I want to write something like this with a variety of characters on a spaceship like in Star Trek. Aside from examples of books in this format, I’d also like to hear reasons why it would be a bad idea to write something like this.

 

[Tallyfire]

“Short stories” could also be used interchangeably with “chapters” in this case, but the point is that some chapters would be short stories in their own right, while others would build on stories that came before. All would revolve around the same set of characters.

 

[Hammer]

Haven't read them for a long time, but I think the Red Dwarf books (Infinity welcomes careful drivers for one...) would fit this description as the novel was largely based on the TV series. Even the author's name Grant Naylor is a hash of Rob Grant and Doug Naylor

 

[Tallyfire]

Haven't read them for a long time, but I think the Red Dwarf books (Infinity welcomes careful drivers for one...) would fit this description as the novel was largely based on the TV series. Even the author's name Grant Naylor is a hash of Rob Grant and Doug Naylor

Oh, thanks for this suggestion! I never watched Red Dwarf but I’ve always been aware of it as a hole in my knowledge of sci-fi classics so this sounds like the perfect way to fill it in.

 

[Madman Starryteller]

I've been trying to do something similar for a while now. The only issue I see with this sort of thing is how and where you publish.

Do you publish "seasons"? Then they're really just books in the end just with fancy new branding. Or do you publish online on something like Royal Road?

How will the story structure look? Independent episodes with an overarching plot that is followed once every three episodes or so?

It's an interesting concept for books, but I don't know how different it is really from normal books and anthologies?

 

[X Equestris]

The first two Imaro books by Charles R. Saunders—Imaro and The Quest for Cush—do this, focusing on the titular character and his adventures in the African-analogue continent of Nyumbani.

There are a few related forms all tangled together. You’ve got the fix-up novel, where the differences between stories are often smoothed out to create a more novel-like narrative. You’ve got the novel-in-stories, where the stories are more standalone but still build a clear narrative like a novel. And you’ve got the short story cycle, which leans more towards being a short story collection than a novel but is still structured such that the cycle is more than the sum of its parts.

 

[Tallyfire]

I've been trying to do something similar for a while now. The only issue I see with this sort of thing is how and where you publish.

Do you publish "seasons"? Then they're really just books in the end just with fancy new branding. Or do you publish online on something like Royal Road?

How will the story structure look? Independent episodes with an overarching plot that is followed once every three episodes or so?

It's an interesting concept for books, but I don't know how different it is really from normal books and anthologies?

These are really good questions. I see you've been thinking about this longer than I have. My idea would be a wandering sort of story - one large mystery that is explored from different angles through various characters and short stories, while other short stories that would be for exploration of the concept and culture of the spaceship. The mystery threads would start tying together towards the end, which would hopefully reach novel length (and not more). I keep thinking of Ursula K. Le Guins Always Coming Home, which is a maximalist exploration of a "new" culture in post-apocalyptic California. It has everything from songs and plays to a more classic narrative. That book goes way off the deep end of what I could imagine writing, but it's an interesting example.

I think Always Coming Home is also something no one would want to publish. So imagining where and how to publish is important.

The first two Imaro books by Charles R. Saunders—Imaro and The Quest for Cush—do this, focusing on the titular character and his adventures in the African-analogue continent of Nyumbani.

There are a few related forms all tangled together. You’ve got the fix-up novel, where the differences between stories are often smoothed out to create a more novel-like narrative. You’ve got the novel-in-stories, where the stories are more standalone but still build a clear narrative like a novel. And you’ve got the short story cycle, which leans more towards being a short story collection than a novel but is still structured such that the cycle is more than the sum of its parts.

The Imaro books sound really interesting.

"Novel-in-stories" is probably the term I was looking for! Thank you for that explanation. It's so difficult to find what you're looking for when you don't know the right term for it.

 

[X Equestris]

The Imaro books sound really interesting.

Really interesting, but also really hard to get your hands on. If you decide to check them out, Gollancz reprinted those two earlier this year in the UK; this edition is by far the most affordable. Still, there’s no ebook version and the paperbacks are exclusive to the UK. Gotta have them imported if you’re anywhere else; I highly recommend buying from Blackwell’s.

Otherwise, happy to help! I’m building a similar project right now, so it’s an area I’ve had to research myself.

 

[Dogberry's Watch]

This question made me immediately think of penny dreadfuls. I dunno if that's the direction I was meant to think, but it felt similar. They were serialized weekly fiction and were incredibly popular for their time because of the cost (a penny! Woo!) and usually the intensity of the stories. A lot of them were mysteries or something similar. I feel like someone somewhere could have bound a series and turned it into a complete book at some point? I don't think it'd be the same as a comic series being placed into an omnibus (or whatever the thing is called), but maybe it is.

 

[Tallyfire]

Really interesting, but also really hard to get your hands on. If you decide to check them out, Gollancz reprinted those two earlier this year in the UK; this edition is by far the most affordable. Still, there’s no ebook version and the paperbacks are exclusive to the UK. Gotta have them imported if you’re anywhere else; I highly recommend buying from Blackwell’s.

Otherwise, happy to help! I’m building a similar project right now, so it’s an area I’ve had to research myself.

It looks like both Imaro books were released as ebooks (and even audiobooks!) early this year. Do you have any other book recommendations? It's so nice to hear I'm not the only one who's thought of this! I'm not sure if my lack of experience in reading novel-in-story type books is because I've just not read widely enough or because there really aren't that many of them.

Another I thought of is Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick, a super interesting book about a Kenyan "utopia" on a distant moon. That's more of a fix-up novel so it gets repetitive in parts, but it tells a very compelling story.

 

[Naomasa298]

Asimov's original Foundation novels.

When Asimov was writing, early on in his career, he wrote connected, but standalone, short stories that were published in Astounding Science Fiction. These were later collected together, some additional bridging material added, and then published as Foundation. I think Foundation and Empire was the same, but Second Foundation may have been different.

 

[X Equestris]

It looks like both Imaro books were released as ebooks (and even audiobooks!) early this year.

Ah, I remember now: the ebooks (at least the Kindle version) had limited distribution as well, but if you can grab them, fantastic!

Unfortunately, if you like them, the third and fourth books are vanishingly rare. Gollancz hasn’t reprinted them, and extant paperbacks regularly go for hundreds of dollars for used copies.

Do you have any other book recommendations?

Since @Naomasa298 brought up Asimov, I might specifically mention I, Robot. Wikipedia goes back and forth a little, calling it a fixup collection on the book’s page while citing it as an example of a short story cycle on that page, which goes to show you just how misty the boundaries are here. But it’s a classic if you’re looking for spec-fic collections.

There’s also Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.

What immediately came to mind when I saw the title was The Last Wish, since it feels more novel-like than most collections I’ve read, doing a good job Geralt as a character and his world at large, but you’ve already read that. Nevertheless, the structure of a framing story broken up by the individual short stories might be helpful when it comes to inspiration.

 

[Naomasa298]

Since @Naomasa298 brought up Asimov, I might specifically mention I, Robot. Wikipedia goes back and forth a little, calling it a fixup collection on the book’s page while citing it as an example of a short story cycle on that page, which goes to show you just how misty the boundaries are here. But it’s a classic if you’re looking for spec-fic collections.

It's been a long time since I read it, but from memory, it's a short story collection, united by the theme of Asimov's positronic robots. The stories themselves aren't related, but they mostly include the recurring character of Susan Calvin. The difference between it and say, Foundation, is that Foundation is presented as a single, coherent novel, the stories in I, Robot are presented as discrete short stories, and each is individually titled. The stories have also appeared, individually, in other collections, not necessarily along with the other stories.

 

[Kiraann]

Speaking of the Foundation series, Poul Anderson’s Flandry series started the same way - long short stories in one of the 50’s magazines, then later collected into books.

 

[Tallyfire]

Speaking of the Foundation series, Poul Anderson’s Flandry series started the same way - long short stories in one of the 50’s magazines, then later collected into books.

It's interesting that most of these seem to be older books. I guess that makes sense in one way because magazines these days don't often publish serialised stories from single authors (that I know of, anyway).

I found one example from Japanese fiction called What You're Looking For Is in the Library. Each short story is set in the same location (the library) but relates to a different character entering the library. Then I remembered I read Before the Coffee Gets Cold earlier this year, which follows the same format in a cafe, but I guess I wanted to forget that one.