Brilliant Idea

By Cheryl Morgan

One of the most common complaints made about best-selling SF&F series is, "the original novella was much better." It is surprising just how many really famous books began life as novellas, which is why I am so pleased that Brian M. Thomsen and DAW have created an anthology of them. Novel Ideas is quite simply an anthology of stories that went on to become very famous books. A book like this doesn’t need a review as such because the material is so well known, so I’ll content myself with looking at the contents. We’ll start with the really famous ones:

"Beggars in Spain" by Nancy Kress, first published in Asimov’s, a Hugo winner in its own right and nominated for a Hugo a novel.

"Ender’s Game" by Orson Scott Card, first published in Analog as a novelette, which was nominated for a Hugo, and later a Hugo winner as a novel too.

"The Postman" by David Brin, first published in Asimov’s, nominated for a Hugo as both a novella and a novel, and later a motion picture staring Kevin Costner

"Fire Watch" by Connie Willis, first published in Asimov’s, a Hugo winner as a novelette, and the first story in the setting that later produced the Hugo-winning novels, The Domesday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog.

"Blood Music" by Greg Bear, first published in Analog and later to become a Hugo-nominated novel.

"Air Raid" by John Varley, first published in Asimov’s, a short story nominee for both Hugo and the source for the Hugo-nominated novel, Millennium.

And that is almost it. The only story that isn’t an award winner is "The Lady in the Tower" by Anne McCaffrey, first published in F&SF, and the source for The Rowan and subsequent best-selling novels. That’s as weak as the book gets.

Of course serious short fiction fans will already have all of these stories as part of "year’s best", or even in the original magazines, but for everyone else this is simply a book that you should own.

And while you are about it you might also pick up the companion fantasy volume, edited by Thomsen and Martin H. Greenberg.