"Territory," pp. 1-76, is classified as a novella;
"The Trouble Twisters," pp. 77-208, a novella;
"Day of Burning," pp. 209-272, a novella;
"The Master Key," pp. 273-327, a novella;
Satan's World, pp. 329-598, a novel;
"A Little Knowledge," pp. 599-630, a short story;
"Lodestar," pp. 631-680, a novella.
The second, third, fifth and seventh of these works, constituting one novel and three novellas, comprise the entire trader team sub-series from its beginning in "The Trouble Twisters" to its climax, culmination and conclusion in "Lodestar." Mirkheim, at the beginning of Volume III, is not so much a fifth sub-series installment as rather a sequel set much later when the long-disbanded team is reconvened for a different purpose in changed circumstances. "The Master Key" and "A Little Knowledge" show us events happening elsewhere while the team is operating. The Chronology informs us that stories overlap.
Although we last see the team operating for its original purpose in "Lodestar," it continues to operate for some time after that and even recruits Coya Conyon, van Rijn's granddaugher/Falkayn's wife, in the Y minus 9 section of Mirkheim, Prologue.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And at more than 100 pages in length, "The Trouble Twisters" should be considered a short novel.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That is what I thought but 100+ pages is my rule of thumb for a novel. Publishers go by word count and do not always print the same number of words on a page. "The Trouble Twisters" is less than 100 pages in my copy of THE TROUBLE TWISTERS.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Dang! You are right. I checked my copy of the original 1966 hardcover Doubleday edition, and the TEXT of the story only goes from page 103 to 189. So, less than a novel in length. I should have noted how Baen Books used a fairly large font, which would increase the number of pages.
Ad astra! Sean
SF novels have expanded. 60K words used to be considered normal; now it's very short, almost novella length, and 120-150,000 is normal.
The Lord of the Rings was planned as a single volume, but split into three because of length -- but books of that length are now not rare, though still not very common, in fantasy fiction.
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