Pondering the Novella Paranormal

I’ve long stated that I’m paranormaled-out, that the struggle of Good vs. Evil with the hairy and the fanged doesn’t do much for me anymore. Too often the Presto Instant-Lurrrve because They Were Meant To Be frustrates me and I stop caring about the fate of the world. Really, if the planet blew up because there wasn’t enough emotional tension between the protagonists, it’s a justifiable loss. I much prefer a plot that forces the hero and heroine to come to terms with their relationship for reasons other than The Fate of the World, and having the attraction and fated attachment mixed in like romance novel Ovaltine bugs the ever living hell out of me.

Sometimes the hero is unable to control his compulsion – they are Meant to Be, and there’s no use fighting. It creates brittle conflict and for God’s sake the world hangs in the balance. Yawn. Other times they hate each other but find out that their hybrid child can save the world, or that they’re being manipulated into hatred because of whatever reason.

At times, the paranormal romances I’ve sampled are like Bond movies: there’s sex and romance in there as a garnish. At no time in a Bond movie are you supposed to believe that old James is hanging up is eternally erect gun and his watery martini because he’s found True Lurrrrve. The Bond women, and sadly, some heroines, are transient and about as emotionally deep as sneeze splatter.

I think my frustration rests with the idea that too often the plot in paranormal romance assumes that the relationship working out, instead of the plot BEING that their relationship will work out, no matter what obstacles are in their way. “We must fuck to save the world” is like a bad pickup line. (I now challenge you to go use it in a bar or club – PLEASE.)

Yet I do like stories about shifters and to a lesser extent vampires that aren’t too angsty or too gleeful about it (what Heather Osborn calls, “OMG I just woke up in a COFFIN – AWESOME!” syndrome) so I’m still cautiously trying out different books that might grab me. My solution: novellas. Paranormal ones. Even if the story isn’t as developed as I’d like, or there’s room for more, often the novella is a strong indication of the larger novels to come, or work really well as a sample for the writer’s world building.

Do you like paranormal novellas? Do you buy them? Do you prefer that they’re free? And if you read them, which ones rock your world, or your otherworld? Are there other novellas you adore? Share, please!

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Random Musings

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  1. Lane says:

    I really liked Luisa Prieto’s Cooking With Ergot. Fun, quick-paced story about a witch with a cooking show getting a special guest star from an infamous witch-hunter family. I think it’s actually a good example of Destined Love done right; it actually helped bump up the inter-character tension.

    Granted, I think she always does awesomely with her character tension. Written in Blood was an intense Victorian suspense with a truly awesome vampire love interest.

  2. Kelc says:

    I love ‘em. Unfortunately, I’m usually disappointed. I expect everyone to write a short as wonderfully as Kresley Cole but it’s not to be. I guess I need to read Patricia Briggs, too.

  3. Anna B. says:

    Reading Diana Galbadon, Marjorie Liu,  Karen Marie Moning, Charlaine Harris and Meljean Brooks.  Excellent!

  4. Petra says:

    I really hate all the little paranormal anthologies that are coming out these days.  The stories are never developed enough for me and generally I just wind up feeling like I got cheated.  I stopped buying them years ago when I realized it’s just one big cash grab.

    I don’t mind my favorite authors making some dough, but at least give me a full story if I’m going to buy it. 

    Maybe it’s just a phase that I’m going through, but I’m a little over the whole paranormal/vampire craze.  There’s no edge there anymore.  I more look forward to contemporary romance novels (but it seems like the authors I read are spinning off into the paranormal genres….damn.).

  5. maggie says:

    i hate to say it (well actually i love to but…)
    OMG! i totally agree with you
    i hate hate hate hate hate all this vamp chick lit shit that’s being published these days. and then you get the YA vampire SCHOOL crap. it is horrifying. i like my vampires to be scary and kinda evil, almost antiheros and heroines thank you very much, not sparkley. it is so bad. it makes me want to scream. i saw an “I heart Vampires” bumper sticker the other day and seiously considered…. i don’t know. doing something drastic and probably violent.
    personally my two favorite vampire stories are Agyar by Steven Brust and Chistopher Pike’s The Last Vampire, which has the singularly awesome quality of having a female vampire main charater who’s been floating around the world, completely self-sufficient for all of recorded history, excepting short-ish affair with various odd, brilliant and radical insane mortaly men

  6. Jocelyn says:

    I love the paranormal trend, because I’ve always loved both Fantasy and Romance.  I think that a lot of people with paranormal burn-out found themselves in that situation because they’re more interested in one genre than the other, and since they focus on the genre they like better, they tend to feel like they’re reading half a story.

    Still, I’m not a big fan of the novella because since I’m used to the three-book fantasy novel set-up, or a full length romance, and I feel like novellas are just too short.  I’ve liked the ones I’ve read by Kresley Cole, and of course the Alpha and Omega one, but overall, I feel like I’ve read three chapters and suddenly the book is over.

  7. I had a bumper sticker on my rear windshield that I have since peeled off. It was the type that you peel off the backing, stick it on the car, then peel off the clear plastic covering, leaving the decal itself on the car.

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