Best Novella

The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1886. It recounts the final illness and death of a mid-level Russian judicial official who, facing terminal illness, confronts the meaninglessness he perceives in his conventionally successful life. The narrative examines theme...

'The Yellow Wallpaper' is a short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in 1892 in The New England Magazine. The narrative depicts a woman's descent into psychosis while confined to an upstairs nursery with yellow wallpaper, as part of a prescribed 'rest cure' for what w...

The Invention of Morel is a 1940 novella by Argentine writer Adolfo Bioy Casares. Its narrator encounters a group of people on an isolated island and gradually confronts a machine that records and reproduces the appearance, movements, and voices of living subjects, raising questions about reality, m...

Worstward Ho is a 1983 novella by Irish writer Samuel Beckett and one of his late prose works. Written in compressed, fragmented English, it presents a voice that repeatedly attempts to describe bodies, memory, consciousness, and failure while revising or undermining its own statements, making the b...

San Manuel Bueno, mártir is a 1931 novella by Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno. Its narrator, Ángela Carballino, recounts the life of Don Manuel, a beloved parish priest in the village of Valverde de Lucerna, whose private crisis of faith contrasts with his public commitment to his community. The wo...

The Shadow over Innsmouth is a horror novella by H. P. Lovecraft, written in 1931 and first published as a book in 1936. Its narrator visits the isolated Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth, investigates its decaying buildings and secretive population, and discovers a relationship between the town's...

Coloquio de los Perros is a short satirical novella by Miguel de Cervantes published in 1613. It presents a fantastical conversation between two canine characters offering a unique perspective on human behavior. This work exemplifies the picaresque novel genre popular during Spain’s Golden Age and p...

Martha Wells’ All Systems Red presents a compelling science fiction story centered around Murderbot, an autonomous security unit with a strong desire to be left alone to watch entertainment feeds. The novella explores themes of identity, corporate exploitation, and artificial intelligence through th...

'Dream Story' is a novella by the Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler, originally published in 1926 under the title 'Traumnovelle'. The narrative follows Fridolin, a successful doctor, and his wife Albertine as they navigate the psychological fallout of confessing their secret desires to one another....

What Moves the Dead is a 2022 horror novella by T. Kingfisher that reimagines Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. It follows Alex Easton, a retired soldier who visits the isolated Usher estate after receiving news that Madeline Usher is gravely ill. The story retains Poe's decaying man...

Wylding Hall is a horror novella by the American author Elizabeth Hand, published in 2015. The narrative is structured as a series of documentary-style interviews recounting the experiences of a fictional 1970s British acid-folk band that retreats to an ancient manor house to record an album. During...

Strait Is the Gate, published in 1909, is a French novel or novella by André Gide. Its central relationship follows the narrator Jérôme and his cousin Alissa, whose religious scruples and ideal of self-denial complicate their love. The work examines Protestant morality, asceticism, and the conflict...

"Artificial Condition" is a 2018 science fiction novella by American author Martha Wells and the second installment in "The Murderbot Diaries" series. The narrative follows the protagonist, an introverted, partially organic cyborg security unit that refers to itself as Murderbot, as it travels to a...

Mapping the Interior is a 2017 horror novella by Stephen Graham Jones, published by Tor.com. Its narrator is a twelve-year-old Native American boy who sees a figure resembling his dead father moving through the family home at night and begins investigating the apparition. The novella combines a haun...

The Wheels of If is a science fiction novella by L. Sprague de Camp, first published in the October 1940 issue of Unknown magazine. The story follows New Yorker Charles Park who finds himself involuntarily shifting between parallel timelines, including one where the Vikings established lasting settl...

The Heart of What Was Lost is a novella by Tad Williams published in 2017, set in the world of Osten Ard between the events of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn and the later trilogy The Last King of Osten Ard. It depicts the aftermath of the Storm King's defeat and the pursuit of the retreating Norn army b...

Evidence of the Affair is an epistolary novella written by American author Taylor Jenkins Reid and published in 2018. The narrative is set in the late 1970s and unfolds entirely through a series of letters exchanged between two strangers. They initiate their correspondence after discovering that the...

Rogue Protocol is a 2018 science fiction novella by American author Martha Wells and the third installment in the Murderbot Diaries, following All Systems Red (2017) and Artificial Condition (2018). The series follows a self-aware security construct that calls itself Murderbot as it navigates corpor...

Fugitive Telemetry is a 2021 science fiction novella by American author Martha Wells, part of the widely read "The Murderbot Diaries" series. The plot follows the protagonist, a self-aware cyborg security unit known as Murderbot, as it reluctantly teams up with station security to investigate a murd...

Binti is a science fiction novella written by Nigerian-American author Nnedi Okorafor, first published in 2015. The story follows a young woman from the Himba ethnic group who leaves her home to become the first of her people to attend the prestigious intergalactic Oomza University. The book receive...

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is a 2022 solarpunk science fiction novella written by Becky Chambers. Serving as the sequel to A Psalm for the Wild-Built, the story follows a traveling tea monk named Sibling Dex and a sentient robot named Mosscap as they explore the nature of humanity and fulfillment. T...

The Murders of Molly Southbourne is a 2017 horror science-fiction novella by Tade Thompson. Its protagonist, Molly Southbourne, is forced to kill the hostile duplicate versions of herself that appear whenever her blood is spilled, turning an unusual biological condition into a continuing survival pr...

Diamond Fire is a 2018 novella by Ilona Andrews set in the Hidden Legacy urban fantasy and paranormal romance series. It shifts the series' central viewpoint to Catalina Baylor after the earlier books focused on her sister Nevada, and it introduces the next stage of the Baylor family's story. The bo...

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is a 2021 horror novella by Eric LaRocca. The story is presented through digital correspondence, including emails and chat logs, between two women who meet online. Its epistolary structure makes the development of their relationship and the increasingly d...

A Court of Frost and Starlight is a 2018 fantasy novella by Sarah J. Maas and the fourth published installment in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series. Set after the events of A Court of Wings and Ruin, it follows Feyre Archeron and her friends as they prepare for the Winter Solstice and deal with...