Hello, folks! A short one this week, since I’m exhausted. I had six—SIX! editor meetings this week, over various meals and video conferencing services, and I am all talked out. Will that stop me from attending a party tonight and my Terry Pratchett Discworld Book Club meeting on Sunday? Absolutely not! Regardless, I’ll leave you with our Question of the Week and a rundown of what I’m reading, and give you an update you probably didn’t want about Alex Ovechkin’s lack of scoring.
WHAT I’M READING
I’ve had a big reading week! I finished Leigh Bardugo’s new book The Familiar, which I greatly enjoyed. I went back and forth on thinking it was great—in the initial flush of finishing it I gave it a 4/5, and then I downgraded it, and now I think it’s back up. The writing is very lush and atmospheric, and it didn’t at all end how I thought it would! In a way it ended the only way it could, given how grounded it is in history. I’m also halfway through The Justice Of Kings by Richard Swan, which is a bit more bro-centric than I’m used to in fantasy (though it does have a female protagonist.) My phone book is the second book I’m reading for the aforementioned Discworld book club: Wyrd Sisters. I am getting such joy from these whimsical little books! And I do mean little—they’re very fast reads, which I like, since Justice of Kings is a chonker.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Are publishers asking for shorter novels because readers' attention spans are getting shorter? There seems to be a trend for shorter novels.
Honestly I have no idea! I haven’t myself noticed this trend, but I also haven’t been looking for it. But it if it is happening, it may be related to reader attention spans—editors among them. Additionally, shorter books are cheaper to print—the longer the book, the more paper and the more expensive it is! The most famous (possibly apocryphal) example I can think of is the most recent volume of Game of Thrones, which supposedly had to be cut down by about 150 pages or else Penguin Random House would have lost money for every volume sold. I recently signed my first client, and part of the appeal of the book was its tight pacing and relatively short length—about 80,000 words. But then again, in the genres I represent, there is a tolerance for length that you don’t see in other genres!
THIS WEEK IN HOCKEY
And it’s *actually* about hockey this time! My beloved Capitals are 0 for 2 in their series against the top-seeded Rangers, and their ancient, grizzled captain Alex Ovechkin has had only one shot on goal in both games. Not looking great for that race to beat Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal record, bud! Elsewhere, please read this stunner of an article about Sergei Bobrovsky’s legendary save in the most recent Panthers/Lightning game:
The many-worlds interpretation is a theory that seeks to answer the big conundrum of quantum systems seeming to exist in every possible state simultaneously. In traditional theories, observing the wave function causes it to "collapse" into a single position, all the superposed possibilities settling into one. The cat is either dead, or it's not. But MWI holds that the wave function itself—which can only be described mathematically, in terms of probabilities—is objectively real, and that every possible outcome does indeed exist, and, crucially, that each outcome happens in its own universe—creates its own universe. In this universe the cat is alive; in another, identical to ours in every way but the one, the cat is dead.
Thus, there may be a universe where Sergei Bobrovsky did not make this save on Matt Dumba.
HOUSEKEEPING
Do you have any questions about the publishing industry? Requests for advice? Thoughts on your recent reads? You can leave them as comments, replies to this email, or fill out this Google form to ask anonymously!
I am open to queries via QueryManager only, which can be found here. Here is my submissions page on the LDLA website, and here is a more detailed MSWL.
My first novel, Marrying In, is available for purchase on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, and is coming soon to iBooks. If you’ve read it, consider leaving a review—that helps me and the book in the long run!
You can find me on social media on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, the A Faster No Discord, and now TikTok. If you buy any of the books linked in this newsletter I receive a small commission at no cost to you.
This newsletter is a personal project, and the sentiments and opinions expressed here are my own and not those of my employer.