As for the Ward story…meh. Jia, I don’t feel that just because you’re annoyed by some aspects of Ward’s BDB world that you can’t legitimately review/evaluate the novella. Annoyance at something in a book or series doesn’t negate the right to do a review, does it? Or make it less of a “real” review? Or am I missing the mark here and you’re just too annoyed to want to evaluate it?

Sorry, probably over-thinking here. Thank you for the thoughts you did include though. I agree that Z’s story has been told. A few reappearances to see how he’s doing are great, but we’re always getting more and more angst from him and it steals the limelight of whichever main characters we’re currently reading. I would love to see Rhage and Mary again, Marissa…but then I also wish for the tone and direction of the older books, before it all became bigger than Ward had originally planned for. Oh well.

I, too, chose the $3-ish mark, depending on the size of the novella/short story. I do NOT like anthologies and have bought only one that I can remember–and for one author.

I was one who was deeply disappointed in Cry Wolf because I didn’t realize there was a novella first. And since I usually buy a lot of anthologies, I was extra bummed that the one I waffled on and eventually decided not to pick up (the book budget only goes so far) had the A&O story in it!

To be honest, I’d probably only pick up A&O if given the choice, even though I like all the authors. I’m meh about MobiPocket, but as they say, beggars can’t be choosers.

There are currently two Aphrodisia anthologies available which contain stories by two of my favorite authors of that line, but I refuse to buy them because each is paired with an author I will absolutely not give any money to.

So, unless these two novellas somehow become available by themselves, I will never get to read them. :(

I've followed Ms Briggs for years- I bought Masques new and no amount of money ($250 last time I looked on Half.com) is going to pry my copy out of hands, but this puts me off the Alpha and Omega novels a bit.

DS:
Sorry, I know this is a bit off topic, but I just wanted to say that Patty had intended the novella to be completely stand alone; just a one-off story. After it was written, and turned in, she and her editor came up with the idea that those characters could support a separate series.

It’s been a royal mess trying to figure out how to start the series, and Cry Wolf is pretty confusing for a few chapters if you didn’t read the blasted novella. Sometimes all an author has are awkward solutions. For the record, I can categorically state that she’ll never launch another series from a novella. Everyone makes mistakes, and smart people learn from them <grin>

[snip]Patty has decided to base a series of books on the characters introduced in her novella. After much debate and angst, she decided to basically start the novels where the novella left off. (We're still not sure that was a brilliant decision, but it's too late to re-think it now.) As we feared, readers are confused. Readers are angry. Readers are “missing” the first 70 pages of their newly-purchased book. If they can buy that story for a minimal sum it may smooth some ruffled feathers and bring a little contentment to their lives. Since I read the emails from the ruffled-feather crowd, I'm all for it![snip]

I recently read a book that had been started in an anthology– not Ms Briggs’– but I had the same feeling that I had missed part of it. I enjoyed the book but not enough to go chasing after the story that I only realized existed when I saw someone else complaining about it. I am somewhat hesitant about picking up another book by the author because I would rather not go through that again. So it might be a really bad idea to start a series that way. I’ve followed Ms Briggs for years– I bought Masques new and no amount of money ($250 last time I looked on Half.com) is going to pry my copy out of hands, but this puts me off the Alpha and Omega novels a bit.

Parts of books appearing in other forms has happened for decades– McCaffrey’s first Pern novel was made up of two stories that appeared separately in Analog– but usually that first part also made its way into the book as well. Stories that are totally unnecessary for the understanding of a book are another matter entirely but there are probably going to be more than one hidebound reader (like me) who isn’t interested in going back to read a beginning novella after the book is finished.

I *love* this idea, especially if the anthology is first released in trade size paperback. I don’t really want to pay for a full trade-size book when I only want to read a single author’s story.

If the anthology is mass market paperback though, then hmmm… I probably would shell out a few more dollars and buy the whole book.

As for the price point, for myself at least, anywhere under $2 is an almost sure bet that I’ll buy it, even for a new to me author. Anything above that and I would only shell out for an author that I love… like Nalini, or Briggs lol

As an aside here, I’ve been happily giving Julia Quinn my money for her second epilogues, they give me warm fuzzy feelings. That’s almost, kind of, a little bit, like this, no? If you love em, you’ll pay :/

And I agree that you really need to read Alpha and Omega to fully appreciate and understand Cry Wolf.

However, none of these authors is appealing to me, since I’m not a fan of paranormals. If it was Mary Balogh or Carla Kelly, I’d be jumping at the offer.

The obvious answer to people who want to read a single story in an anthology is usually, “So buy the stupid thing, or borrow it from a library.” However, sometimes there are problems with that approach. The anthology may be out of print, or it may be quite expensive. For example, some of the trade paperback/small press anthologies can cost upwards of $30, and most readers simply can’t drop that kind of money on a book they only intend to read a small part of.

The “On The Prowl” anthology (from which two of these stories are drawn) has another difficulty. One of the four stories is explicitly erotic. Very explicitly erotic. Enough so that I’m not entirely comfortable having a copy in my home. No, don’t laugh, I know it’s considered silly to have moral standards in this day and age, but I’m not trying to force my standards on anyone else, just within my own home. On the other hand, I really love Karen Chance’s story. What am I to do? Now that its available, I’ll happily buy a copy of her novella in electronic format.

Patty has decided to base a series of books on the characters introduced in her novella. After much debate and angst, she decided to basically start the novels where the novella left off. (We’re still not sure that was a brilliant decision, but it’s too late to re-think it now.) As we feared, readers are confused. Readers are angry. Readers are “missing” the first 70 pages of their newly-purchased book. If they can buy that story for a minimal sum it may smooth some ruffled feathers and bring a little contentment to their lives. Since I read the emails from the ruffled-feather crowd, I’m all for it!

The price point is, of course, set by the publisher. I’d like to see them a little cheaper as well, but then I’m a cheapskate through and through. The bottom line is that while these won’t appeal to all readers, they do expand the choices available to readers, which can only be a good thing in my opinion.

I think that’s where most of my annoyance is coming from, so I can’t really evaluate the novella on an unbiased level and pick apart its strong points and its weak points. I did finish it though so that is something.

I’d say it’s a good story for those who love Z and Bella and want to see him continue coping with his past as a slave and how that affects his role as a father. In theory, it makes sense in the context of Z’s trauma but it continues my ongoing grievance with the series that the women’s character growths are woefully underdeveloped. We had an entire book where Z had to cope with his past. Now he gets a novella too? We never really saw Bella learn to cope with hers and she was stuck in a hole with her eyes sewn shut for months and had to take showers in front of a creepy stalker! There was an attempt to address Bella’s weak character arc in Lover Awakened but for me, it was the equivalent of slapping a bandaid on someone who’s lost a leg. It’s a good story for fans of the series but I don’t think you’re missing out if you skip it.

The compendium also included an excerpt of Rehvenge’s forthcoming novel. Now that? That was intriguing.