Does size matter?
The question arises in fiction when authors conceive novels that are noticeably bigger in word count and longer in page length than usual.
In theory, a bigger novel makes possible a larger canvas, allowing for an epic scope, a more complex narrative, richer world-building, more full-bodied characters, greater subtleties and depths.
Whether or not ambitious authors fulfill that potential and achieve their literary goals when writing bigger novels varies, of course. So does whether readers will find it rewarding to invest the extra time needed to read such magnum opuses.
Such questions are interesting and timely to ponder now that Sarah Hoyt’s No Man’s Land has been nominated for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
HOYT’S THREE-VOLUME MAGNUM OPUS
Based on a passionately pursued idea that Hoyt first developed in her youth and wrote over several drafts and decades, and requiring decades for her to mature as a writer, No Man’s Land eventually developed into a three-volume novel – as reported in a recent Prometheus Blog feature-interview with Hoyt.
“The book exploded to over 250k words and my editor and business manager convinced me to slice it in three. The three are not stand alone but “volumes” of one book,” Hoyt told me last fall when the first volume was published by Goldport Press.
No Man’s Land: Volume 1, published Sept. 9, 2025, is 307 pages.
No Man’s Land: Volume 2, published Sept. 23, 2025, is 280 pages.
And No Man’s Land: Volume 3, published Oct. 7, 2025, is 313 pages.
Each book, in other words, is the size of a normal novel, but they are not stand alone, Hoyt said.
Together, all three books constitute one 900-page novel with one complete story.
That makes No Man’s Land distinct from the increasingly frequent practice within the science fiction and fantasy genres for authors to write duologues, trilogies, tetralogies (for four linked novels), pentalogies (for five), sexologies (for six), and so on.
For instance, among this year’s 12 Best Novel nominees so far are Forged for Destiny and Forged for Prophecy, the separately nominated first two novels in Andrew Knighton’s planned fantasy trilogy.
The Forged for Destiny trilogy will culminate with the publication in March 2026 of Forged for Royalty.
OTHER NOMINATED TRILOGIES
Likewise, the annual Prometheus Award for Best Novel has seen many examples of novels nominated separately that are part of larger trilogies, tetralogies or series.
Just last year Alliance Unbound, by C.J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher, was nominated for Best Novel and became a finalist.
This is the second novel in Cherryh and Fancher’s The Hinder Stars projected trilogy, itself part of Cherryh’s much larger Alliance-Union series.
Alliance Unbound is the sequel to Alliance Rising, which won the 2020 Prometheus Award for Best Novel.
Similarly, all three novels in three-time Prometheus winner Ken MacLeod’s The Corporation Wars science fiction trilogy were recognized in our award.
The Corporation Wars: Dissidence and The Corporation Wars: Insurgence were separately nominated and became Best Novel finalists in 2017, while The Corporation Wars: Emergence, the conclusion of the trilogy, was nominated and became a Best Novel finalist in 2008.
GALLAGHER’S FALL OF THE CENSOR SERIES
Over the past decade or so, perhaps the most significant example of an author being nominated for a large number of novels within the same series is Karl K. Gallagher.
War By Other Means, one of 12 2025 novels nominated so far for the next Prometheus Award for Best Novel, is Book 7 of Gallagher’s projected nine-volume Fall of the Censor series, a favorite among LFS members.
Storm Between the Stars (Book 1) became a 2021 Best Novel finalist.
Between Home and Ruin (Book 2) and Seize What’s Held Dear (Book 3) both became 2022 Best Novel finalists.
Captain Trader Helmsman Spy (Book 4) became a 2023 Best Novel finalist, and, Swim Among the People (Book 5) became a 2024 Best Novel finalist.
HOYT’S DARKSHIP SERIES
Perhaps the most interesting comparison with the single nomination this year of Hoyt’s three-part novel No Man’s Land is with her own previous and illustrious track record in the Prometheus Awards.
After winning the Prometheus Award for Best Novel in 2011 for Darkship Thieves, Hoyt was nominated for each of her Darkship novels, all set in the same future solar-system-wide scenario revolving around a heroic woman from an anarchist colony in the asteroid who must fight for her freedom and identity against a tyrannical Earth government.
Among them: Darkship Renegades, a 2013 Prometheus Best Novel finalist; A Few Good Men, a 2014 Best Novel finalist; Through Fire, a 2017 Best Novel nominee; and Darkship Revenge, a 2018 Best Novel finalist.
Hoyt also has said (in an earlier Prometheus Blog article) that she hopes to return to her Darkship universe to write more novels.
Yet, each of Hoyt’s Darkship books is a stand-alone novel – part of her larger fictional future universe but each with its own plot, characters and dramatic arc, including a compelling beginning, middle and end.
DUMAS’ MUSKETEERS AND OTHER LITERARY PRECEDENTS
No Man’s Land, on the other hand, tells one story revolving around its central character – and that took three books to complete.
That’s unusual today, in the 21st century, yet it was far more common in the 19th century. And such three-book novels were popular, too, especially in England and France.
Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), who became the best-selling novelist in the history of France, is best known today for The Count of Monte Christo and The Three Musketeers, a historical swashbuckling adventure published in 1844.
His Musketeers tale proved so popular with readers in France and around the world that Dumas wrote several sequels.
Billed as the first of three d’Artagnan Romances, The Three Musketeers was followed by Twenty Years After and The Vicomte de Bragellone: Ten Years Later – all bestsellers in French and their subsequent English translations.
Few read the latter sequel today, or even recognize its title. Yet many have read (or seen the film versions of) The Man in the Iron Mask, a novel that actually was one of three or four books within the multi-volume The Vicomte de Bragellone.
Appearing first in serial form between 1847 and 1850, the 268 chapters of this large volume are usually subdivided into three in the English translations of the French , but sometimes four or even six individual books, according to an encyclopedia entry about Dumas and his novels.
In three-volume English editions the volumes are entitled The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask (by far the best-known work today, thanks largely to several film adaptations, including a 1998 version starring Leonardo DiCaprio.)
If a three-volume novel seems expansive, how about four?
According to the encyclopedia reference, The Vicomte de Bragellone has also been divided up to publish as four books. The names remain the same, except that Louise de la Vallière and The Man in the Iron Mask move from second and third volumes to third and fourth, with Ten Years Later becoming the second volume.
HOW TO JUDGE EPIC NOVELS – AND HOW BIG IS TOO BIG?
Given such historical precedents and the fact that different subjects often require different scopes, does No Man’s Land work as a three-volume novel?
That depends largely on the story itself, how well Hoyt wrote it (excellently, in my view, with a winning blend of intelligent plotting, imaginative world-building, zestful adventure, twisty suspense, affecting emotion and humor).
But it arguably also depends in part on the reader – and the practical question: Is a three-volume novel simply too big to practically digest?
At 900 pages for all three volumes, No Man’s Land is certainly on the high end of today’s range of novels. Yet, the story is so engaging, the writing is so deft, the pacing is so well-timed and it reads so smoothly that I didn’t find it too long at all.
And I think Hoyt is right: All three volumes were necessary, and do add up to one satisfying novel that has the unusual characteristic of appealing equally to fans of science fiction and fantasy.
Coming up on the Prometheus Blog: A comparative list and analysis of the biggest novels in page length in the 47-year history of the Prometheus Award – and where No Man’s Land ranks on that list. (You might be surprised.)
ABOUT THE LFS AND THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS
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