This issue isn’t really about reader expectations, much. It’s just something of a reality about the two sub-genres. And something I’ve been thinking about.
Sword and Sorcery stories are almost always short—no longer than novel-length at most and often shorter. Where the main character(s) of a Sword and Sorcery spawn a series, it’s almost always episodic—each story is a separate adventure. Like detective fiction, the only common denominator in the series is the protagonist(s). (And I only say ‘almost’ because there may actually be an exception out there, but, if so, I can’t think of it.)
- Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian stories were mostly novelettes or novellas . A novelette is basically a very long short story, from 30 pages to 60 pages long. A novella is from 60 pages to 200 pages. A more or less average novel (if there is such a thing) would be about 400 pages, though anything over 200 pages counts and, of course, some are much longer.
- Same with Fritz Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories.
- Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone started out the same, but did grow into several novel-length works as well.
Whereas, although I can think of a few single-book examples, for Epic Fantasy more often than not a series is the default. A reader expectation, in fact.
- Lord of the Rings is one very long story published in 3 volumes, adding up to (in my copy) almost 1100 pages (excluding the appendices).
- David and Leigh Eddings’s Belgariad and Malorean are each 5 volumes.
- Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, finished by Brandon Sanderson, is . . . 14 volumes and over 10,000 pages!
My theory about that is that the smaller stakes of Sword and Sorcery cannot support a longer story. The goal simply isn’t worth it when that many obstacles and risks begin to pile up. There are, after all, other possible adventures and, probably, other treasures and a character smart enough to be interesting ought to recognize that at some point. But the obstacles and risks are much more worth it if the character is saving the world.
I also think that failure to realize the difference between Sword and Sorcery and Epic Fantasy—especially when it comes to length—can cause a story to fail. We, as readers or audience, lose interest if the stakes are too low to support the weight of the story.
Meredith Mansfield, Author 
I think the historical difference is that Sword and Sorcery was exclusively written for the pulp market, and even the headliner in a pulp magazine was never more than novella length. And pulp catered to the read-and-discard crowd. It’s not the stakes, it’s the medium. When you write to fit and the fit is short, naturally stakes are small and local and generally personal rather than world-shaking.
Elric growing into a series (or more accurately, a One Big Novel) was anomalous for its day, but I think encouraged by the slow death of pulp, and even the novel-length books break up into episodes. But the original set’s stakes grow into “either fight this, or it’s the end of the universe” and you can’t get much bigger than that. The later books are more fluffy; one reads them because one enjoys Elric’s company, not for the depth of the story. (I recall thinking of one that nothing much happens, but I’d forgotten how much I like Elric, and as a reader that was all I cared about.)
And that may really be key: does the lead character support longer association? is he all action and no consideration? or does he have ideas of his own that aren’t entirely stuck on killing the next obstacle, that make him more focal to the reader’s enjoyment?
Karl Edward Wagner’s “Kane” series is straight-up S&S, yet includes three novels… and a character who has the depth to carry it. A pretty good overview:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kane_%28fantasy%29#Character_background
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Separate thoughts:
It’s not the pagecount (there are tens of thousands of novels in print that are around 90 pages; in fact that’s the norm for gumshoe, and loads of old DAW paperbacks), it’s the wordcount. A common definition:
Short Story: Less than 7,500 words
Novelette: 7,700 – 17,500 words
Novella: 17,500 – 40,000 words
Novel: anything longer
Last time I checked wordcount vs page length for several random paperbacks (where I happened to have ebooks available to facilitate a lazy man’s actual wordcount), it averaged around 300 words per page. I’m not sure how publishers count it nowadays.
Why are books getting longer? because a substantial chunk of readers preferred it, so publishers demanded it (by way of what they’d pay for). Some current Chinese fantasy novels have wordcounts well over a million, and a friend who reads ’em just told me of one that is 13,000 chapters and counting. The draw seems to be convoluted characters with no end of depths, rather than the course of events.
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I agree. Interesting characters can carry a longer story as well. Though, I think, only up to a point.
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Yes, I know the real definition is word count. But people who aren’t writers probably don’t. I used the SFWA definitions of length and divided by the standard 250 words/manuscript page to get page counts instead, for clarity.
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