Will the Serial Novel Return?

With e-books, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer thinks so.

From the article...

Every wondered why Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" is so freakin' long? It's because the book was originally a serial novel, published chapter by chapter in sequential issues of a magazine.

The serial novel is largely a bygone phenomenon. Sure, you can find contemporary examples of serial stories -- Stephen King's "The Green Mile" was published in six parts in 1996, for instance, and television series have it right in the name -- but the serial novel all but ended with the 19th century.

Or did it?

E-books and the Web have created the perfect environment for a resurgence of the serial novel.