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Animal Farm is considered a novella, which is shorter than a novel.

for perspective, a novel is around 100k words, and animal farm is under 30k.

Typically a novel is over 40k words plus, a novella is 15-40k words, and a short story is 15k or under. Depends on who you ask though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novella#Word_counts

No, "typically" it's a "know-it-when-you-see-it" kind of thing. Trying to delineate precise word count boundaries is a misrepresentation of how these words are used. The numbers you gave are reasonable guidelines but are certainly not determinative.

Yes, that’s why I used the words “typically” and ”depends on who you ask”.

That chart implies it is possible for somebody to write a work that wins the Hugo awards for best novelette and best novella, which I’d really like to see happen!

For perspective closer to the topic here, these are the approximate word counts of the books currently listed at "George Orwell bibliography" under "Novels":

• Burmese Days (1934): 97000

• A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935): 94000

• Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936): 87000

• Coming Up for Air (1939): 83000 (?)

• Animal Farm (1945): 30000 (just over 30k)

• Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949): 103000 (or 99000 without the “The Principles of Newspeak” appendix).

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