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Science fiction and fantasy both have long traditions of publishing short fiction. Although the market for short fiction in these genres has declined somewhat since the days in which there were literally dozens of monthly magazines on the market publishing science fiction and fantasy stories, these genres are among the very few that still seem to have a reasonably active commercial trade in short fiction.
Short fiction works that tie in to a larger series are not entirely unknown in the genre fiction world, but stand alone short fiction is much more common. Science fiction has also established a history of serializing stories: Many classic science fiction novels were first published over the course of three or four months worth of magazine issues. The Larry Niven novel Smoke Ring was published this way as was the Lois McMaster Bujold novel Falling Free, and a whole host of others. Many works that appeared first as short fiction have been expanded to novel length later such as the Frank Herbert classic Dune (which was originally called Dune World) and the Nancy Kress novel Beggars in Spain.
But none of this actually answers the question at hand. As far as I can tell, most short fiction that is attached to a longer series is kind of a side show. Most authors appear to know that the bulk of their readers won't actually read the short fiction that is ancillary to the novels in the series, so they don't usually put anything of great importance in them, focusing more on character development and world building. So while most of these pieces of related short fiction are interesting, they are often not much more than a light diversion. Light diversions are enjoyable.
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I think that a lot of times they use them to try to suck people that are not already fans or familiar with their series into the series or into their little "world" which can be a good thing, as long as it doesn't give anything away or require prior knowledge of the series. It's when it gives away plot points or doesn't make sense if you haven't already read the rest that it can be offputting.
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Lisa @ Just Another Rabid Reader
@Lisa Pottgen: Acting as an introduction to a series is a good role for ancillary short fiction works.
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