Short Stories--What have you read that's good?

[g0ldenboy]

I also just read Interpreter of Maladies, Gryphon, The Things They Carried, etc. Good stuff.

[blueworld]

Hmm, I thought I'd posted at some point in this thread, but I guess I just thought about the topic and never wrote it out.

Some favorite fantasy short stories:
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Science fiction:
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
The Small Assassin by Ray Bradbury
Jeffty is Five by Harlan Ellison
We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick
Oceanic by Greg Egan
The Only Neat Thing To Do by James Tiptree, Jr.
Breathmoss by Ian R. MacLeod
The Rediscovery of Man series by Cordwainer Smith
The Hwarhath series by Eleanor Arnason

mod note: what were the <a> tags supposed to accomplish? removed ~ tollbaby

[Evaine]

I've just discovered an author called Stephen Baxter. He's been around for a while - I just haven't picked up any of his stuff before. Good, solid scientific SF, some interesting alternate history
(For instance, Hermann Goering flies to the South Pole to discover that Aristotelian astronomy is true, and the Earth really is at the centre of a nest of crystalline spheres that carry the other planets and stars around us).
I've got some other books of his in my book unit, for sale, so I think I'm going to take them home instead.

[Melimall]

I picked up a set of second-hand Doctor Who books from a quaint bookstore I used to live near. Most of them are by Terrance Dicks, and they are brilliant for a quick read. They take an hour or so to read, and they are quite enjoyable. I don't know if they'd be easy to find, but if you did, they are worth getting!

[Evaine]

Terrance Dicks was one of the best writers for the original Doctor Who. Which Doctors were in the stories?

[tollbaby]

I just read The Best of Frederik Pohl that turned out to be a pleasant surprise (new to the author, and I haven't been on a sci-fi kick in YEARS).

[DairyPirate]

To be honest, I've never been a short story fan.

-Brandyn

[Melimall]

Terrance Dicks was one of the best writers for the original Doctor Who. Which Doctors were in the stories?

The Third and possibly the Fourth. Most of them are packed at the moment.

I've never seen the TV series and I don't think I'd want to because I'd hate for it to destroy the images I have from reading the books.

[Kvetch]

Interesting what you say about Dr. Who. Terrance Dicks is a very solid author, but I'm of the opinion that watching the originals is better (at least, the good ones...) - and I say this having read the books and seen the story arcs.

[Melimall]

I should probably give them a go, but it's also a matter of finding a video store that I could rent them from.

Any in particular you recommend to start with?

[Kvetch]

I'd advise you to try one an arc that youv'e read, but isn't your absolute favourite - that way, if it does turn out to spoil te books for you, it isn't a big disaster...

I quite liked The Five Doctors, and pretty much anything with Tom Baker (try to Key To Time arc). Castovalva is good (even if it does have Adric in it, whiny wimp that he is). Or the Inferno story line (but only if you are already familiar with UNIT, otherwise the *spoiler* will not be as cool.)

[voralfred]

As far as short stories are concerned, my favorite ones are Isaac Asimov's. (He is not very far down on my list in novels, novellas etc etc, though displaced from first place by LMB; but for short-short stories, definitely top)
I love his "Black Widowers" (several collections : http://www.iblist.com/series188.htm) which are not SF, more like very short detective stories/puzzles. Well, of course my pleasure in them has a lot to do with my analytical approach to everything. But it does not help that I am not American since US culture and history are often crucial in guessing the answer. But still I love tham. So for US born they should be even more enjoyable.
I like the "Azazel" ones, too. Remember, we had a discussion somewhere about dreams and how having one's dreams (in the sense of: aspirations) fulfilled could be the worse possible fate. Well, never ask Azazel to fulfill your aspirations. He will.

[tollbaby]

I love the Black Widowers story in which Asimov himself was the dinner guest Very self-depracating morbid humor

[Melimall]

I'm reading some short stories by the Marquis de Sade in a book called Eugenie de Franval. Definitely something that needs to be read with a philiosophical mindset, as the first story that I'm half way through is about incest between a father and his daughter. The writing is good though!

[mccormack44]

I have been cataloging the Gordon R. Dickson books in our library and was thereby reminded of two of my favorite short stories (both by Dickson). The first is "Call Him Lord." It appeared in Analog and has been anthologized at least once (we have it in an anthology called Analog 6. The other is called "Computers Don't Argue." It's a very funny short piece which doesn't appear in any of our anthologies. Incidentally, many years later I read of a real life solution to the basic problem of this piece.

Spoiler: show

The computer kept billing the protangonist for $0.00. The protagonist was finally executed for crimes beginning with the non-payment. In real-life a man wrote a check for $0.00 and the computer was satisfied (except that I believe that this was in England and I should be using pounds).

Sue

[voralfred]

Spoiler: show

The computer kept billing the protangonist for $0.00. The protagonist was finally executed for crimes beginning with the non-payment. In real-life a man wrote a check for $0.00 and the computer was satisfied (except that I believe that this was in England and I should be using pounds).

Well, the funniest of this story for me is that it actually happened to me, and not even in front of a computer, but in front of a flesh-and-blood human being.

Spoiler: show

When I was a student, for some reason too long to explain I did not have to pay registration fees at the University. So I had all my documents ready, but they would not take my file, because there was no receipt from the accountant (bursar?). I told them "But look at that, it shows that I don't have to pay anything!" No way, I had to wait in line at the bursar's (?) window, show him the documents, pay him 0.00FF (that was loooooooong before the euro) get from him a receipt saying I paid 0.00FF, and then went back to where I had already gone, so that I could finally register.

[mccormack44]

In talking to Bob about this topic, I was reminded of another funny SF story I have always loved. "And Now Inhale" by Eric Frank Russell. A much anthologized story, it is sometimes named "Now Inhale."

[Eue]

One of my all-time favourite SF short stories is Larry Niven's "All the Myriad Ways".