The Glade 4.0

Okay, people. We've got a few other recommendations/what are you reading? threads out there. But I'm going to do one that's a little more targetted.

So, let's recommend each other some short form fiction (short stories) to expose each other quickly to some (potentially) new authors, or just show off some favorite short stories since they often get overlooked.

And, to potential readers -- Get thee to a library! There's no excuse not to read some of these. They don't consume much time, and if it's not your bag, there's not 3-400 pages worth of guilt stalling nagging you to finish.

I'll kick this off with a few Science Fiction favorites of mine, though please don't feel restricted to SF. Titles and authors should suffice, if somebody has a problem finding it in an appropriate collection, please ask!

"The Gernsback Continuum," William Gibson
"A Boy and his Dog," Harlan Ellison
"Snake-Eyes," Tom Maddox
"Rock On," Pat Cadigan
"Burning Chrome," William Gibson

I'll stop here for now, so as not to bogart the thread before it starts.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

"The Man in the Black Suit," Stephen King.

"The Dandelion Girl", Robert F. Young

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"The Hedge Knight," George R.R. Martin

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Philip K. Dick

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Drown by Junot Diaz
The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Bloom
Soulstorm by Clarice Lispector
The Complete Works of Isaac Babel edited by Peter Constantine
A Day in the Country and other Stories by Guy de Maupassant

Specific stories as found in the editions above ...

Junot Diaz
"Edison, NJ"
"How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)"
"Negocios"

Thom Jones
"Mosquitoes"
"Rocket Man"

Amy Bloom
"A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You"
"Night Vision"
"Hold Tight"

Clarice Lispector
It's only 4 stories. Read the whole thing.

Isaac Babel
"On the field of Honour"
"The End of the Almshouse"
"Sunset"
"The Reserve Cavalry Commander"
"The Rabbi's Son"

Guy de Maupassant
"A Farm Girl's Story"
"A Day in the Country"
"The Necklace"
"The Gamekeeper"

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Off the top of my head:

Sandkings – George RR Martin
Boodchild – Octavia Butler
Her Pilgrim Soul – Alan Brennert
Buffalo Girls Won’t You Come Out Tonight – Ursula K LeGuin

This list could get quite long.

Collections/generalizations:

Kurt Vonnegut. Pretty much all of his.

Isaac Asimov- he's known for his Sci/Fi work, and there are many great short stories there- but when I really like are his mysteries. He has several collections of "Black Widower" mysteries that I highly enjoy- they can be a bit hard to find, though.

I'm also a fan of Saki- specifically, "The Unrest Cure" and "Laura"- both can be found in his collected works "The Complete Saki".

Although they're a bit more of Novellas, I'll also throw in some Simon Green- his Hawk and Fisher collections (2 volumes, "Guards of Haven" and "Swords of Haven") as well as his "Twilight of the Empire" collection. The former two are fantasy, the latter is a science fiction set as precursors to his Deathwalker space-opera series.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Just for clarification ...


Kaffis wants pointed story recommendations, not author and collection or genre recommendations.

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Oh man, I completely had forgotten about Asimov's Black Widower stuff. Good call.

And yeah, Khross has the right of it -- thanks for picking out the highlights in your recommendations.

Mostly, I was hoping we could select some of our favorites, rather than just throw names or collections out there, because that way the list should be more easily tackled rather than an imposing reading list that gets put off because there's just so damn much stuff, you know?

I, at least, created the thread with the intention of following up on some of these recommendations to discover some new stuff. If we're just going to lob collections and entire bodies of authors' works at each other, we might as well stick to novels, as we've defeated the simplicity and advantage of short stories at that point.

In other words, I made some painful choices rather than taking the easy route of just saying "Track down a library copy of Mirrorshades and Burning Chrome, ****, and read all things cyberpunk! And, oh, after you're done with that, this guy Harlan Ellison has a thousand pages or so of 20-50 page short stories you should read, too..."

I mean, ****. Have you *looked* at Azimov's short story bibliography? He was ludicrously prolific.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Haha, that's why I tried to do some of each.

Now that you explain it, I see the gist- it's not the intent I got at all from your original post. I like short stories/novellas as a way to try new authors without committing to something huge, but I also like them as a collection to carry around/read when you have short bursts of time.

I'll go through my collections and get the titles of some of my favorite stories tonight.

My recommendations stand, however

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Ok, so specific recommendations:

Saki:
"Laura"
"The Unrest Cure"

Asimov- Mysteries:
"The Cross of Lorraine"
"The Sports Page"
"When No Man Pursueth"- the guest in this case is based on Asimov, which I like.

Asimov- Sci/Fi:
"The Ugly Little Boy"
"The Last Question"

Simon Green:
"The God Killer" from Hawk and Fisher
"Hellworld" from Twilight of the Empire

Vonnegut:
"Harrison Bergeron"
"Welcome to the Monkey House" Of course!
"The Euphio Question"

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.