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Your favorite short stories

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Your favorite short stories

Postby HopefulNebula » Wed Apr 23, 2014 10:55 pm

So who else here loves short stories? I'm assuming most of you, because y'all are you. I thought we could spread some recs and stuff around, because there's always going to be things you haven't read. What's your favorite? (If it's available online, add a link; links are fun!) What's that one story that you can't remember what it's called, but remember reading it years ago and want to see if someone remembers it? Post here and maybe find out!

My first rec is going to be authorial, and actually the only non-SF/F rec in my initial post. I've been madly in love with the short stories of Flannery O'Connor ever since I first read her in college. I wrote one of my favorite college papers on "Everything that Rises Must Converge," and I highly recommend reading that story in particular.

Another favorite (in PDF format, sorry): "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. LeGuin. Haunting and philosophical, and there's not too much else I can say without spoiling the story.

There's also (another PDF) "All Summer in a Day" by the late, great Ray Bradbury. I called "Omelas" haunting, but this is the one that made me cry because I've been in that position before. Not exactly, of course, but surrounded by children who don't comprehend how cruel they are until it's too late (or at all).

A more recent pick: "The Best We Can" by Carrie Vaughn, in which we discover indisputable proof of sentient extraterrestrial life and can't do a thing about it. Yet.

Speaking of aliens: "They're Made out of Meat" by Terry Bisson is darkly hilarious and never fails to make me laugh.

"Kaddish for the Last Survivor" by Michael A. Burstein is another haunting one, about the granddaughter of the last living Holocaust survivor.

The last one for this post is "The Women Men Don't See by Alice Bradley (writing as James Tiptree, Jr.). I don't know how I didn't know this existed before, but it's absolutely brilliant. The story makes no bones about the narrator being a sexist, racist jerkbag, but the narrator himself is completely oblivious.

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot one. And it's like the only one of the bunch that isn't totally bittersweet. "Wikihistory" by Desmond Warzel. In which there's an online forum for time travellers and people haven't changed much over the last century. And everyone tries to kill Hitler on their first trip, therefore there are flamewars.
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Re: Your favorite short stories

Postby jespah » Thu Apr 24, 2014 8:43 am

Try to find Contact. It's a series of sci fi shorts and it is fantastic.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3281819-contact

It is not easy to find. The book is copyright 1963 and before ISBNs.

But the stories of contact between humans and extraterrestrials are really wonderful.

Best ones (IMHO) -

First Contact by Murray Leinster
Intelligence Test by Harry Walton
Specialist by Robert Sheckley

Asimov and Bradbury are also in there, and they are fantastic as they always are, but the above three are kind of undiscovered gems.
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Re: Your favorite short stories

Postby HopefulNebula » Sun Jun 01, 2014 12:08 am

...How could I forget Asimov. I highly doubt there's anyone here who hasn't read The Last Question, but if you haven't, you should. (And if you're the kind of person who reads the end of things before you start, don't do that for this or you'll ruin it.) Even if you have, you should listen to Asimov reading it himself.

And then go ask Wolfram Alpha if entropy can be reversed. (Go ahead, I'll wait.)
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