Short Stories

I was just thinking about short stories that have stuck in my mind after I've read them. These three came to me right away.

Mother by Philip Jose Farmer.

The Cold Equations by Tom Goodwin

The Ice by Steven Popkes.

Do you have any you're not likely to forget?

"All Summer In a Day by Ray Bradbury

I read it a million years ago, in elementary school, and I never forgot it!

Who Goes There by John W. Campbell
Border Guards by Greg Egan
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
Colouring the Captains by Terry Dowling
Evensong by T. Rex
Wang's Carpets by Greg Egan
Thirty Minutes Over Broadway by Howard Waldrop
Rain Season by Leanne Frahm
Time of the Star by Terry Dowling
Lobsters by Charles Stross
Unsportsmanlike Conduct by Scott Westerfeld
The Soldier in the Machine by Russell Blackford
Imagining Ajax by Simon Brown
Nobody's Fool by Terry Dowling
Roller Ball Murder by William Harrison
Great Wall of Mars by Alastair Reynolds
Neutrino Drag by Paul Di Filippo
Radiant Green Star by Lucius Shepard
Jenny With Wings by Kate Wilhelm
Clutch of Morpheus by Larry Sternig

I like a lot of short stories, several of the ones already mentioned.
I'm particularly fond of Robert Sheckley
"Cordle To Onion To Carrot" or Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?

John Crowley Novelty

But really I'm one of those people who can't play favorites. I love lots of authors who write short stories.

Samuel R. Delany, Greg Bear, David Brin, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stanislaw Lem, Pat Murphy, Pamela Sargent, Margaret St. Clair, James Tiptree Jr.

Bob Shaw was a superb short story writer. His Light Of Other Days was superb. As was his Giaconda Caper where the protagonist discovered the real reason for the Mona Lisa's smile.

As for Howard Waldrop I would pick one of his other short stories. The Ugly Chickens or Flying Saucer Rock And Roll.

I recent writer who writes superb short stories is Ted Chiang. Division By Zero in particular.

Going back into time Daniel Keyes original novella of Flowers For Algernon was stronger than the novel.

Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore despite the touchstone) wroter some good short stories. Their Mimsy Were The Borogroves is far better than the current film Mimzy would lead you to believe.

Voyager in the night from C J Cherryh's Alternate Realities. Although Cherryh is mostly known for her longer works she has written some crackingly good short stories too. Voyager being one of my favourites featuring the character ((((o)))) !

I'm waiting to get my hands on Galactic North and see who AListair reynolds works as a short story writer.

The Nine Billion Names of God is the one that stays in my memory, decades after I originally read it. Ursula K Le Guin has written a few good ones as well - I think Worlds of Exile and Illusion is one of the better collections.

Reynolds is pretty good. Great Wall of Mars, Glacial, Zima Blue, etc. Reading the Galactic North one now, actually. :)

Understand by Ted Chiang sure, why not. :)

"The Country of the Kind" by Damon Knight is one of my favourites. He wrote many others, of which the best known is probably "To Serve Man".

Theodore Sturgeon is probably one of the finest short story writers there ever was, so it's hard to single out one. "The Saucer of Loneliness", perhaps.

"A Boy and His Dog" is a powerful and disturbing short from Harlan Ellison. "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" and "Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman" also stick in mind.

Cordwainer Smith's entire ouvre sticks in mind, all but a handful of his short-stories being part of his Instrumentality of Mankind future mythology. To single out one from them all is very hard. "A Planet Named Shayol", perhaps.

George R R Martin has written some as well that I forgot earlier. I have his excellant Sandkings but there is a later version with more stories in it.

Connie Willis has written excellent short stories and novellas. Impossible Things is a great collection. Even the Queen and The Last of the Winnebagos are great short stories from in that book. I think they were award winners as well. (Nebula?)

Many short stories come to mind (including ones that were part of my SF course in university), but I'll mention one my favorites: The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.

The short stories of Isaac Asimov are among the most memorable I have ever read. Some of the ones that stayed with me are "What Is This Thing Called Love?," "All the Troubles of the World," "The Last Question," "Segregationist," and "Insert Knob A in Hole B" (just because I fall over laughing every time I read it). But my single favorite of Asimov's short stories is, beyond question, "Breeds There a Man...?".

Just about anything by Harlan Ellison, but particularly "The Deathbird."
"Daybroke" by Robert Bloch
"Space-Time for Springers" by Fritz Leiber
"Behold the Man" by Michael Moorcock
"Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven (though I now can't listen to "Bad Moon on the Rise" properly ever again)
"The Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury, which I'm not sure I'll ever quite believe was *not* the source of the term "butterfly effect."

Scanners Live In Vain by Cordwainer Smith
Jeffty Is Five by Harlan Ellison
The Person From Porlock by Raymond F. Jones
Dolphin's Way by Gordon R. Dickson
Computer Virus by Nancy Kress
Saviour by Nancy Kress
Antibodies by Charles Stross
Home Is the Hangman by Roger Zelazny
Mother Hitton's Littu Kittons by Cordwainer Smith

I don't read a lot of short stories but I found A Second Chance at Eden by Peter Hamilton to be a memorable collection.

The Dead Lady of Clowntown by Cordwainer Smith
The Crime and Glory of Commander Suzdal by Cordwainer Smith
The Lady Who Sailed the Soul by Cordwainer Smith
Scanners Live in Vain Cordwainer Smith
The World Well Lost by Theodore Sturgeon
The Thirteenth Floor by William Tenn

In case you didn't notice, I like Cordwainer Smith.

So many, I'll think about it and post again but the one that leaps instantly to mind is Nerves by Lester Del Rey.

Kaleidoskope by Ray Bradbury
The Fog Horn by Ray Bradbury

Good Night Sophie - Lino Aldani
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth - Cory Doctorow
Good Intentions - Jack McDevitt and Stanley Schmidt
Vanilla Dunk - Jonathan Lethem
The Dead - Michael Swanwick
The Only Neat Thing To Do - James Tiptree Jr.
Sewing Whole Cloth - Terry Dowling
Coyote Struck By Lightning - Terry Dowling
Coming Down - Terry Dowling
One Clay Foot - Jack Wodhams
Breaking Through To the Heroes - Terry Dowling
Schrodinger's Dog - Damien Broderick
Time of the Star - Terry Dowling
The Man Who Lost Red - Terry Dowling
Borderline - Leanne Frahm
Flowering Mandrake - George Turner
Pennies From Hell - Lewis Shiner
Merlusine - Lucy Sussex

Apart from '9 billion ...', one that stuck in my mind was 'Four in One' by Damon Knight.

Here are the short stories that have always stayed in my mind. They may not be the best, but something in each one grabbed me and I have always remembered them.

The Faithful by Lester del Rey
Though Poppies Grow by Lester del Rey
Surface Tension by James Blish
Alien Earth by Edmond Hamilton
Fessenden’s Worlds by Edmond Hamilton
Happy Birthday, Dear Jesusby Frederik Pohl
The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke

and, although it is an essay and not a short story, I must mention Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex by Larry Niven.

I just thought of another one that has stuck in my mind. Craphound by Cory Doctorow.

Somebody mentioned a couple of Nancy Kress short stories upthread. I've always liked her short work. Is there collections of that work and if so, does anyone know the book titles of said collections?

Craphound is memorable, I agree. :)

Yeah, there is one Kress collection with a lab type title from vague memory?, dunno about any others.

Think she has a new story upcoming in JBU I saw today, and one of hers Nano Comes To Clifford Falls is at Escape Pod.

With my memory not being what it used to be (probably read these around 30 years ago), I can't remember the names of the stories but they are:

Fritz Leiber - something to do with Death/Grim Reaper and a game of craps
Ray Bradbury - something to do with Hallowe'en and a last line along the lines of "...and them some idiot turned the light on."
Ray Bradbury - something to do with a dog dragging back the corpse of his owner.

If anyone ever reads these, I've probably just spoilt the plot of each one :)

Gonna Roll the Bones I think is the first one perhaps?

Never found any Bradbury particularly memorable, but I seem to recall there is one with a dead dog in it, maybe not the one you mean though.

and add :-

The Colour Out Of Space - H. P. Lovecraft
The Chronology Protection Case - Paul Levinson

Gonna Roll the Bones came to my mind for the Fritz Leiber story, too.

Thanks. "Gonna Roll The Bones" sounds right.

I've found the dog one - it's "The Emissary" but I can't track down the other Bradbury story. Sadly, my Ray Bradbury books have gone missing somewhere along the last couple of decades.

A Pail of Air by Fritz Leiber

A new one :-

Verthandi's Ring by Ian McDonald

and I forgot

Comes A Hunter by John J. Miller
and
The Long Dark Night of Fortunato by Lewis Shiner

I'm currently reading "Terminus" by Stanislaw Lem. It's one of the famous Tales of Pirx the Pilot and is causing me a great impression. I’d swear there are even some similarities between it and some of the most well known Ray Bradbury tales. I’ll tell you when I finish.

Ray Bradbury's excellent "Sun and Shadow" popped into my head during a recent discussion on cultural appropriation, though it had probably been 20 years since I'd read it. It's in The Golden Apples of the Sun and other Bradbury collections, but it's not science fiction.

I have always loved The Immigrant and Other Stories by Clifford Simak - particularly the story about the alien vegetables. I reread them every couple of years to remind me that alien means 'different' not 'scary monster'.

"The Green Hills of Earth" and "Requiem" by Robert A. Heinlein

"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury

"Report on the Barnhouse Effect" by Kurt Vonnegut

"As Never Was" by P. Schuyler Miller

"The Guy with the Eyes" and several more Callahan's Crosstime Saloon stories by Spider Robinson, along with the non-series stories "Antinomy" and "Melancholy Elephants"

"The Nine Billion Names of God" and "The Call of the Stars" and "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke.

Clarke, by the way, gets my awards for "Best Opening Line" *and* "Best Closing Line" in the SF short story category . . . for "The Call of the Stars" and "The Nine Billion Names of God," respectively. It only just dawned on me that they're complementary.

There's another classic.

Dark Integers by Greg Egan, in the latest Asimov's.

and why not :

The Dreaming City by Michael Moorcock
Dragonrider by Anne McCaffrey
Body and Soul Art by Eugie Foster

Coming Attraction by Fritz Leiber
What's It Like Out There? by Edmond Hamilton
Far Centaurus by A E Van Vogt
Seesaw by A E Van Vogt
Who Goes There? by John W Campbell
Journey's End by Poul Anderson
By the Falls by Harry Harrison

And yeah, Light Of Other Days and A Boy and His Dog are great. Another one I loved (and remember from) early on was Through Channels by Richard Matheson--that shuddery ending. Probably a bit over the top now, but...it was fun when I was a kid.

Oh yeah, and another great one I remember was Built Up Logically by Howard Schoenfeld--and I never even heard of the guy otherwise, except for a short (I guess) sequel, called (by some mad whim) Built Down Logically.

I read a great short story years ago but I can't remember the name or author. It was about a group of aliens that monitor the universe picking up a signal from our solar system. They arrived to find that the star was dying and earth was empty, and then tried to find out what happened.

It ended with them finding the entire human race had built hundreds of spaceships and were slowly making their way to another planet.

If anyone can tell me the name I would be really grateful, I've been looking all over for it and would love to read it again.

Rescue Party by Arthur C. Clarke

You can find it here :-

Rescue Party Story Online

> 35

AVBR, could you tell me which books contain the Arthur C Clarke stories? I'd love to read them.

I'm reading the stories in Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, by James Tiptree, Jr. right now, and WOW! They are all compelling. Best short stories I've read in a long time.

I like John Varley's short stories a lot.

"The word for world is forest" by Ursula K. Leguin ...

43

Sara, those are all in The Nine Billion Names of God, for one.

#43 The collected stories (Gollancz) certainly has them, as I think its the complete set of his short stories. Otherwise there are lots of seperate collections issued at various times. I also have of time and stars which doesn't feature Rescue party.

IIRC he wrote two endings to that story one decidely more upbeadt than the other.

Surprised that no-one has mentioned Gene Wolfe yet, he has produced a number of memorable stories - the 'Death Doctor Island' sequence, The Hero As Werwolf, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, etc.

George R R Martin before he started writing monolithic fantasies was best known for his short stories, The Way of Cross and Dragon is a very good Borgesian sf story, Sandkings is good horror sf, Nightflyers is also excellent.

Keith Roberts is an excellent short story writer, many of his best were incorporated into what are now considered his novels, in books such as Pavane and The Chalk Giants.

J G Ballard is possibly a better short story writer than a novelist, and he is a top class novelist. It's hard to pick out individual stories as his work is so thematically linked - Myths of the Near Future, The Terminal Beach, The Drowned Giant, the list goes on. The collection Vermilion Sands is a good introduction to his world, a group of stories set in an imaginary resort. For those with committment there is his mammoth, and it is mammoth, The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard. (weight training may be required to lift it - GRR Martin also has a similar sized book Dreamsongs).

edited to say yet again the touchstones aren't working

These were memorable to me:

The Dwarf -- Ray Bradbury
There Will Come Soft Rains -- Ray Bradbury
Cloak of Anarchy -- Larry Niven
Inconstant Moon -- Larry Niven
The Somewhere Doors -- Fred Chappell
Flowers for Algernon -- Daniel Keyes
Microcosmic God -- Theodore Sturgeon
Understand -- Ted Chiang
Bilennium -- J.G. Ballard

Getting back to The Cold Equations (mentioned all the way at the top of this here thing): yeah, that girl character was GREAT. Her voice..."But I didn't DO anything..." (and also her abrupt change of tone when she gets the first inkling of her fate) haunted me for days afterward. But I did have a couple possible problems with the story (and it's been a while since I read it, so I don't know whether all of this is a crock or not). 1) Was there really no one around at all who could rescue her? I think as I recall that he did attempt to answer that one, by bringing up the usual vast distances and infrequent trader routes argument, or something like that. A bigger problem I thought though was 2) Wouldn't what she tried have become generally known to one and all as a proverbially bonehead play?--sort of like (on a smaller scale) invading Russia? I think he may have attempted to address this as well--by saying all the missions were top secret or some such; but I don't find that too convincing. Actually I'd read it again myself to find out, but...I find that story a somewhat arduous task to make it through--an ordeal. Sort of like reading about the Holocaust in miniature.

48

Actually George R. R. Martin, apart from that reprinted a lot story much likely better know for Fevre Dream and his Wild Cards editing - which is short stories, some of which are his. So hmm, quite possibly right there. :)

How many stories in the Complete Stories Ballard volume?

The most I have seen in one volume is 100 by Bradbury. Not many novellas etc. in there, though.

> 43

Thanks - now on my wishlist!

My favorite is The Heat Death of the Universe by Pamela Zoline. Also anything by Joanna Russ, especially Souls and When It Changed.

I'm thinking of "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby, which is wonderful, one of my all-time faves. "The Concentration City" is likely my favorite J.G. Ballard tale. When I put together a roster of good short story writers dealing with the fantastic, names like Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont inevitably spring to mind. And, of course, Bradbury. On a separate topic I also mentioned the first SF story I can recall reading, "A Walk in the Dark" by Arthur C. Clarke. Ellison's "I Have No Mouth..." had a profound effect on me (I still think he's never come close to that one since) as did a number of stories from his LOVE AIN'T NOTHING BUT SEX MISSPELLED collection. James Morrow's BIBLE STORIES FOR ADULTS featured some hum-dingers; Van Vogt had some fun tales that eventually made up the book VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE and there was some fine short fiction featured in Walter Mosley's brilliant FUTURELAND...

I recently read A Rose for Ecclesiastes (in The Doors of his Face, The Lamps of his Mouth) for the first time, and thought it was just amazingly beautiful.

I remember reading Flowers for Algernon as a short story in high school english, and that story has always stuck with me too.

#29- I think I'm a little late to the party, but I believe the Bradbury story you're looking for is "The October Game" and it can be found in the Long After Midnight anthology.

Great thread! I'll try to come up with some nobody's mentioned yet...

"The Pi Man" by Alfred Bester
"The Menace From Earth" by Robert Heinlein
"Pilgrimage to Earth" by Robert Sheckley
anything at all by Gene Wolfe
"The Gift of Gab" by Jack Vance
"The Gift of Garigolli" (sp?) by Pohl and Kornbluth
"In the Bowl" by John Varley
"The Woomy" by Keith Laumer

Ah, a pleasure to read another Sheckley fan. I devoured those ACE SF collections of Sheckley's work in the 70's and 80's. A born satirist, than man. And a well-regarded editor at one time too--didn't he work as OMNI's SF editor? And don't we all still miss OMNI (those of us old enough to remember it)? Which brings to mind another story I just recalled: "Mickey Mouse Olympics", authored by Timothy Sullivan. I just Googled it and it appeared in a 1979 issue of OMNI. Lovely tale about athlete doping getting completely out of hand. I have fond memories of it--anyone know this tale? Andy?

I confess to a vast addiction to that maligned sub-genre, SF humor: Laumer's Retief, Sheckley, Howard Waldrop, Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories, Varley, Bester, Ron Goulart, Neal Stephenson. I can forgive a hell of a lot if a writer can make me laugh.

Harry Harrison too--his SF satires can be amusing (if you're in the right mood). STAINLESS STEEL RAT has kind of a Douglas Adams-like charm to it--at least when you're sixteen and yet to be jaded by all the world's folly...

>55 felius: felius

For some reason Flowers for Algernon is a favorite of English teachers. We read it in eighth grade and it was really sad from what I remember. Too bad Keyes didn't write much else.

>61 CliffBurns: Oooh, yeah... Slippery Jim is a kick..

Frank Herbert's McKie stories; found the 1st one of these in his collection The Worlds of Frank Herbert. It includes 'cameo characters' of Herbert's buddies, Poul Anderson and Vance.

My favorites are:
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov
Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven

The most recent short story that i found brilliant was the empire of ice cream by jeffrey ford. i think it was included in an sf anthology from 2003.

Came across another 5 star the other day.

Hallucigenia - Laird Barron

The Doors of his face, The Lamps of his mouth and This moment in the Storm both by Roger Zelazny. Both Haunting and memorable

Already mentioned here Bob Shaw Light of Other Days again haunting and so sad

Ticket to Anywhere by Damon Knight did this inspire Stargate? So much potenital for more I thought

"Arena" by Fredric Brown

'Aye and Gomorrah', Samuel Delany
'And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill Side', James Tiptree
'Air Raid', John Varley
'A Gift from the Culture', Iain Banks
'The Road to Jerusalem', Mary Gentle
'The Gernsback Continuum', William Gibson
'Forward Echoes', Gwyneth Jones
'FOAM', Brian Aldiss
'A Little Something for Us Tempunauts', Philip K. Dick

Good lists. My personal favorites:

Bujold: "The Mountains of Mourning"
Butler: "The Evening and the Morning and the Night"
Ellison: "The Discarded", "Grail", "Kiss of Fire", "Quiet Lies the Locust Tells", "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"
Kuttner: "The Misguided Halo"
Leiber: "Space-Time for Springers"
Laumer: "Test to Destruction"
Martin: "Bitterblooms", "In the House of the Worm", "Sandkings"
Resnick: "For I Have Touched the Sky"
Russ: "When It Changed"
Simmons: "Looking for Kelly Dahl"
Smith: "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard", "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell", "The Dead Lady of Clown Town", "Drunkboat", "From Gustible's Planet", "The Good Friends", "The Lady Who Sailed the Soul", "Mark Elf", "A Planet Named Shayol", "Scanners Live in Vain," "Think Blue, Count Two"
Sturgeon: "The Education of Drusilla Strange", "Fluffy", "Hurricane Trio", "Thunder and Roses", "Killdozer!", "Rule of Three," "A Touch of Strange"
Tiptree: "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever", "The Girl Who Was Plugged In", "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?", "The Last Flight of Dr. Ain", "The Only Neat Thing To Do", "We Who Stole the Dream"
Varley: "Press Enter"
Zelazny: "Divine Madness", "The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth", "The Keys to December", "A Rose for Ecclesiastes"