26Shorts2026: prompt --- discovery

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                  🟩     26 Short Stories for 2026
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Discuss and share - topic: discovery. This can be anything from a discovery of place, and object, or self-discovery.
Remember when you are doing this you are also inspiring others towards your reads; to make it easier for others to see the content of your message, start your message with one more of the following keywords (and feel free to write the word or use the emoji):

keywords to highlight your message:

• Discussion / 📞
  
• Interesting Fact / 💡
  
• Question / ❓
  
• List (authors / titles / etc) / 📝
  
• Recommendation / 👍

keywords to post an update on challenge:

• Completed prompt / 🎉
  
• Finished Reading /📘
  
• Review/ 🌟

Extras, again, to help others see your message, and if you know then follow your chosen keyword(s) with:

• title of story / book / collection / etc
  
• name of author
  
• date first published
  
• and anything else like, setting or if it could fit other prompts, etc.


• for spoilers:
  
  • where your spoiler starts, write spoiler in angled bracket.
    
  • where your spoiler ends add backslash then follow with word ‘spoiler’ in angled bracket
  
  
  Stories are wonderful, and get better when we inspire each other with the stories we have found and read.
  
  #26shorts2026

Completed prompt / 🎉
"discovery" read December 27, 2025

"The Shining Ones" by Arthur C Clarke, 1964. 3 stars

Based on a few real events, plus a few seafarer amazing tales, the story takes place on planet Earth in roughly current times. There is a "monster" but it could very well be a real one that has been hinted at for ages but not quite yet scientifically proven. (The story includes an interesting passage from Melville's Moby Dick).

It's a tad technical about damage deliberately done to a deep sea thermoelectric generator, with some post Cold War politics thrown in for tension. The "monster" doesn't appear until late in the story, when we are primed for it.

I especially liked this final sentiment by the narrator, "Whatever happens, please remember this: they are beautiful, wonderful creatures; try to come to terms with them if you can."❤️

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Read online at archive.org as the first story in The Baen Big Book of Monsters 2014 anthology, previously published in 1962 Playboy. My full 26Shorts2026 log is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/376315

Completed prompt / 🎉

In The Abyss by H. G. Wells

First published 1896, In The Abyss is a brilliant little story about what we might find in the depths of the ocean. A mystery and adventure that still has dreamers doing the craziest things so they might find out! Worth a read, I enjoyed it very much.

Read it online here: https://www.libraryofshortstories.com/onlinereader/in-the-abyss

🎉 Discovery:

”Baptism” (1991) by Oleg Yermakov.

Who am I? Of what stuff am I made? These questions we have to pose to ourselves at various points in our lives. Some never find an answer and some don't discover the answer until life presents a tricky challenge, a moment where the sought-out information is revealed. In "Baptism", Oleg Yermakov, a veteran of the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, draws us into a young soldiers first test of battle. We are with him and his recon platoon as they serve in the Central Asian mountains. Molds cast before the shooting begins mean nothing; they are cast aside as worthless detritus of childhood. When the young recruit's first skirmish is over, a new person exists.

Collection: Afghan Tales
📘 January 20, 2026

Finished Reading /📘

This is one of the 3 I am reading for this prompt, this one could also fit 'set in space' and 'written between 1901 – 1970'.

So far I've completed 9 prompts, my experience of reading short stories is in my journal, and random jots and quotes as I read short stories can be found in my short story workbook .

Completed Prompt
"The Mildenhall Treasure" is from Roald Dahl's short story collection, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six Others. It is a fictionalization of the story of the men who discovered the Mildenhall Treasure Trove in Suffolk, England in 1942. The treasure is Roman and contains 33 pieces of Silver. Here's a photo of the most impressive piece.

Finished Reading /📘

prompt: discovery

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- set in North America
- written between 1901 – 1970

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Garbage Collector by Ray Bradbury, read from Ray Bradbury Stories volume 2✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 18th April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

A short story that looks at the value of our essence and what makes us, asking us if it came to the crunch is there a line where we would sell ourselves short. The garbage collector in this story is in this predicament when in a day he discovers the job he loves changes on him.




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here's a rundown of how I'm getting on with this challenge so far:

My ShortRead log tracks my challenge and comments on how I found those reads, message 3 also summarises in table form my progress.

So far I've completed 9 prompts, I'm going for 32 and aiming to complete 3 prompts per month.

My experience of reading short stories is in my journal, and random jots and quotes as I read short stories can be found in my short story workbook .

Finished Reading /📘

                                                       ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 A Country Doctor by Franz Kafka read from Best Works of Franz Kafka (Kindle Book B0G3Q7T8NH) ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 22nd April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

A kind of a surreal story of a doctor in doing his duty to see a patient, questions his own worth and value when he’s expected to perform miracles but at the same time is taken for granted; feeling betrayed, he discovers much is expected of him from his patients but when he needs their help then they are not there for him.

Completed prompt / 🎉

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Mildenhall Treasure by Roald Dahl The Complete Short Stories Volume one 1944 - 1953 ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                               ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 24th April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

This is a funny moral tale of greed and obsession. This was fun to read, I haven’t read much by Roald Dahl, I really liked how this story unfolded.