Tell me about Short Stories!

[Songbird]

I've been thinking about what makes a story satisfying. I used to love reading sprawling epics, picking them over shorter fiction as it meant I wouldn't have to part with them so soon. That's been changing and I can't help but marvel at the skill involved in delivering a sense of resolution without solving all plot points and conflicts presented. It's fascinating how some can hint at so much outside at the scope of the story yet never feel unfinished.

Do you read short stories? Which ones are your favorites and what makes them so special?

I don't have an extensive bibliography of shorts I've read yet to reference. I tend to pick things from authors I already know and like. Many of these aren't even true short stories, they're novellas and novelettes. Mostly stuff from super prolific authors like Brandon Sanderson, with only a few from authors I came to know through their shorts first like Andrzej Sapkowski (the first books in The Witcher saga are compilations of short tales) and Isaac Asimov.

Then there are the shorts I came across by chance on the internet. These are the majority of what I read and I'm picking my current favorite to kick off the thread:


Ugly Mary
by Molly ofgeograpphy

Theme - Weaponized ugliness in contrast to weaponized beauty
CW - death and abortion (mentioned, offscreen), verbal abuse, villainy up close
Links to read - 1 (broken css style makes hard to read) 2 (Missing first 3 paragraphs )

First lines
when she is born, they name her mary. it means “bitter.” her mother–plain, unlovely–knows what her ugliness will mean. how it will feel. knows that ugliness makes everything harder, the mirror image of how being too beautiful makes everything harder. mary’s mother is unlovely, and she is happy, basically. she went to school, and they let her, not pretty enough to earn their scorn but too pretty to earn derision.

Thoughts on the story
The writing is so lean, nearly every phrase establishing something useful or advancing the plot. I love how compelling it is, to the point the lack of capitalization which would greatly bother me otherwise was quickly forgotten. The story isn't nearly as depressing as one could expect from the theme. Adding the rest under a spoiler tag not due big spoilers but to let those who like to go into a work with few expectations do so.

Spoiler: show

The compelling voice and pacing were also engrossing to the point I didn't bother to guess what would happen next, simply enjoying the lines as they unfolded. I liked the fairytale atmosphere and enjoyed how the theme was presented not quite from any tired lens I've encountered before like "beauty equals goodness"—where goodness also too often means competence or being rewarded with getting what you want—or with absurd doses of "she's secretly beautiful all along" to allow a character to get what they want without getting err, redemption'd through cliché means. I like the way we watch the protagonist up close yet are mostly kept in the dark.

This story leans heavily on preconceptions about fairytales for the setting, and I think the narrative works for me for establishing early how the world is stacked against the protagonist, then how... well, how she deals with it, even if the endgame of the story is unclear at first. Seeing the point of the story slowly present itself is something satisfying to watch in itself, to not speak of the little insights on the ugliness and beauty along the way. The story feels dense without a dense world or characters.

Sooo, do you have any rewarding short stories to share and pore over?

[SkyWhalePod]

Short stories are my absolute favorite form of prose! I have several collections in my (limited due to moving around a lot, most of my books are at my childhood home) personal library. Mainly science fiction and fantasy, some horror, one more literary that I haven't looked at much, a collection of Shirley Jackson stories, and Help the Witch by Tom Cox (who is a completely delightful UK writer who describes different British landscapes in totally engrossing and enchanting ways, and also he's funny and tells excellent rambly stories about wildlife and local folklore and colorful UK folks, I really think a number of people here would like him. You can find his recent essays for free on tom-cox.com okay I'm done plugging).

Mostly stuff from super prolific authors like Brandon Sanderson, with only a few from authors I came to know through their shorts first like Andrzej Sapkowski (the first books in The Witcher saga are compilations of short tales) and Isaac Asimov.

Having read almost all of the Witcher books, I have to say that the short story collections are my favorite. There's a big satisfaction button in my heart reserved for twisted folk tales and fairy tales.

(I'm supposed to be working right now but I will read the story you've shared, Songbird, and respond! I hope other people chime in with their comments on it too. I have a very, very weak brain for literary/storytelling analysis, always have, and it doesn't stop me from enjoying things, but other people see depths I never see and it's very illuminating.)

[thegreyarea]

Well, I also love short stories! (and long ones, and mid-sized, and... you get it   )

I shall check Songbird's suggestion. Meanwhile I want to answer the prompt of this thread and tell you about the last short story that I read, and it was... Today!

It's The Angel of Khan-el-Khalili, by Djeli Clark, that takes place in Cairo, but on a somewhat different universe... I enjoyed it a lot, and it's free to read at Tor.com

And speking about that publisher, there's much more to read there for free. Just go here and check.
Of course they offer those freebies as a way to gain our attention over their authors and larger/newer stories, but that is up to each one of us.

I'll try to make a small list along the weekend to share here, and would love to hear more recomendations.

[muidole]

Two short stories that come to mind are The iHole by Julian Gough and There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury.
I remember reading The iHole some years back but have unfortunately been unable to find a version of it online. From what I remember, The iHole was a story about a guy who basically created a mini black hole, which was then sold as a consumer product. I don't remember much else about the story aside from that, but I remember enjoying it a lot.
There Will Come Soft Rains is a science fiction story about a smarthouse in a world tarnished by nuclear war. I enjoyed the imagery that Bradbury was able to depict in his story.

I also used to look through r/WritingPrompts to find short stories to read. The basic premise of the subreddit is that people post writing prompts for other users to write short stories about. I like the premise as it gives a wide variety of topics and ideas, though the quality of the stories vary and parts of the plot may be spoiled by the writing prompt (depending on where the writer decides to take the story). I suppose a good starting point would be from the subreddit's top of all time sorting, to see what prompts/stories people over the years have liked the most.

[Keep Looking]

The first story that comes to my mind when I think of short stories is Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart', which is a really good example of an unreliable narrator. Aside from that, I've got several short stories I've found online over the years that I've liked. Tumblr user Shanastoryteller's Retold Fairytales and Gods and Monsters series are ones that I've really enjoyed. Retold Fairytales are exactly what it says on the tin, and the Gods and Monsters series is Greek mythology retold in interesting/unexpected ways. It's all quite creative, and I like her writing style.

Additionally, I've found some good stories on the site 'The Wanderer's Library' (made by the same people who host the SCP foundation, users contribute the stories). Ones that have stuck with me are There is Dust on my Mind and Excerpt from a journal found in a brightly lit city, both by the same author, which I'd describe as gentle fantasy in a southeast Asian urban setting, with a very strong focus on the significance of place - how we interact with places, and how places interact with us. There's also A New Shade of Sky, which is a scifi story from the perspective of somebody who chooses to stay on Earth.

[SkyWhalePod]

There seem to be a lot of more informally-released works mentioned thus far. Do you guys tend to read more short stories written by strangers on the Internet, rather than physically published collections of short stories? (Which I guess are still written by strangers, but with some sort of financial exchange involved.)

[thegreyarea]

I see several interesting suggestions in this thread! How will I find time to check them all?

Answering to SkyWhalePod, I usually read short stories on physical books, and only occasionally on the net. I thought that speaking about those collections could be useful. So I'll go one at a time. Anyway I'm speaking about paperbacks that won't be very expensive to order, I hope, if any of you want to try. I believe you won't regret the money spent on any of them.

I'll start by an old one (first published in 1953), Expedition to Earth, by Arthur C. Clarke.
I can't talk much about them because I don't want to spoil anything... The stories sound, here and there, a bit dated. They were written just a few years after the end of WW II... but Clarke was more interested in exploring concepts and ideas than describing tech (or developing characters, one could add, but the short story format makes it less problematic).
I like all the stories in the book, but will underline the best ones IMHO.

This book includes eleven stories.
"Second Dawn" opens the book by throwing the reader inside the mind of an alien species that's facing a turning point in history. A fascinating example of Clarke's imagination.
Then comes "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth" where a young boy fully realizes his place in a large design, and "Breaking Strain", where two men alone in a spaceship must find a solution for a deadly problem.
"Expedition to Earth" follows, and this is one that I often remember when talking about short stories. I don't know exactly why, maybe it's the bitterness in the concept...
"Superiority" and "Nemesis" come next. Both are fine, but not that interesting.
"Hide-and-Seek" is more interesting. It tells the story of a hunted spy that tries to find a clever way to buy time until someone rescues him.
"Encounter in the Dawn", "Loophole" and "Inheritance" are also good.
The last story is "The Sentinel", that later would be the base for "2001".

[Vulpes]

I am racking my brain trying to remember a title, and it's not working!

I had a sci fi short story collection, I think put out by some sci fi magazine or other, that focused on stories of survival - quite relevant to SSSS, come to think of it. They were all excellent. But I cannot for the life of me remember anything that would help me find the darn thing, or any of the titles. Except one: When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, by Cory Doctorow. But that hasn't helped me find the anthology. There were a couple of other stories out of it that come to mind more often, but I can't remember titles or authors. In one, some kind of wormhole appears in a fogbank somewhere near Seattle, and the story follows the fate of several people affected by it; another involves the brain-wasting disease kuru. If those ring bells with anyone, I would love to figure out who wrote them!

[SkyWhalePod]

I am racking my brain trying to remember a title, and it's not working!

I had a sci fi short story collection, I think put out by some sci fi magazine or other, that focused on stories of survival - quite relevant to SSSS, come to think of it. They were all excellent. But I cannot for the life of me remember anything that would help me find the darn thing, or any of the titles. Except one: When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth, by Cory Doctorow. But that hasn't helped me find the anthology. There were a couple of other stories out of it that come to mind more often, but I can't remember titles or authors. In one, some kind of wormhole appears in a fogbank somewhere near Seattle, and the story follows the fate of several people affected by it; another involves the brain-wasting disease kuru. If those ring bells with anyone, I would love to figure out who wrote them!

Vulpes, is it Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse? (I've never read it, I just went to Goodreads to see if the When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth page mentioned any collections, and that anthology was brought up in one of the reviews.)

[Songbird]

I see several interesting suggestions in this thread! How will I find time to check them all?

My exact feelings.

So many good suggestions, my solace is that being short stories working through them should be feasible.


I'll just add something SkyWhalePod brought to my mind by mentioning folk tales—of which I now I realized I've read many collections and certainly fit in the short story category.

There's a collection of translated German folklore I've read the manuscript some years ago I'm happy to see now was released in full in 2020. They have some running themes that stuck with me like hidden treasures with a penchant for sinking into the ground, half white half black maidens (literally a single color on each half), and of course... evil poodles.

What, didn't you know black poodles are the devil in disguise? :'D
Those tales read a lot like urban legends from 19th century. CW for things original tales usually contain like some lethal punishments and of course all sorts of easily tricked evil spirits being banished by displays of faith.

The name is Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles: Commentaries on German Folklore, by Jürgen Hubert

[Vulpes]

Vulpes, is it Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse? (I've never read it, I just went to Goodreads to see if the When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth page mentioned any collections, and that anthology was brought up in one of the reviews.)

Good guess, but not the same anthology. This was the problem I ran into - the story occurs in so many anthologies! I wish I could remember the name or author of the story with kuru in it, that was was creepy-good. And I think of the one with the ferry in fog every time it's foggy, and especially when I take a ferry.

[Sc0ut]

I love short stories, as well as novellas and novelettes, I suppose - English is not my first language and I'm not sure where to draw the line between them. So I want to contribute to this thread, and I do have some things to say, with the caveat that I have read the things I will talk about a good while ago and have not revisited them recently, so you are effectively hearing the impressions of a younger me, who in a way used to be a different person (certainly less aware about things that I now would look at critically etc).

Some of my favourites

Some of the first I paid lots of attention to were Asimov's, who you've already mentioned. Growing up I was a huge reading nerd and I came across a collection of his short stories when I was around 12 or so - I remember being so surprised that he can set up something intriguing in barely 3 pages, seeing that I was used to longer books. The favourites I have as an adult are probably George R R Martin and William Gibson, who both write sci-fi, but different flavours of it.

GRRM's are mostly sci-fi horror (or at least lean in a dark direction) but occasionally have striking insights into human psychology beyond what you normally expect from the genre. "Song for Lya" is way up there in my top favourite writings ever, but many of the ones grouped in "Nightflyers" and similar volumes, as well as his Tuf series, are worthwhile imo (though warning for lots of gore and some unsettling adult themes, less so than in his ASOIAF books though - I far prefer his short form writing, and his sci-fi to his fantasy, for several reasons).

Gibson's short stories are varied, some are fast paced and action-y, other are downright contemplative and romantic. Something about them is very immersive. In most of them, I find a very understated bittersweet sadness related to living in a world that's exciting and stimulating, yet occasionally (or maybe often) still leaves you without the things you need or desire most. I find that very relatable. 

Why do I think short stories work

I suppose I can't speak for others, but in my case, the fast paced writing makes me feel energised. Also, the frequent lack of descriptions when it comes to either large parts of the setting or the characters allows the reader's brain to fill in the blanks with what the reader finds interesting. For for sci-fi, this often means that the shorter the story is, the better it ages, because it avoids avoid describing too many details that become dated faster than the author imagined (whether it's technology or social norms).

A question

Many years ago I read a short story online. The main character is a woman, and we see her adapting to technology making leap after leap (including some that allow her, as well as other people, to have a longer-than-currently-possible lifespan, as well as interstellar travel), and who then becomes the first ambassador for an encouter with a species of intelligent extraterrestrial beings. I found it incredibly heartwarming because as you first start reading it, you fear it will be a sad story about someone dying just as humanity is about to take a big technological leap, but it doesn't go in that direction. Instead, technology helps her overcome her health problems, she becomes closer to her family who lives far away, and becomes more and more adventurous and curious about the world in her very old (yet more active than ever) age. It was very uplifting and probably the only explicitly utopic (no darker hidden side) story I've ever come across.

I can't remember its name or find it again. Can anyone help?

[Songbird]

@Vulpes Is it Dawn, and Sunset, and the Colours of the Earth by Michael F. Flynn, published in Year's Best SF 12?

A Seattle ferry disappears into a strange disturbance, taking all of its passengers with it. The families of those who went missing try to cope, the city and others investigate, and scientists attempt to develop theories as to what happened.

I found this one by looking up "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" on isfdb then using the highly scientific method of googling each likely anthology + seattle. Struck gold in an off-and blog mention. :'D
Other possibilities would be stories that cropped up in different issues of the same anthologies in which the sysadmins story appeared.


Sc0ut Do you remember any other details? Like date range, likely sites where you might have read it, keywords in the story?

[Vulpes]

@Vulpes Is it Dawn, and Sunset, and the Colours of the Earth by Michael F. Flynn, published in Year's Best SF 12?

A Seattle ferry disappears into a strange disturbance, taking all of its passengers with it. The families of those who went missing try to cope, the city and others investigate, and scientists attempt to develop theories as to what happened.

I found this one by looking up "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" on isfdb then using the highly scientific method of googling each likely anthology + seattle. Struck gold in an off-and blog mention. :'D
Other possibilities would be stories that cropped up in different issues of the same anthologies in which the sysadmins story appeared.

DING! We have a winner!

Thank-you, Songbird. I would definitely never, ever have remembered the title or author. You have more patience for googling than I do - I did a quick search and then decided I had better get back to what I had set out to do, calibrating some timelapse cameras I'm going to be using for field work. Field season is creeping up on me so I couldn't let myself get dragged any further into the black hole that is google!  :'D

Next challenge... find the anthology. I doubt our local library has it, but stranger things have happened. Only a few of the story titles look familiar, it'll be quite interesting to see if I remember any of them. It's been quite a while.

[Sc0ut]

Sc0ut Do you remember any other details? Like date range, likely sites where you might have read it, keywords in the story?

Date range I'd say 10-15 years ago? The site was not somewhere I went regularly, I remember finding it randomly somehow. The page was black text on a white background without any banners or menu that I can remember. Might've been just a text file hosted somewhere. Content-wise I put about everything I remembered in my summary. The writing style was quite straightforward, I don't remember anything particular about it, nor any detail to latch onto really. I know there were grandchildren mentioned?... Sorry, I know this isn't very helpful.