Favourite Short Story

[MJRevell]

What is your favourite short story and why? Is there a collection of short stories you particularly like?

 

[iansales]

I wrote about this last year on my blog - see here. There are links to online versions of the stories I picked, where they exist.

 

[Connavar]

That is very hard to say, you have to remember,think hard about your fav short stories.

Im assuming you dont mean only SFF stories ?

Unlike Ian there are many non SFF short stories i see as my fav short stories.

 

[kurzon]

My favourite short story is probably "Sredni Vashtar" by Saki.

 

[MJRevell]

That is very hard to say, you have to remember,think hard about your fav short stories.

Im assuming you dont mean only SFF stories ?

Unlike Ian there are many non SFF short stories i see as my fav short stories.

Indeed: any short story.

 

[iansales]

Conn, I like a number of non-sf short stories too. I just picked my favourite genre ones for that blog post.

 

[GOLLUM]

Well here are four of the very best collections in any Genre:

Grey Areas - Will Self
Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
Labyrinths - Jorge Louis Borges
Street of Crocodiles - Bruno Schulz

 

[jojajihisc]

Favorites I've read this year:

Exhalation - Ted Chiang
The Dark - Karen Joy Fowler
Closer - Greg Egan
The Girl with The Hungry Eyes - Fritz Leiber
The Deathbird - Harlan Ellison

 

[Diggler]

I have two favourite short stories.

A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison

By far one of the most whacked out stories I've read. I'd always been on the search for a Fallout/Mad Max style story, and Harlan Ellison essentially created the concept with this story.

Six Eggs for Mafeking by Edmund Cooper

Only read this one recently, but was one of the sweetest stories I've ever read. I'm a blokey kind of fella, but this really touched at my heart strings and tear ducts.

 

[Rodders]

I've not read too many short stories, so i don't have much experience. I have read and very much enjoyed the Five PKD short stroy collections. Of them, i think my favourite was "we can remember it for you wholesale" simply because i loved the ending.

I also enjoyed Alastair Reynolds short stories, my favourite of which would have to be either the The Nightingale, Griffenwalder's Bestiary or Diamond Dogs.

 

[UltraCulture]

One short story(very short) i've enjoyed recently is A Pail of Air by Fritz Leiber.

It concerns a family living under the snow after the earth is pulled away from the sun, they survive by thawing frozen oxygen in a pail over a fire(hence the title).

 

[dask]

I remember Keith Laumer's "The Last Command" being particularly good. John W. Campbell's THE ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION ANTHOLOGY seemed to contain nothing but really good sf stories.

 

[Mouse]

I like Neil Gaiman's short stories, they're what inspired me to try writing short stories myself.

 

[clovis-man]

One short story(very short) i've enjoyed recently is A Pail of Air by Fritz Leiber.

It concerns a family living under the snow after the earth is pulled away from the sun, they survive by thawing frozen oxygen in a pail over a fire(hence the title).

An absolute classic. If you would like to linger over the nuances a little longer, try number 45 on this list:

http://www.archive.org/details/XMinus1_A

 

[clovis-man]

One of my favorites is "Bears Discover Fire" by Terry Bisson.

 

[Connavar]

Big fan of short story collections and i have read many i adore as fav.

Just a few examples :

The Continental OP by Dashiell Hammett
The Sword of Welleran by Lord Dunsany
Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
El Borak and Other Desert Adventures/The Horror Stories of Robert E Howard
Wild Thyme,Green Magic by Jack Vance
The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard
The Steampunk Trilogy by Paul Di Filippo
The October Country by Ray Bradbury
Thee Selected Short stories of Philip K Dick , a great collection that makes me think PKD deserves a much better rep as short story writer.

 

[Fried Egg]

Some short stories that have particularly stuck in my mind are:

"The City of the Singing Flame" by Clark Ashton Smith
"Frost and Fire" by Ray Bradbury
"Red Nails" by Robert Howard
"The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang
"Blood Music" by Greg Bear
"I, Haruspex" by Christopher Priest
"Hoard of the Gibbelins" by Lord Dunsany
"The Old House Under the Snow" by Rhys Hughs
"The Willows" by Algernon Blackwood
"Rats in the Walls" by H.P. Lovecraft

I'm going to stop now before I go on too long...I love short stories.

 

[Connavar]

I love short stories too and i must say "Hoard of the Gibbelins" is a great choice. Must be the best first story i have read of all the authors i read for the first time.

 

[dask]

"Deathbird" and "Jeffty Is Five" by Harlan Ellison are worth anyone's time. I also remember liking "The Birch Clump Cylinder" by Clifford D. Simak a whole lot too.

 

[J Riff]

There's too many ... obscure ones >
" It could be Anything' SF by Keith Laumer
" The Upper Berth" H I forget who
The Six Fingers of Time" SF R.A. Lafferty