The Short Story Thread

[Bick]

Just reread "The Sandkings" by George R.R. Martin, great story, it's set in the Thousand Worlds Universe as his Haviland Tuf stories, there was even a so so adaptation of this on TV, but I much prefer the written word.

Nice one. I’ve been reading some early Martin SF myself this past week. (With Morning Comes Mistfall; Song for Lya). He was a terrific short story writer, one of the best of that era - kind of a shame he stopped writing short stories and turned to not writing long books instead.

 

[Bick]

I just read Four-Hour Fugue, by Alfred Bester, first published in June 1974 Analog. I really liked it. It's hard to say too much about it without spoilers, but Bester chucks in more ideas in a short story than I've had hot dinners. Essentially, in a dystopian future where the US eastern corridor is a huge slum that smells bad, perfumery is a big thing. But the major perfumery company's top 'nose' is losing his touch - what's he doing that is affecting his work, and can anyone get to the bottom of it? Great stuff. Bester wrote this 22 years after he made his name with The Demolished Man, but was still going strong at this stage.

 

[BigBadBob141]

" The Night Of The Vampires" is a very good one by George R.R. Martin, would recommend any of his short story collections!
P.S. "The Demolished Man" by Bester while it's been some time since I've re-read it is still one of my favorites, I prefer it to the very popular "Tiger, Tiger" but that's just my taste, Tiger.... is still very good and a must read.
P.P.S. There is a sinister telepathic investigator from the Psi Corp in Babylon 5, he's called Bester ( played very well by Walter Koenig who played Chekov in the Original Star Trek from series two ) who is named in honour of Alfred Bester and his book Demolished........ which features a telepathic police detective!

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I hope folks and mods won't mind me pointing short story readers to the Future Care Capital charity's ongoing year long thought experiment Fictions: Health & Care Re-imagined. Four authors, myself included, were asked to imagine this future through a series of monthly short stories. The other three authors are Keith Brooke, Liz Williams and Anne Charnock. Here's the link. Read, digest, and join the debate!

 

[BAYLOR]

Read it a year or two ago. Don't remember much about it other than I liked it.

Ive not read that one . There is a movie adaptation.

 

[Bick]

There is a movie adaptation.

Actually, that’s not quite right.
First there was a movie (1940) with the original screenplay written by Tom Kilpatrick. Kuttner simply wrote a novelette adaptation of the movie for Thrilling Wonder Stories, published in June 1940. The full novelisation of the movie was by “Will Garth”, a house name of the same magazine, also in 1940. The novelisation has been attributed to several possible authors, including Kuttner, but was almost certainly by Alexander Samalman (who later edited the magazine itself).

 

[dask]

Just read “The Battery Of Hate” a story by John W. Campbell. Here’s a short paragraph towards the end: “Too much - reached the speed of sound, and simply went faster than the air could flow in. The plane below gained a sort of caritation.”

Seems okay, the only thing is I have never seen the word “caritation” before, have no real idea what it means, and can’t find a definition after checking several online dictionaries. Anyone have any idea what caritation is?

 

[Bick]

Just read “The Battery Of Hate” a story by John W. Campbell. Here’s a short paragraph towards the end: “Too much - reached the speed of sound, and simply went faster than the air could flow in. The plane below gained a sort of caritation.”

Seems okay, the only thing is I have never seen the word “caritation” before, have no real idea what it means, and can’t find a definition after checking several online dictionaries. Anyone have any idea what caritation is?

Hmm, makes me wonder if Campbell misused the word. Perhaps an extension of the adjective 'caritate', from the latin, which means expensive or costly, dear. Did he mean it was energetically costly, perhaps? Or benefit that cost a lot to maintain?

 

[dask]

The plane below is chasing the plane above. The above plane had its gas motor replaced earlier with a more powerful electric motor, too powerful for the plane’s propeller. Hence, the paragraph immediately following the one quoted above: “The dark silhouette of the other machine stood out nearer against the lights of the city. Pulling with all the power the metal blades could handle, the other machine still gained.” So while the plane above did eventually escape, the other plane achieved an immediate benefit from the above plane’s propeller problem. Not sure how that fits with either caritate or caritation. Thanks for checking it out. Wonder if it’s a typo of some kind?

 

[J-Sun]

A typo is a possibility but what word was intended isn't springing to mind. If it is correct, caritate also relates to charity like "caritas" - I can't find caritation in my unabridged dictionary either but he does have the character say "a sort of" which could indicate that he's approximating but also that he could be coining the word (or both). I think it might make a kind of sense in that the other plane is drafting/slipstreaming and gets some speed for free, like a gift. Could that work?

 

[dask]

Makes sense to me though maybe unnecessarily erudite. Perhaps Campbell was thumbing his nose at academic types who weren’t with it enough to recognize a good thing when they saw it.

 

[althea]

I have just read a book of short stories by a young writer called Rich Larson. It is called The Tomorrow Factory, and I found it entertaining and thought provoking. For such a young man, I think he's about 25, he has a good writing style and his stories are imaginative..

 

[johnnyjet]

I got The Tomorrow Factory recently myself. Yes, he's an up and coming author who has gotten very popular in recent years. I read some of his stories in Best of the Year anthologies and decided to pick this up. Excellent collection of stories! One of my favorites so far is "An Evening With Severyn Grimes."

 

[alexvss]

@althea @johnnyjet Just added The Tomorrow Factory to my wishlist (I'll wait for the price to drop). Seeing such a young author being succesful makes me wanna jump from a moving car. I'll read the collection as soon as I can, see if I can learn something from it...

 

[J-Sun]

To me, Larson's biggest problem is that he writes too much so some of his stories echo others and not all are superb (as opposed to someone like Ted Chiang who doesn't write enough but makes everything count). Still, he's written a great deal of excellent stuff and I'd assume a well-chosen collection would be great. I loved "Severyn Grimes," too, and some of my other favorites (extracted from my reviewing records) were:

(Title * Source * Issue * Length)
"Extraction Request" * Clarkesworld * 2016-01 * NE
"Jonas and the Fox" * Clarkesworld * 2016-05 * NE
"The Ghost Ship Anastasia" * Clarkesworld * 2017-01 * NE
"In Event of Moon Disaster"* Asimov's * 2018-03/04 * SS
"Octo-Heist in Progress"* Clarkesworld * 2018-11 * SS
"Contagion's Eve at the House Noctambulous"* F&SF * 2019-03/04 * NE
"Painless" * Tor.com * 2019-04-10 * SS

A lot of them have kind of goth or horror tones in the SF (though he's written full horror, too) but "Octo-Heist" is a brilliant, fast-paced, even funny piece.

 

[althea]

Ted Chiang is unique. Some of his stories are very long though.

 

[althea]

Just read “The Battery Of Hate” a story by John W. Campbell. Here’s a short paragraph towards the end: “Too much - reached the speed of sound, and simply went faster than the air could flow in. The plane below gained a sort of caritation.”

Seems okay, the only thing is I have never seen the word “caritation” before, have no real idea what it means, and can’t find a definition after checking several online dictionaries. Anyone have any idea what caritation is?

It is not in any of my dictionaries.

 

[J-Sun]

Read four stories recently in an effort to eventually finish the "Birthday Reviews" series on my blog.

Birthday Reviews: Morrison, Schmitz, Wilde, Wodehouse

Picking up where I left off a couple of years ago, here are reviews of stories selected from people born in the coming week of October 10-16 (or what would have been the coming week if I weren&#821…

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