The Short Story Thread

[Extollager]

The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling.

I'm a big fan of Kipling, who is underrated and under-read. The Gottlieb selection

is good value, but I've hunted down a lot more through Project Gutenberg, etc.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I have some favorite short stories in various genres.

"Flowers For Algernon" by Daniel Keyes is the finest science fiction story I have ever read.

"One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts" by Shirley Jackson is the finest fantasy story I have ever read.

"Born of Man and Woman" by Richard Matheson is the finest horror story I have ever read. (I might have chosen "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, which is just as good, if I had not already awarded her my fantasy prize.)

 

[jojajihisc]

Good choices. Have you read A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor? Excellent dark little story.

 

[J-Sun]

I'm a big fan of Kipling, who is underrated and under-read.

I may have said this before but one of my favorite jokes ever - I think I first saw it in a black & white movie but I don't know if it originates there - is a man and woman on a picnic or something and the man asks, "Do you like Kipling?" and she cheerfully and naively replies, "I don't know. I've never kippled."

I have some favorite short stories in various genres.

"Flowers For Algernon" by Daniel Keyes is the finest science fiction story I have ever read.

It'd be hard for me to pick just one and I'd certainly hate to have only this story and be missing all my BEMs and blasters and spaceships and whatnot but it's hard to argue that this is closest to a perfect piece.

Which leads to my latest short fiction reading and my disagreement with Robert Silverberg. In the introduction to Born with the Dead (subtitled/blurbed "Three Novellas About Here and Hereafter"), he modestly calls the title story a "perfect accomplishment" and talks about how, when it won the Nebula as was "simply right and inevitable" but received only a Hugo nomination and failed to win, it "confirmed emphatically the decision I had already taken never again to write science fiction on that level of intensity". Interestingly, he puts Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, and "Born with the Dead" together as a troika of "the limits" of what he could do with "science fiction of that intense and intimate sort". Interesting because I like and admire Dying Inside and The Book of Skulls but don't consider the latter SF at all or any of them very much and am far less impressed with the novella (which I read once in an anthology years ago and now in this collection). He describes how he packs into it his "deepest thoughts about love, marriage, boredom, obsession". Interesting that "Born with the Dead" lost the Hugo to George R.R. Martin's "A Song for Lya" which is a trivial action-adventure piece that has nothing at all to do with love, marriage, or obsession. But Martin left out boredom and, unsurprisingly, his story is less boring. All this isn't to say "Born with the Dead" is a bad story - far from it. This story about a husband who can't let go of his "rekindled" wife after her death as she wanders about with her new undead friends without care for her previous connections is interesting and passages in it are splendid and, what with the T.S. Eliot quotes and such that preface the chapters, it has to be good, right? But, to speak Sumerian (as Silverberg says those who criticize the novella seem to to speak to him) I think it could have worked better as an evocative prose-poem sort of short story and doesn't consistently sustain interest over the course of the novella and, while I'm sure Silverberg felt himself putting much about love, marriage, obsession, and boredom into it, I don't know how much of that comes across - yes, it's obviously about those things but how differently and profoundly does one think/feel about them after reading it? - though it may be that it is indeed the perfect work of art in the sense of being too abstruse for a BEMs and blasters example of the hoi polloi like myself. And, frankly, he doesn't bother to detail the "deads" in any plausible way - making them purely literary - and the society of "warms" and the way they interact with this phenomenon is implausible, to say the least. This is a fantasy told with a science fictional tenor. Anyway - the story's okay - it's more the intro that gets under my skin. I find "A Song for Lya" to be much superior and this isn't even second best, in that I believe Norman Spinrad's "Riding the Torch" (another losing nominee) has second place. While it does have spaceships, it's not exactly a YA shoot 'em up, either.

Much more successful (or at least interesting and entertaining), to me, are the other two stories in the collection. "Thomas the Proclaimer" is similarly a fantasy story told in science fictional terms in that a ruffian/rogue-turned-prophet instigates a moment of world prayer in 1999 (story written in 1971) which causes the world to stop moving for about 24 hours. From that fantastic starting point, a realistic story (except in the magnitude of its satire) of millennial and historical delirium takes off and the "march to the sea" (when the calculating Plato/Saul/Judas character allied to Thomas tries for a second miracle) is an unforgettable depiction of sheer mass madness. But there are many subtler satirical touches of the multiplying sects and interpretations and so on as well.

"Going" is one of four story ideas given by Isaac Asimov to Silverberg and three other writers for an anthology. It starts out almost feeling like an Asimov story with much dialogue but becomes more Silverbergian and deals with a society in 2095 where medical advances have made prolonged vigorous lives possible and people almost always live into their 13th to 19th decades and a social structure has come about where people are voluntarily euthanized whenever they feel like to make way for new lives. This story details the spontaneous decision of a famous composer to Go and how he heads off to a House of Leavetaking and tries to tie up his life's loose ends and prepare himself for his end. This raises all kinds of thought-provoking ideas. One is on the nature of societal "use". There's a somewhat appalling elitism (present in Asimov's original idea), where "useful" seems to mean "creative" and "not useful" seems to mean anything else, including physical labor and great parents and nice folks. The government encourages the less useful members of society to Go sooner and the more, later (actual Death Panels! ). Then there's the subjective idea of how it would be to live/die in such a way (would you give up a semi-immortal life? when? why?), along with the objective idea of what sort of government and citizenry would have things this way and how they would afford it. And so on.

Interestingly, these stories all hail from 1970-3 but, other than the topicality of population pressures and the mismatch of dates and whatnot, they don't feel especially dated and he even comes close to depicting ebooks and print-on-demand in "Going" and isn't too far off a sort of HUD/GPS in one of the other stories. Little unimportant details, but still interesting to me.

Anyway - a good collection, but I prefer the lesser stories to the masterpiece.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Fascinating comments about Silverberg.

I personally consider Silverberg of the late 1960's and early 1970's to be as fine an example of a speculative fiction writer as I can imagine. Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, A Time of Changes, Thorns, and, yes, "Born With the Dead" seem like superb works to me. I was very much less impressed with Lord Valentine's Castle and other later Silverberg. This is probably more a matter of taste than anything else.

 

[J-Sun]

I personally consider Silverberg of the late 1960's and early 1970's to be as fine an example of a speculative fiction writer as I can imagine. Dying Inside, The Book of Skulls, A Time of Changes, Thorns, and, yes, "Born With the Dead" seem like superb works to me. I was very much less impressed with Lord Valentine's Castle and other later Silverberg. This is probably more a matter of taste than anything else.

Perhaps so - I haven't read them in a long time but I have very positive recollections of the Majipoor trilogy and especially Lord Valentine's Castle but I haven't really cared for the few I read after that. It's very true that LVC is very different from what he was doing in the early 70s but I still like it. So I guess it is taste in terms of how you particularly react to which particular works but it'd probably be generally agreed that, overall, something went out of his novel-writing during his "retirement".

Again, it's been too long since I've read them (except those in Born with the Dead, obviously ) but I remember liking his early 70s stories even more than the novels, generally. I haven't read all that much of the late 60s ones and, for instance, while I think "Nightwings" is fantastic, I don't like the other stories that make up Nightwings as much. But, despite what he implies about fluffing up his post-'73 novella and shorter-length work, I think his 80s/90s short work was often still very good. Haven't read much this millennium and, from what I have, something seems to have gone out of that, too.

The most recent Silverberg book I almost bought, because I found some of its parts interesting, was Roma Eterna, which is a collection of 9-10 stories set from the past up to the "present" in a Roman Empire that never fell. Have you (or has anyone) read that and, if so, what did you think?

 

[Fried Egg]

The most recent Silverberg book I almost bought, because I found some of its parts interesting, was Roma Eterna, which is a collection of 9-10 stories set from the past up to the "present" in a Roman Empire that never fell. Have you (or has anyone) read that and, if so, what did you think?

I read "TALES FROM THE VENIA WOODS" from the "Mammoth Book of Alternative Histories" that was set in that alternate timeline, I can only presume it is in that collection you mention.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I think I read that story also, in some other collection. It was pretty good.

 

[J-Sun]

Yeah, it includes (wikipedia)

To the Promised Land (Omni, May 1989)
Tales from the Venia Woods (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1989)
An Outpost of the Empire (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, November 1991)
Via Roma (Asimov's Science Fiction, April 1994)
Waiting for the End (Asimov's Science Fiction, October/November 1998)
Getting to Know the Dragon (Far Horizons: All New Tales from the Greatest Worlds of Science Fiction, May 1999)
A Hero of the Empire (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October-November 1999)
The Second Wave (Asimov's Science Fiction, August 2002)
With Caesar in the Underworld (Asimov's Science Fiction, October/November 2002)
The Reign of Terror (Asimov's Science Fiction, April 2003)

 

[GOLLUM]

I have a copy of Roma Eterna J-Sun. It's amongst Silverberg's best regarded works (or so I believe), which is probably why I purchased it at the time.

I should probably read some more Silverberg in 2013 as I have a fantastic 50 year retrospective collection of his short fiction along with several of his great works as already mentioned here including Dying Inside, Ngihtwings, Book of Skulls etc...as well as having met the man on several occasions (he seems to be a regular at WorldCons).

The Majipoor books are amongst my favourite science fantasy novels. I've read all of these and there are several in that series. Lord Valentine's castle possibly still remains my favouirite however...being as it was also one of the first SF books I ever read back in the late '70s.

Also thanks for posting those thoughts on Silverberg . Very useful.

 

[Extollager]

Groff Conklin brought together hundreds of science fiction short stories in his many anthologies -- including many of the best. Join us for discussion!

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/539121-reading-around-in-groff-conklins-anthologies.html

 

[J-Sun]

Sorry, I forgot to come back.

I have a copy of Roma Eterna J-Sun. It's amongst Silverberg's best regarded works (or so I believe), which is probably why I purchased it at the time.

I should probably read some more Silverberg in 2013 as I have a fantastic 50 year retrospective collection of his short fiction along with several of his great works as already mentioned here including Dying Inside, Ngihtwings, Book of Skulls etc...as well as having met the man on several occasions (he seems to be a regular at WorldCons).

What was that like? I watched a webcast of a Hugo awards presentation a couple years ago or so and he was definitely the life of that party but that's more "podium style", I guess, than "handshake style". (As far as Roma Eterna, I guess if I come across it after beating the TBR down to manageable levels, I'll try it after all.)

The Majipoor books are amongst my favourite science fantasy novels. I've read all of these and there are several in that series. Lord Valentine's castle possibly still remains my favouirite however...being as it was also one of the first SF books I ever read back in the late '70s.

Yeah - I'm not a huge fan of science fantasy so probably don't have much to compare it to but, either way, they'd have to be among my favorites of it, too. The planet, the species - Skandars! Vroons! - the history, the characters, the juggling. It was all so colorful and absorbing and I still remember it far better than most things. Maybe it was more "conventional" or less daring or something but it was so well done, such a solid hit, that it beats many more ambitious near-misses. And I think there's a sort of sneakiness to it, too. Silverberg has notes somewhere describing how LVC is supposed to be pure light and fun but if you really think about what's happened to Valentine and why and the history behind Majipoor it's not even slightly light and fun and there are serious things being said in it. But, indeed, until you start getting into that, it does feel light and fun. From the very beginning, "And then...", on to the end, I was living in Majipoor. I have a giant collection yet to read as well, but I'm tempted to re-read LVC. We'll see.

Also thanks for posting those thoughts on Silverberg . Very useful.

Thank you - just sort of rambling, but I'm glad you find them so.

 

[GOLLUM]

What was that like? I watched a webcast of a Hugo awards presentation a couple years ago or so and he was definitely the life of that party but that's more "podium style", I guess, than "handshake style". (As far as Roma Eterna, I guess if I come across it after beating the TBR down to manageable levels, I'll try it after all.)

Yeah - I'm not a huge fan of science fantasy so probably don't have much to compare it (Majipoor) to but, either way, they'd have to be among my favorites of it, too. The planet, the species - Skandars! Vroons! - the history, the characters, the juggling. It was all so colorful and absorbing and I still remember it far better than most things. Maybe it was more "conventional" or less daring or something but it was so well done, such a solid hit, that it beats many more ambitious near-misses. And I think there's a sort of sneakiness to it, too. Silverberg has notes somewhere describing how LVC is supposed to be pure light and fun but if you really think about what's happened to Valentine and why and the history behind Majipoor it's not even slightly light and fun and there are serious things being said in it. But, indeed, until you start getting into that, it does feel light and fun. From the very beginning, "And then...", on to the end, I was living in Majipoor. I have a giant collection yet to read as well, but I'm tempted to re-read LVC. We'll see.

Thank you - just sort of rambling (regarding Silverberg) , but I'm glad you find them so.

You describe that well regarding Silverberg. I found him to be charming, witty, intelligent, quirky etc. when amongst a crowd but similarly he had a certain air of aloofness, distance when it came more to mixing one on one with fans, not something I noticed he did a lot of in the two WorldCons I've seen him in situ. I got the sense most fans were either intimidated or in awe of him to be honest. He's pretty much a permanent fixture at the WorldCons. Contrast with Neil Gaiman who is one of the 'warmest' and most approachable people I've ever met. He goes out of his way to say Hi to the fans. Nothing against Mr. Silverberg, just a different personality I guess. Others authors who are amongst the most approachable I have found at Cons included George RR Martin, Kate Elliott, China Mieville, Joe Haldeman (and his wife), Raymond E Feist, Tim Powers, Naomi Novak, Jay Lake, David Brin and Aussies Margo Lanagan, Cecilia Dart Thornton, Ian Irvine and Shaun Tan.

The Hugos that I've attended were enjoyable semi formal affairs. One thing I like about the SFF community is that authors don't tend to put on airs or have the kind of arrogant attitude well known 'literary' authors I've seen can do. Definitely the whole WorldCon and associated awards experience is a far more relaxed and friendly atmosphere that what you get when attending literary festivals...as much as I also enjoy the latter.

Nice to see another Majipoor fan. Pretty much what you were alluding to is what I loved most about those books; that almost disproportionate sense of things. The books represent amongst the best planetary science fantasy has to offer, the way in which Silverberg is able to convey the concept of sheer size inlcuding the scale of the buildings, systems, cultures etc.

I never regarded LVC as all light and happiness. It definitely has a dark streak running thought it and part of what makes it interesting not to mention Silverbeg's skill at descriptive prose including characterization. I also remember quite vividly his riveting discourses on the art of juggling in that book.

 

[Fried Egg]

Well, I've been making my way slowly through Aleister Crowley's "The Drug & Other Stories". I've just finished a powerful story called "The Testament of Magdalen Blair".

In this story, a woman with telepathic powers forms a bond with a professor and consequently develops her telepathic connection with him. All is well until he starts getting terminally ill. She is then in a unique insight into the experience of dying and even life after death. You is forced to glean his hellish experience that only gets worse as his body putrefies...

 

[J-Sun]

I know it's taken me a long time to say so, but thanks for that post, GOLLUM. Very interesting. I've never been to a con but I suppose I should at least once.

Well, I've been making my way slowly through Aleister Crowley's "The Drug & Other Stories". I've just finished a powerful story called "The Testament of Magdalen Blair".

I can't remember what Crowley I've read but I don't think it was any of his (intended) fiction. I'm curious - is the fiction related to his occult interests or are they/do they work as actually free-standing fiction?

---

For me, I've read Charles Stross' Toast and was... I guess "disappointed" is fair. He does put his best foot forward with "Antibodies" which is easy to describe without spoiling in a terminal sense but, since the whole story sort of moves from a fog bank to clarity, almost any comment would spoil the earlier parts of it. Let's just say that he makes the traveling salesman really travel.

While "Extracts from the Club Diary" doesn't work in every way and especially not at the end, it is an interesting exercise in stylistic variation (from a man writing in 1889 to a woman later to the final bits in 2019) and has some genuinely funny stuff.

I didn't read "A Colder War" because it seems to be a sequel of sorts to a Lovecraft story I probably haven't read and I want to read that first someday. I skipped a bit in a Leiber collection awhile ago because it also presupposed Lovecraft. I'm getting tired of doing that and definitely must read him soon. Also didn't read "Lobsters" this time, as I'd read it before.

Bibliographical-type note: the original edition of this didn't have "Lobsters" or the afterword or quite the same introduction, but had "A Boy and His God" instead. That's a bizarre and sometimes funny story that really abuses the Cthulhu Mythos but can't be related to any actual Lovecraft, I don't think. All this stuff is available online (Toast/"A Boy and His God"), btw, which is how I read the deleted story.

Anyway - if you don't have an interest in computers or other consumer electronics or the singularity or posthumanity... or Lovecraft... this definitely wouldn't be the first thing I'd suggest to you. But "Antibodies" is worth a read.

 

[Fried Egg]

I can't remember what Crowley I've read but I don't think it was any of his (intended) fiction. I'm curious - is the fiction related to his occult interests or are they/do they work as actually free-standing fiction?

Personally, I think his best fiction are those stories that are perhaps, informed by his occult interests, but do not rely on the reader having any grounding or general interest in the Occult.

This story itself has little to do with the occult and should be of interest to anyone interested in cosmic horror.

 

[J-Sun]

Personally, I think his best fiction are those stories that are perhaps, informed by his occult interests, but do not rely on the reader having any grounding or general interest in the Occult.

This story itself has little to do with the occult and should be of interest to anyone interested in cosmic horror.

Interesting, and makes sense. Thanks.

 

[jojajihisc]

The most recent Silverberg book I almost bought, because I found some of its parts interesting, was Roma Eterna, which is a collection of 9-10 stories set from the past up to the "present" in a Roman Empire that never fell. Have you (or has anyone) read that and, if so, what did you think?

Hey J-Sun (go Seahawks) - Yeah, I read Roma Eterna and liked it a lot. Not everyone enjoyed it though, it seems like I like I read a review, decribing it as a "mosaic novel," that complained of no enduring character throughout the story (which would be difficult considering the time span). It's not really about any one person though but an empire, a culture. I haven't really read any other recent Silverberg novels. Like others here, I'm also a huge fan of his 25 or 30 Vietnam-era stand-alones.

 

[J-Sun]

Hi jo! Thanks for the input and I'll add it to the list - the complaint you mention would come from someone not understanding the form and that wouldn't be a problem for me at all as I like connected collections/mosaic novels, especially when they cover long time spans.

 

[J-Sun]

Finished Traces by Stephen Baxter. This is kind of a strange collection. He alternates unlabelled trios of stories that are or are not alternate history/parallel worlds sorts of things, beginning and ending with trios that aren't, giving 9 AltHist stories and 12 that aren't. Also, there's one story that's about 40 pages and is at least a solid novelette and one that's about 6 and is an actual "short story" short story, with the other 19 mostly all being between 15-20 pages and seeming right on the edge of short story/novelette length but are structurally novelettes.

Anyway - I'm not a big alternate history fan, so that immediately puts us at odds and the collection doesn't start with its strongest work overall, so I was getting pretty worried. And, even having read the whole thing, there aren't all that many stories that individually stick out. Still, the aggregate impression ends up being a lot more favorable than it seems it should. And, to his credit, most of his alternate history stuff is at least science fictional within its alternates unlike most practitioners' tendencies to write medieval fantasy or mainstream fiction or military fiction as "alternate" and call it "SF". Of those, "Mittlewelt" is a sort of interesting/exciting story about a (relative to 1940) high tech plane being used by the Germans who have won WWI on an attack run to Tokyo (yes, this is the usual "alternate war" thing, but has the plane). Better than that are "Moon Six" and "Zemlya", which involve parallel moons and Yuri Gagarin going to Venus with a good ol' Super Science touch. "Moon Six" is definitely the longer and more complex story, but I think I actually prefer "Zemlya". And probably the best alternate was "Brigantia's Angels" - I don't really know what it means in terms of the Welsh vs. the English but this story of provincial Welsh coal miners participating in a local's invention of a flying machine around the turn of the 20th century is actually pretty emotionally affecting and really well written although I ended up not being completely satisfied. Still, a highly recommended one.

Of the non-alt, "Traces" is a combo of Shaw's "The Light of Other Days" and Clarke's "The Star" and not anywhere near as good as either but still enjoyable enough. "Something for Nothing" is an excellent gadget/twist story about exploring an alien spaceship whose aliens have the looong view. Probably better still are a couple of the several "really radically adapted 'humans' under extreme conditions" stories. "Downstream" is probably my favorite, dealing with human variants that sort of cling to the bed of a mixed superfluid stream almost like animal lichen and what happens when a couple of them get knocked away and downstream. "The Blood of Angels" was probably better in the sense of being more evocatively written and more emotionally powerful but was also really disgusting (a trait shared with many of the stories) and came immediately after "Downstream", so might not have had the effect it should have. Either way, these sorts of stories seem to illustrate (as does some of the Xeelee stuff) what seems to be Baxter's driving idea: adapting to any extent to survive at any cost. There's often a kind of sadness involved with this like he's not so much promoting it as recognizing it as a mixed fact of, well, life. And the alternate history stories seem to exemplify his other main drive: that humans should have done so much more in space than we have and that the US/Russian (especially) space programs were fascinating.

Anyway - having previously read only "Moon Six" from this collection, a very few other non-Xeelee stories here and there and, of course, lots of Xeelee stuff, it was cool to get a broader synopsis of Baxter. One of these days there's gonna be a hell of a career retrospective but, in the meantime, this was reasonably good overall. But, for me, the Xeelee stuff is still where it's at with Baxter.