The Short Story Thread

[Randy M.]

Two stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"Ring of Thoth"
John Vansittart Smith is an intellectual interested in too many subjects to settle all his time and attention on one until he comes to Egyptology. In the course of his studies he manages to be locked into the Lourve and there, in the Egypt collection, sees an amazing thing: A man he took to be a security guard performing a ritual.


"Lot No. 249"
Abercrombie Smith (apparently no relation to John Vansittart Smith) studies medicine at what Doyle calls Old College at Oxford. His downstairs neighbor is an Egyptologist who owns many Egyptian artifacts including a mummy, and a certain papyrus, and combines these a nasty temperment.


I recall reading that the former was an influence on The Mummy movie staring Boris Karloff -- and the movie's scenes in a museum vaguely recall scenes in this story -- while the latter more closely resembles the later mummy movies from the 1940s as well as the 1959 Hammer Studio's version of The Mummy.

If you're interested in the development of the horror story or just interested in being entertained, these are worth reading. While Doyle isn't in the first rank of writers of the supernatural, he was always an entertaining writer and there is a night scene in "Lot No. 249" as Smith walks along a lane to a friend's house that M. R. James might have envied.


Randy M.

 

[J-Sun]

Milton Lesser again!

Ah, the good ol' days - when science fiction mags were so numerous there was one for every author.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Fantastic Universe August 1956

A step up from the pulpish quality of the previous publications, this reads like an issue of Galaxy or The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from the time.

"So Bright the Vision" by Clifford D. Simak

The old pro uses his many years of writing experience to tell a story about writing. Set in a future where Earth's most important export to other planets is fiction (because other species have no ability to imagine things that aren't true), this is about the transformation of the storyteller from an artist to a technician dependent of machines. Obviously a heartfelt allegory for a writer, but with some oddly random science fiction elements stirred into the meandering plot. This must have been a favorite story of Simak's, since he used the title for one of his collections.

(More later as time allows.)

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Robot Carpenter" by Frank Bryning.

An Australian author with a long but not very prolific career offers us a tale of a robot who comes to be accepted as human among the survivors of an atomic war. The religious allegory of the self-sacrificing robot isn't very subtle (hint: it's a carpenter) and the whole story is told between two guys who do a lot of "as you know" narrating, so it's a minor Asimovian fable.

"Attack From Within" by Burton Crane.

The only ISFDB credit for this economic journalist who was also known as "The Bing Crosby of Japan." (The things you learn on Wikipedia.)

While working for the Japan Advertiser, he became well known as an unusual singer for Columbia Records, singing Japanese-language versions of popular Westerns songs of the day.

Anyway, as a writer of SF he's a great singer. This is a thud-and-blunder spy thriller with some futuristic elements thrown in. Notable mostly for a bizarre racist statement, thrown in for no reason at all. One plot element involves the decreasing population (due to sterilizing light bulbs, of all things.) We given a list of the population of various places in the world, including Australia, which is listed as 100,000*. The asterisk refers us to this outrageous footnote:

*Mostly bushmen, with a few bushmen-kangaroo hybrids.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Fair Exchange" by Mack Reynolds. Very brief story from this author of many political/economic speculations. Somebody in the future offers a professor advanced technology in exchange for money of our own time (which is a collectible antique.) But what will be exchanged for Soviet rubles? Minor Cold War anecdote.

"The Far-Off Stars" by Ruth Sterling. Bradburyian mood piece from an author with one other credit on ISFDB. An old man refuses to join others leaving Earth, which is losing all its plant life. Good emotional appeal, if the plot isn't too plausible.

"The Only Conqueror" by Norman Arkway. Ironic Cold War story which contrasts a Soviet citizen in a USSR occupied by the USA with an American in a USA occupied by the USSR. You have to accept a rather odd, non-nuclear war in which each superpower occupied the other's territory, but it's an interesting idea. The author has a handful of credits from the time.

"Room for Improvement" by Mann Rubin. A guy finds a secret room which "improves" everything inside it, leading to an unpleasant surprise for his shrewish wife. Pretty predictable twist ending (hint: the guy married a widow) from an author who wrote a lot of TV.

"Hail to the King" by Edward Ludwig. All the devils created by literature get together to elect a leader. The premise is a good one, but it leads to a weak joke ending. The author had a modest number of stories and one novel to his credit.

"The Voiceless Sentinels" by Roger Dee. Human explorers on a planet populated by herds of low-intelligence aliens are told to leave by super-advanced aliens. A fairly obvious comparison is made between the ehrds confronting the humans and the humans confronting their superiors. The author had a bunch of stories and, again, one novel to his credit.

"The Macauley Circuit" by Robert Silverberg. Frequently reprinted early story by this great author. It deals with an improvment in the computers used to enhance music, to the point where they are capable of creating new compositions, rendering humans obsolete. Not bad, and interesting to compare with the Simak which opened the issue.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Most Thrilling Science Fiction Ever Told Spring 1968

Pretty grandiose title for a reprint magazine.

"The Stars, My Brothers" by Edmond Hamilton. (Amazing Stories 1962) The master of planet-smashing space opera spins a yarn about an astronaut, frozen in an accident in the far-off year of 1981 (when there are thriving Moon colonies and space stations), who gets revived a century later and is used as a pawn by folks trying to keep civilized lizard-like aliens from treating the human-like savages on their planet as animals. A fast-paced action story (probably too fast-paced, really; it ends very suddenly) with some interesting glimpses into the psychology of the guy zapped into a strange future.

"The Beginning" by Henry Hasse. (Amazing Stories 1961) Another old pro, not as famous as Hamilton (but he did write the pioneering world-inside-the-atom story "He Who Shrank") gives us one of those stories about how prehistoric folks figured out how to use weapons. Could be read as an arms race allegory.

"Dark Companion" by Robert Silverberg. (Amazing Stories 1961) A rich young man, wracked with guilt for his failure to save his brother's life, keeps trying to kill himself. This is a difficult task in a future of super-sophisticated medicine. To keep him from making any more attempts, his parents hire an android to keep watch over him 24/7. A good story, but I'd quibble with the decision to make the background one in which people journey easily around the galaxy. The same story could have been told on a future Earth.

"Home is Where You Left It" by "Adam Chase" (our old pal Milton Lesser.) (Amazing Stories 1957) Pretty much a Western in space, as a guy goes back to the colony planet he left and helps the colonists (settlers) fight off the aliens (Indians.) Not very good.

"The Lavender Talent" by "Gerald Vance" (Henry Slesar, author of lots of SF and mysteries and a ton of teleplays.) (Fantastic 1958) A couple of bureaucrats fight over who has the right to display strange items (art?) found on Mars. OK twist ending.

"Passport to Eternity" by J. G. Ballard. (Amazing Stories 1962) Satiric tale of the search for escapist pleasures among the ultra-rich of the future. Very light-hearted for Ballard, but full of imagination and skillful writing. Opening line: "It was half past love on New Day in Zenith and the clocks were striking heaven."

"The Misfit" by Roger Zelazny. (Amazing Stories 1963) Very brief tale of a guy who doesn't like all the fantasies provided for him. Sort of a variation on "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" with a minor twist.

 

[Connavar]

"The Mitr" by Jack Vance. Unusually ugly story for Vance, superbly written and therefore a must read for fans but I wouldn't recommend it as an introduction to sf or to Vance for anyone unfamiliar with either. Not sure what prompted him to take this on. A particularly disturbing story in the daily paper? Perhaps we should all join hands and pray that Gaspar Noé never decides to commit this troubled tale to film.

I have read this story and remember only the feelings i got from it. A sad,bittersweat story if i remember correctly. Can you remind me what it was about?

I remember enjoying for being much different,smaller in scope than usual Vance SFF short story. So yeah its more rewarding for experienced Vance fans who can see its not usuall Vance story. He did write many SF short stories that is far from his usual science fantasy famous short stories,novellas, the Vancean SF shorts like Moon Moth.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Most Thrilling Science Fiction Ever Told Fall 1968

The two "complete novels" from prolific old-timer Murray Leinster are really one novella and one novelette. I'll discuss the latter first.

"Planet of Dread" (Fantastic Stories of Imagination May 1962) is an old-fashioned space adventure. Five political revolutionaries (the only female serves no purpose in the story except to be "the girl") and a stowaway (he's running away because he killed a man, but for a "good reason" and he's the hero of the story) wind up on a planet where another human spaceship crashed long ago. A failed attempt to terraform the planet has turned it into a world of giant bugs. B-movie thrills follow. Better image of the cover art (taken from the original magazine appearance, and reprinted for a recent "double novel" book):

"Long Ago, Far Away" (Amazing Science Fiction Stories September 1959) is more sophisticated. It begins with a spaceship (or is it?) appearing out of nowhere in Antarctica. The only persons aboard are four human (or are they?) children, who speak an unknown language and use super-advanced technology. Much of the novel deals with how media and government deal with the strange visitors, and there's a touch of bitter satire to the story. The cover art shown above (just a reprint of the original magazine) has nothing at all to do with the story. It was also published as a paperback with another title and pretty accurate cover art.

 

[J-Sun]

The first looks like the sort of thing from c.1920 that was fixed up into The Incredible Planet which, as you say, has B-movie thrills (and some points to make) but, despite my appreciation for Leinster, isn't his best. I have Four from Planet 5 but haven't read it yet - I'm a little more eager now to do so.

 

[dask]

I have read this story and remember only the feelings i got from it. A sad,bittersweat story if i remember correctly. Can you remind me what it was about?

I remember enjoying for being much different,smaller in scope than usual Vance SFF short story. So yeah its more rewarding for experienced Vance fans who can see its not usuall Vance story. He did write many SF short stories that is far from his usual science fantasy famous short stories,novellas, the Vancean SF shorts like Moon Moth.

Gang rape. I do not believe for a moment the spacemen waited their turn in line like officers and gentlemen.

 

[Bick]

Blimey - you certainly do read a lot of SF short stories, Victoria. I'm suitably impressed, and it makes me want to get some random 50's-60's Galaxy magazines from Ebay.

I just read Arthur C. Clarke's The Rescue Party. This is a pretty famous short from the 40's about an ancient alien race coming to Earth to save humanity from our sun going nova, only to find we'd already buggered off. I quite liked it despite the age, but the most interesting things about it were the aspects that Clarke clearly picked up later in his career. The alien spaceship was the S9000 (reused as Hal9000), the migration of humans following the sun going nova was clearly reused in "The Songs of Distant Earth" decades later, and there were also shades if "Childhood's End" here too.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine May 1986

"Chance" by Connie Willis. An unhappy woman seems to have encounters with people and events in her past, and realizes that small choices can have large consequences. This is a subtle story, with frequent changes in narration from present to various times in the past, often within a single paragraph. It can be interpreted as the protagonist's mental breakdown, or as a time fantasy. The fact that the woman keeps getting colder and colder as the story goes on (in the last paragraph: "The back of her hand was covered with ice crystals.") leads me to believe that there may be some implication that this is someone experiencing her past while dying.

"Inventions Bright and New" by R. A. Lafferty. Typically mad Lafferty story. As best as I can tell, some oddly named folks (Anna Thursday-Dawn and John Rain-Tomorrow, to name a couple) on a train when the world is seven seconds old (but we are told the world is always seven seconds old) invent everything from playing cards to the hangman's noose. With Lafferty you just have to go along for the ride.

"For a Place in the Sky" by Richard Paul Russo. In the near future, when things are falling apart and the elite are escaping to space colonies, a South American who did some shadowy work for American agents fights to collect his reward: a place on the space shuttle. This reads kind of like a lighter version of a Lucius Shepard story, although he wouldn't have ended it so suddenly, and would have probably made it a full novella.

"The Difficulties Involved in Photographing Nix Olympica" by Brian Aldiss. In a future when Mars is inhabited by the military, two guys set out to get photographs of the planet's giant mountain. Other authors would have made this a "hard" science adventure story, but Aldiss makes it a delicate character study.

"The Shadow on the Doorstep" by James P. Blaylock. Under the influence of reading Jules Verne, the narrator wonders about the mysterious shadow on his doorstep and has memories of three strange aquarium stores he visited at various times in his life. Written in long sentences and long paragraphs, this appears to be a pastiche of Lovecraft (there are tiny hints of the fish-like humanoids found in some of his tales) although it can be read as simply the feverish imaginings of the narrator.

"Collision" by James Tiptree, Jr. One of three deep space novellas by the author, later collected as The Starry Rift. This one involves the possibility of interstellar war between humans and aliens, due to mutual misunderstanding and distrust. The story has a Star Trek feel to it (the humans even have a Federation.)

 

[ed9428]

Sandkings by George R.R. Martin. 1976 I think.
My favourite short story, the one the got me into short fiction.

 

[dask]

I've been delinquent listing the stories as I read them in FROM OFF THIS WORLD but I finished "The City Of Singing Flame" by Clark Ashton Smith earlier today and all I've got to say is what an ecstasy of strangeness. Now it's sequel ("Beyond The Singing Flame) is revealing itself to be every bit as good. This is one of the most wonder filled anthologies I've ever come across with each story (save one) thus far has being above average in Gernsbackian greatness. I'll try for a more complete listing when I have a little more time. Long live scientifiction!

 

[j d worthington]

I've been delinquent listing the stories as I read them in FROM OFF THIS WORLD but I finished "The City Of Singing Flame" by Clark Ashton Smith earlier today and all I've got to say is what an ecstasy of strangeness. Now it's sequel ("Beyond The Singing Flame) is revealing itself to be every bit as good. This is one of the most wonder filled anthologies I've ever come across with each story (save one) thus far has being above average in Gernsbackian greatness. I'll try for a more complete listing when I have a little more time. Long live scientifiction!

You know, Ellison has claimed that story as one of the major influences which turned him to writing fantastic fiction. In writing of his first reading of that tale, he had this to say:

I have no hesitation in saying had it not been for Clark Ashton Smith and the wonders he revealed to me, at that precise moment of my youth in which I was most malleable, most desperate for direction, I might well have gone in any one of the thousand other directions taken by my contemporaries, and wound up infinitely poorer in spirit, intellect, prestige and satisfaction than I am today.[...] I owe the greatest of debts to Clark Ashton Smith, for he truly opened up the universe for me.

-- from a letter published in Emperor of Dreams: A Clark Ashton Smith Bibliography, compiled by Donald Sidney-Fryer, p. 153​

 

[dask]

Interesting. I can see why it has the power to influence not just a younger writer but a writer at any stage in his career. Even more interesting and impressive is your ability to retain and instantaneously recall such obscure bits of information. Many thanks. Is that the only place the Ellison letter is available? Do you by any chance know who Ellison was writing to?

 

[Marite]

I'm fond of short stories in general, especially sci fi/fantasy ones. Among my all-time favourites are:

Alfred Bester's "Hobson's Choice"
"Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Henry Kuttner (Lewis Padgett)
"Vintage Season"(Padgett/Kuttner - Moore again)
"The Long Years" from "Martian Chronicles"
"Snow, Glass, Apples" by Neil Gaiman

I also read a few day ago "A Delicate Architecture" by Catherynne M.Valenta, and this is brilliant. In the same way as aforesaid Gaiman's story, dark, fascinating and bitter.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I recently came into possession of two fairly recent issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, so I'll post some reviews here as I read them. (We have every Twentieth Century issue of F&SF at home in a special bookcase, so I am rather familiar with this publication.)

First up is March 2009.

The cover art isn't for any of the stories, but is a painting called "Gray Dawn" by Jill Bauman. (I think "Quickstone" involves gargoyles in some way, so that's probably why this painting was selected.)

With only four new stories in the issue, the cover lists all the authors you will encounter. The reference to Robert Bloch is a "classic reprint." (I don't know how long the magazine has been doing this, but the next issue I'll review has two of them.) The rest of the issue is taken up with an editorial, two book review columns (I've seen issues which had as many as four), a movie review column, "Plumage From Pegasus" (Paul Di Filippo's regular humor column spoofing various aspects of the writing and publishing world), a couple of cartoons, and "Curiosities," the one-page column at the back of the magazine which discusses a little-known work of speculative fiction each issue. Frankly, I'd cut out most of this and add more fiction, although I enjoy "Curiosities."

The reprint is Bloch's famous Hugo-winning story "That Hell-Bound Train." It's not the gruesome horror or goofy comedy you'd expect from that author, but a deal-with-the-Devil yarn told in the style of a folk tale. The most interesting thing about the reprint is William Tenn's introduction, which relates how he became editor of the magazine (briefly) after the sudden death of Cyril M. Kornbluth. He was given a bunch of stories that had already been purchased but which were not yet ready for publication. Among these were "That Hell-Bound Train." In Tenn's words, the story ". . . had no ending. None at all." He made some suggestions to Bloch, who picked one of them and rewrote the conclusion. This was a fascinating look behind the scenes.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Curandero and the Swede: A Tale from the 1001 American Nights" by Daniel Abraham.

A guy brings his fiancee to meet his family for the first time, and is told several intertwining supernatural stories by his uncle. The theme is the importance of telling ourselves stories to make sense of our lives (a point which is made perhaps a little too obviously by the author.) Not bad, and the stories-within-stories are interesting.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Unstrung Zither" by Yoon Ha Lee.

This story takes place during a war between a space empire and rebel worlds, but don't expect Star Wars. This is more of an introspective character study. The protagonist is a musician who is assigned to compose a suite inspired by five captured children, used by the rebel worlds as pilots and assasins (hints of Ender's Game here), in an attempt to understand the enemy. The background of the story seems to be based on traditional Chinese culture, adding an exotic, if somewhat confusing, flavor. The ending is a bit melodramatic and strains plausibility.