The Short Story Thread

[dask]

Glad you revived it. I finished the April 1950 issue of Amazing Stories but haven't got around to organizing my thoughts yet. All stories good with a couple of really good ones.

Reading H.P. Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror In Literature." Not a story, I know, but I'm reading it in his THE COMPLETE FICTION collection. That counts, doesn't it?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Shambleau" (by Moore alone; Weird Tales, November 1933) -- This science fantasy/horror story displays Moore's lush, sensual style at its most extreme. The author manages to get away with things I'd normally advise against, such as using lots of dashes and ellipses. The plot is a simple one about a space adventurer (the wonderfully named Northwest Smith, who appears in later stories) who protects an alien woman from an angry mob, only to discover the terrifying truth about her. Quite erotic, in a dark and terrifying way.

"The Graveyard Rats" (by Kuttner alone; Weird Tales, March 1936) -- As the title suggests, this is a gruesome horror story. An unpleasant character (he steals gold out of the teeth of corpses) meets a very, very unpleasant fate. Straight out of Tales From the Crypt.

The other stories in this anthology were written after Moore and Kuttner were married, so they are assumed to be collaborations to some degree, no matter what name they appeared under.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"A Gnome There Was" (Unknown Worlds, October 1941) -- Madcap farce about a guy who tries to organize some mine workers, but winds up trapped in a tunnel and gets transformed into a gnome. He then tries to organize the gnomes. A little satire of labor unions and bosses is thrown in with the wackiness. It all leads up to an unexpectedly horrific conclusion.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Twonky" (Astounding, September 1942) -- Dark satire about a gizmo from the future, disguised as a radio, which seems to be helpful (washing dishes, etc.) but which turns out to be an iron-fisted dictator. Adapted into a movie of the same name in 1953, which lightened the mood of the story considerably and changed it to a TV.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Compliments of the Author" (Unknown Worlds, October 1942) -- A blackmailer makes the mistake of trying to shake down a magician, and winds up killing him; but at least his gets his magic book, which will give him ten chances to save himself when he's in danger. Meanwhile, the dead magician's familiar is out for revenge. A solid fantasy story.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Mimsy Were the Borogoves" (Astounding, February 1943) -- Famous story about a box from the far future which arrives in modern times, and what happens to the two children who find the "toys" inside it. Loosely adapted into the movie The Last Mimzy in 2007. (The title of the movie annoys me; not only do they change the spelling of "Mimsy" for no reason, but they change it from an adjective to a noun. Blasphemy for anybody who loves "Jabberwocky.")

"Shock" (Astounding, March 1943) -- A man from the future comes into a modern man's apartment via a hole in time and runs off on a mysterious errand. The modern man goes through the hole into what seems to be a utopian future. Of course, there's a catch. A clever, if minor, story.

 

[Bick]

"Mimsy Were the Borogoves" (Astounding, February 1943) -- Famous story about a box from the far future which arrives in modern times, and what happens to the two children who find the "toys" inside it. Loosely adapted into the movie The Last Mimzy in 2007. (The title of the movie annoys me; not only do they change the spelling of "Mimsy" for no reason, but they change it from an adjective to a noun. Blasphemy for anybody who loves "Jabberwocky.

I read this Lewis Padgett (Kuttner & Moore) classic myself last month. Super story, included in the SF Hall of Fame volume on my shelf. That movie treatment does sound dire... The short story is terrific.

While I'm commenting on short stories from that Hall of Fame volume, I must mention Campbell's classic "Twilight" from 1934. The best I've read in that volume yet, I think, and I heartily recommend it.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Reader, I Hate You!" (Super Science Stories, May 1943) -- One big in-joke. The two main characters are Henry Kuttner himself and the great illustrator Virgil Finlay. Early in the story we get "I don't know what your name is -- Joe or Mike or Forrest J --", which is a clear reference to the famous fan Forrest J. Ackerman. Mention is made of the story "The Crystal Circe," by Kuttner (and Moore, one presumes), which was illustrated by Finlay.

The superman who contacts the writer and artist (in a wacky plot about getting back his wife, who happens to be a green crystal, from the science fiction fan he gave it to while he was drunk) mistakes them at first:

"I know!" the button-nosed guy came back, quick as a flash. "Frank R. Paul and Leigh Brackett."

The superman puts a spell on Kuttner and Finlay so they have to write his story and illustrate it, and puts a spell on the editor of Super Science Stories so he has to print it, so the fan will read it and give the crystal wife back. All in all, a merry romp.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The World is Mine" (Astounding, June 1943) -- One of a series of farces about Gallegher, a mathematical genius of the near future who invents things when he's drunk, then can't remember what they're for when he sobers up. This one involves a time machine of sorts, which not only brings back three tiny Martians from the far future who are intent on conquering Earth, but keeps bringing back Gallegher's own dead body. Then things get complicated. A bit silly for my taste.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"When the Bough Breaks" (Astounding, November 1944) -- People from the future arrive in the apartment of a young couple and tell them that their baby is an immortal superhuman, who sent them back to develop his potential even more. It all leads up to a ruthlessly logical conclusion.

"The Cure" (Astounding, May 1946) -- A man has hallucinations of a dusty windowpane smelling of dead flies, and an object under his hand which he feels he should move. A psychiatrist advises him to try moving the object the next time he has the delusion, leading to an unexpected conclusion. Although it's definitely science fiction, it has the feeling of surreal psychological horror.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Code" (Astounding, July 1945) -- An elderly man receives a treatment which allows him to grow young -- but he seems to be changing into someone, or something, very different. An unusual, imaginative story.

"Line to Tomorrow" (Astounding, November 1945) -- A man accidentally overhears a telephone conversation between someone from the far future and a time traveler in the near future, with unexpected consequences. Ends with a chilling little twist.

 

[J-Sun]

Read Silverberg's The World Inside which is a fixup of half a dozen stories. It's interesting because I'm not sure how satisfying they'd be individually but they do definitely add up to a sum greater than their parts as they traverse aspects of a highly populated dystopian vertical society. My favorite individual story was probably "The Throwbacks". If anyone's interested, I jotted down a fuller discussion elsewhere but it's probably not coherent enough to post in Chrons' Reviews section. Anyway - interesting stuff.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Good review. Seems perfectly coherent to me.

Onward:

"Clash By Night" (Astounding, March 1943) -- Set against the same background as the novel Fury. Earth has been depopulated by atomic war, and humanity survives on Venus. This is an old-fashioned science fiction version of Venus, mostly ocean, with jungles inhabited by all kinds of nasty lifeforms. Society is divided into the Keeps (underwater domes where the politicians, technicians, and the leisure class live) and the Forts, surface citadels where the mercenaries live. Disputes between the Keeps are settled by wars between various groups of mercenaries. These wars have two important rules. No atomic weapons may be used, and the Keeps are not attacked.

This pretty complex novella is a combination of action/adventure/survival yarn, as a couple of shipwrecked mercenaries hack their way to their Fort through the deadly jungle; military SF, as the battle between mercenary groups is described in great detail; psychological drama, as the protagonist decides whether to quit the mercenaries and go live in a Keep; and even a love triangle. (Some rather advanced social speculation here; the protagonist is involved with a woman in a "free marriage," in which her status is somewhere between a wife and a mistress. He is also involved with another woman, who lives a life of pure hedonism. There seems to be no taboo against this sort of "free love.") A solid story.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Ghost" (Astounding, May 1943) -- Supercomputers (called "integrators" here) in a lonely Antarctic base somehow "absorb" the depressive madness of a man who kills himself and somehow "reflect" it back at the others at the station. An unusual premise, developed in the manner of a horror story.

 

[Extollager]

Just a reminder that postings about stories reprinted in Groff Conklin's once well-known anthologies may be found on a thread dedicated to that topic. I wish more people contributed! I've offered a few observations here

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/foru...groff-conklins-anthologies-8.html#post1778658

having posted comments on 42 stories so far.

 

[J-Sun]

Good review. Seems perfectly coherent to me.

Thanks - I guess it just seems insufficiently digested to me - like I say, it is a thought-provoking work but that means taking time to think.

Onward:

BTW, I usually read everything in this thread whether I've read the story or not. But I have the Kuttner/Moore collection you're reviewing, while I'm familiar with a lot of it, I'm already set on reading it and hoping it'll be soon, so I want to wait to read your comments afterwards in this case. (Just to let you know I'm not ignoring your posts.)

 

[GeoffNelder]

What actually constitutes as a short story? Because I would consider Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle to be short, that is, in comparison to other stories that I have read.

Anyway;

This is arguably the first book I read the way through, and it's actually what interested me in reading. I read this as a youngster and actually believed every single world to be non-fiction up until the end when I realised that .... well actually I won't reveal for those who haven't read, but for those who have - until he opened the hatch of the bunker and found ice-9 on the floor...

But this interested me so much because of the science behind it, and most prominently, like to make myself feel intelligent haha!

Has anyone else read it?

I like Cat's Cradle. A clever story.

BTW Short stories can be anything from a flash (usually 1000 words or so) up to a novella - about 30,000 words although most anthology and magazine editors want stories of 10k or less. Most short story competions have a max word limit of 2,500 words.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Proud Robot" (Astounding, October 1943) -- Another farce about the drunk inventor Gallegher. In this one he invents an egotistical robot and can't remember why. I liked this one a little better than the first one, because it included some satire of the entertainment industry. The revelation of the robot's purpose was worth a chuckle, too. This prediction about the rise of television isn't too far off the mark for 1943.

Home television killed sound film and big theaters. People were conditioned away from sitting in audience groups to watch a screen. The home televisors [sic] got good. It was more fun to sit in an easy-chair, drink beer, and watch the show.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Nothing But Gingerbread Left" (Astounding, January 1943) -- WWII propaganda story in which a professor of semantics creates a nonsense song in German which fills up the brains of the Nazis. Notable for including Hitler as a character, and for breaking the fourth wall near the end.

Maybe this particular copy of Astounding will find its way to England, and maybe an R.A.F. pilot will drop it near Berlin . . .

The theme reminds me of the Fritz Leiber story "Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-tee," as well as the "'Tenser,' said the tensor" subplot of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man, and even the Monty Python skit about the joke so funny it kills everyone who hears it, which was also translated into German and used in battle. (To my surprise, the Wikipedia article about this skit also notes the similarity to the story.)

The Funniest Joke in the World - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"No Woman Born" (Astounding, December 1944) -- Famous story about a singer/dancer, horribly burned in a fire, who has her body replaced with one made of metal rings. Vividly written, with a great deal of psychological depth. It's interesting to compare this story with Damon Knight's similarly themed "Masks." A classic.

 

[dask]

Not a short story but certainly discussing many of them is H.P. Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror In Literature." A little over fifty pages long and fascinating from beginning to end. Valuable as both a history of the genre and as a guide to its best material. Highly recommended and indispensable. Got Horror?