The Short Story Thread

[Connavar]

Way to go! I've got the complete fiction of Wagner (w.r.t Kane stories) and heaps of REH as you know plus the Imaro books by Saunders. I've not read much of the Wagner or Saunders yet though.... and still have a back log of REH shorts to read.

Hurry up and invent some sort of time machine Conn, so I can somehow condense more into the coming year.....

Glad you like the Jorkens, I knew you would. Are you getting hold of the other volumes then?

Jorkens's tales could have been Lord Dunsany's Masterwork if he didnt wrote his classic great fantasy stories in the early collections. I was highly impressed by the fertile imagination he showed in writing so many different kind of stories. He could tell a moving story in 10 pages ! Which isnt suprising but they were tales set in our world with very little magical things to it. The African,Asian,Arabic settings was very cool.

The other collections seem to be even more highly rated so i will get them for sure. Frankly having a library copy of Jorkens vol 1 and not my own copy annoyed me alot. I had a time limit to read it and you cant read Dunsany fast.

Lucky you are with complete Wagner stories, his Kane collections,books seem to be very rare and hard to get.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I seriously need more collections like that. Its almost a shame i have to read novels again that are limited to one story

I sometimes feel that way myself.

 

[GOLLUM]

Lucky you are with complete Wagner stories, his Kane collections,books seem to be very rare and hard to get.

I'm glad you enjoyed the Jorkens Conn!

The complete Wagner Kane set is not easy to get as a 1st edn HB. I was lucky to get near mint copies of these for less than $200 US Total, which considering they can now fetch upwards of 1,500 British pounds was a very nice catch....

 

[Connavar]

I read Miracle Workers by Jack Vance which was a very nice novella with science fantasy story with magic,forgotten science,typical,unique weird aliens alà Vance.

He improved on the idea he used in The Dragon Masters.

 

[BookStop]

There was an sf story posted to afterburnsf a few years ago called, A Life Without Nerve Gas (I think, it's been awhile since i've reread). Great science fiction tale! It's one of the few that i remember fairly well, and that is saying something, because my memory is a bit off most the time. So there you go. (I bet one can still find the story too if one looks at the site)

 

[clovis-man]

From Asimov's series, The Great Short Stories, I was very much intrigued by Proof by Hal Clement. This story is from 1942. Clement was one of the pioneers of "hard" science fiction. This story was fascinating to me because it presages, by almost forty years the novel Sundiver, by David Brin. Both deal with the notion that intelligent life may be found inside the sun.

 

[blacknorth]

Death of a Sensitive by Harry Bates - oddly beautiful story - literally not of this world. This was followed, in the same volume, by Cherryh's acclaimed story Cassandra which I found short and messy by comparison.

 

[dask]

Death of a Sensitive by Harry Bates - oddly beautiful story - literally not of this world. This was followed, in the same volume, by Cherryh's acclaimed story Cassandra which I found short and messy by comparison.

Which collection is this? Harry Bates stuff isn't that easy to find.

 

[blacknorth]

Which collection is this? Harry Bates stuff isn't that easy to find.

It's an anthology called The Unexplained - Stories of the Paranormal, edited by Ric Alexander, published in paperback by Millenium in 1998. It seems to be a cash-in on The X-Files, but its contents are so good that it defies that intention - the stories are well-chosen.

 

[dask]

Many thanks, I'll keep my eyes peeled.

 

[Fried Egg]

I just finished a superbly scary story called "The Beast of the Gateway" by W. H. Hodgeson in the Wordsworth collection "The Carnacki Casebook: Ghostfinder".

I think that he writes a really good ghost story. Not quite as careful a build up nor as subtle as M. R. James but he weaves a really great, scary and down right entertaining story nonetheless. I can't wait to see how this collection develops.

 

[jojajihisc]

A Cabin on the Coast by Gene Wolfe - Creepy little mystery about a sea-faring, mystical race. Can be found in Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois

Stories For Men by John Kessel - Matriarchal, lunar utopia with men as disenfranchised playthings that live lives of leisure and irrelevance, mostly. Can be found in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Edition edited by Gardner Dozois.

 

[Connavar]

I just finished a superbly scary story called "The Beast of the Gateway" by W. H. Hodgeson in the Wordsworth collection "The Carnacki Casebook: Ghostfinder".

I think that he writes a really good ghost story. Not quite as careful a build up nor as subtle as M. R. James but he weaves a really great, scary and down right entertaining story nonetheless. I can't wait to see how this collection develops.

I dont think too highly of Carnacki stories in general because his sea monster stories has much better energy,horror atmosphere to them.

Thats why i gave away my copy in bookmooch and ordered Nighsthade's complete collection books of his.

Look for them in second hand or library if you want see the best of William Hope Hodgson.

 

[Fried Egg]

Well I've read "House on the Borderland" which is supposed to one of his best and I am enjoying these stories at least as much as I enjoyed that. Perhaps more because I think I enjoy his shorter stories more. I also read his "Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani" in an anthology which was very good.

 

[Connavar]

I havent read House on the Borderland, i meant other shorter stories of his that different from Carnacki.

I'm not a big fan of the ghost story. I prefer other types of horror. Might be why i didnt enjoy Carnacki stories as much.

Have you read Le Fanu ?

The stories In a Glass Darkly except Carmillia are about the occult detective Dr Martin Hesselius with similar stories to Carnacki.

 

[Fried Egg]

No, I haven't read Le Fanu yet altough he is on my radar.

 

[Fried Egg]

A nice little tale by Robert Silverberg called "To be Continued" in the collection entitled: "The Songs of Summer".

The story was one of his early stories written in 1956 about a near immortal human who has waited two thousand years to become fertile and now seeks a mate in order to pass on his gift of elongated life but is having a spot of trouble finding the right woman...

 

[Connavar]

A Cabin on the Coast by Gene Wolfe - Creepy little mystery about a sea-faring, mystical race. Can be found in Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction edited by Gardner Dozois

Stories For Men by John Kessel - Matriarchal, lunar utopia with men as disenfranchised playthings that live lives of leisure and irrelevance, mostly. Can be found in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Edition edited by Gardner Dozois.

Heh i have that 20 Years special collection of Gardner Dozois. Easily the finest anthology of newer sf stories i have read.

Not read the Gene Wolfe one. Read most of the authors. Focusing on new authors for me.

Do you remember a great annual of that series, i was wondering an older annual to get ?

 

[jojajihisc]

Heh i have that 20 Years special collection of Gardner Dozois. Easily the finest anthology of newer sf stories i have read.

Not read the Gene Wolfe one. Read most of the authors. Focusing on new authors for me.

Do you remember a great annual of that series, i was wondering an older annual to get ?

I wish I knew myself, but the only other one I have is the twentieth and it is not as good as that "Best of.." edition. Browsing Amazon (where you can look at the table of contents which is great for anthologies) the highest rated one by customers is the ninth edition.

 

[blacknorth]

Many thanks, I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Happened across another Bates story, titled, Alas, All Thinking, in The Mammoth Book of Classic SF - Great Short Novels of the 1930's. Have set it aside for reading.

In the meantime I'm rediscovering Martian Crown Jewels by Poul Anderson. What a great title!