The Short Story Thread

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The next section of the book is called "Acts of God and Other Horrors":

*"Flies" by Isaac Asimov (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1953) -- Maybe the most unAsimovian story the Good Doctor ever wrote. It's a strange thing about a fellow who is always bothered by flies, and another fellow who uses technology which can reveal the emotions of animals to find out why.

"The Night Wire" by H. F. Arnold (Weird Tales, September 1926) -- A news wire service receives teletype notices of a strange disaster happening at a place unknown. An oddly distant yet haunting tale.

"Last Respects" by Dick Baldwin (Brother Theodore's Chamber of Horrors, 1975) -- Two hospital workers have to deal with the corpse of a recently deceased patient. Manages to be gruesome without any supernatural content, with a powerful ending.

"The Pool of the Stone God" by A. Merritt (as by "W. Fenimore," 1923) -- Not known to be the work of the famous fantasist until the 1970's. In any case, this is an old-fashioned story about castaway explorers who find an island with a body of water full of pearls, guarded by the statue of a winged idol. Unusual for this kind of "lost race" adventure in that it is very short. Decently written, but with one distasteful racist remark in passing.

*"A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor" by Ogden Nash (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1955) -- The noted creator of light verse here offers a long narrative ballad about gangsters and a haunted hotel. A bit too Robert W. Service in style for my taste.

"The Tree" by Dylan Thomas (1955) -- The famous poet creates a prose piece about a young boy who is told that a certain tree is the "first tree" (the one in the Garden of Eden, and the one on which Christ was nailed) by an old, Bible-obsessed man. When a feeble-minded stranger shows up, this leads to a shocking conclusion. As you might expect, poetically written.

"Stroke of Mercy" by Parke Godwin (Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, September 1981) -- A man in early 19th century France, about to participate in a duel, has flashes of his life in future wars. Besides being a strong story, the author proves to have skill in using a variety of narrative styles for each time period.

"Lazarus" by Leonid Andreyev (1906; translated from Russian) -- The Biblical man who came back from the dead confronts the living. A thoughtful, philosophical tale.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The next section is "The Beast Within":

"The Waxwork" by A. M. Burrage (1931) -- A newspaper man spends the night in the Murderer's Den section for a story and gets more than he bargained for. Pretty decent spooky tale.

"The Silent Couple" by Pierre Courtois (1826; translated from French) -- A married couple has not spoken a word to each other since a terrible incident two years ago, then an ironic encounter brings up the past. Interesting psychological study.

"Moon-Face" by Jack London (1902) -- The narrator relates how he plotted the strange and elaborate murder of a fellow he hates for no good reason. Reads something like rural Poe.


"Death in the School-Room (A Fact)" by Walt Whitman (1841) -- The great poet tells of an event, supposedly true, that occured between a sadistic schoolmaster and a weak, timid boy. Besides being a grim tale, it's also a call for more humane manners of teaching.

"The Upturned Face" by Stephen Crane (1900) -- Soldiers bury a fallen comrade while the battle rages around them. A grim, realistic tale.

"One Summer Night" by Ambrose Bierce (1906) -- This story begins with a man waking up in his coffin to realize that he's been buried alive, and it gets worse from there. A gruesome little story.

"The Easter Egg" by "Saki" (H. H. Munro) (1930) -- A cowardly young man has a sudden monent of courage during a crisis. A story of violence and tragedy.

"The House in Goblin Wood" by John Dickson Carr (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November 1947) -- This is a locked room mystery by an author who wrote a bunch of them, but bordering on horror due to the nature of the solution.

"The Vengeance of Nitocris" by Tennessee Williams (as Thomas Lanier Williams; Weird Tales, August 1928) -- The famous playwright's first published work, written in his teens, is a lush telling of a complex scheme of revenge in ancient Egypt.

"The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew" by Damon Runyon (1911) -- Set in the world of small-time hoodlums, this tells of a sadistic railroad cop and what happens to him as a result of his actions. It reads a lot more 1920's or 1930's than 1911.

"His Unconquerable Enemy" by W. C. Morrow (1889) -- The servant of a rajah has his limbs removed for his offenses; but even a man with no arms and legs can plot revenge. A gruesome tale.

"Rizpah" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1895) -- Narrative poem about an executed young man and his devoted mother. I didn't get much out of it.

"The Question" by Stanley Ellin ("The Question My Son Asked," Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November 1962) -- Character study of an executioner (who prefers to be called an electrocutioner) who defends his profession. Carries a big psychological wallop with the last sentence.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The last section is "Ghosts and Miscellaneous Nightmares":

"The Flayed Hand" by Guy de Maupassant (1875; translated from French) -- A student purchases the hand of a dead murderer as a dark joke. If you've read a horror story before, you know this is a bad idea. No real surprises here.

*"The Hospice" by Robert Aickman (Cold Hand in Mine, 1975) -- One of the author's very subtle and mysterious stories. This one involves a fellow who gets badly lost and winds up at a very strange lodging place.

"The Christmas Banquet" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1843) -- Each year a different group of miserably unhappy people meet for a bleak holiday feast, with the skeleton of the rich eccentric who set the thing up present at the table. The only person there every year is a seemingly content fellow who is revealed to be worse off than anyone else. Mostly an allegorical character study.

"The Hungry House" by Robert Bloch (Imagination, April 1951) -- Particularly grim haunted house story. Makes a very disturbing use of mirrors.

"The Demon of the Gibbet" by Fitz-James O'Brien (year unknown; sometime in the early-to-mid 19th century) -- Ballad about a couple riding past a gallows and what happens to them. OK for that sort of thing.

"The Owl" by Anatole Le Braz (year unknown; sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century; translated from French) -- Folk tale style story about a fellow who takes a valuable old missal from its hiding place in a ruined chapel and the owl who shows him why he should return it.

"No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince" by Ralph Adam Crams (1895) -- The narrator investigates a strange old house where black magic took place. Pretty much what you would expect from this kind of story

"The Music of Erich Zann" by H. P. Lovecraft (1922) -- Deals with a violist who produces very strange melodies for hidden reasons. Perhaps more effective for the fact that not everything is fully explained.

*"Riddles in the Dark" (1937) -- Slightly different version of the encounter between Biblo and Gollum in The Hobbit. For Tolkien compleatists only.

 

[Bick]

There was some discussion of Randall Garrett on the forgotten vintage SF writers thread, so I read a Garrett short from a 1959 Astounding I've got: In Case of Fire. Its a fairly decent little tale, nothing amazing. Anyone else read many Garrett short stories? I have another in a second issue of Astounding on my shelf, Dead Giveaway, which I'll read later today. I don't recall reading these before.

 

[The Bravest Newbie]

I read The Cold Equations. Something inside me died a little.

 

[Extollager]

It's the end of the semester, I'm tired, it was (for me) late in the evening. So, with SPOILER alerts, could someone spell out for me the significance of the last page or two of Asimov's "Hostess"? The story is included in his Nightfall collection. I get the general idea, but....

 

[Extollager]

The next section is "The Beast Within":

"The Waxwork" by A. M. Burrage (1931) -- A newspaper man spends the night in the Murderer's Den section for a story and gets more than he bargained for. Pretty decent spooky tale.

This one didn't seem to me up to the standard of Burrage's good "Smee" and outstanding "One Who Saw."

 

[Fried Egg]

Just making my way through "The End of the Road", an anthology edited by Jonathan Oliver. A collection loosely themed around the idea of journey based stories; a theme that the contributing authors have interpreted quite differently. A few stand out stories so far:

"Without a Hitch" by Ian Whates - A classic theme reminding us of the potential folly of picking up hitch hikers that takes an unexpected super natural twist at the end.

"Driver Error" by Paul Meloy - A horrifying tale of a man's journey to pick up his daughter from a party that goes from bad to worse that weaves in several super natural themes.

"The Track" by Jay Caselberg - Two friends drive over a dangerous, arid stretch of desert road just because it's "the thing to do" but they soon begin to regret it.

 

[Fried Egg]

"The Widow" by Rio Youers - This was a superbly unique and original interpretation of the road story theme that explored the extremes of madness that one might be driven to by grief.

 

[Silver Owl]

I just read a short story by Carrie Vaughn - I'm not familiar with her writing at all - called Game of Chance. I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone. It's completely self contained and not connected to any other works of hers.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I recently completed the collection Steel and Other Stories by Richard Matheson.

"Steel" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1956) -- Realistic, hard-edged story of a future in which human boxers have been replaced by robots. Adapted by the author into a pretty good episode of The Twilight Zone, and very loosely adapted into the recent film Real Steel.

"To Fit the Crime" (Fantastic, November/December 1952) -- An arrogant dying poet faces an ironic afterlife. Pretty much a one-joke story.

"The Wedding" (Beyond Fantasy Fiction, July 1953) -- A groom forces his bride to go along with all kinds of superstitions to avoid disaster on their wedding day. The ending isn't particularly unexpected.

"The Conqueror" (Blue Book, May 1954) -- In the Old West, a young man arrives in a frontier town determined to make his name. A strong story, evidence of the author's skill with this genre.

"The Diary" (orginal to the author's collection Born of Man and Woman, 1954) -- Ironically contrasts a young woman's diary of the present with one from the far future, with an effective final punchline.

"Descent" (If, May 1954) -- Typical American families have to face the fact that an impending atomic attack means they will have to live underground for years. A story that was probably more powerful in the 1950's.

"The Doll That Does Everything" (Fantastic Universe, December 1954) -- Two arty parents buy a sophisticated robot baby as a companion for their own bratty kid. Leads to an ironic conclusion.

"The Traveller" (original to Born of Man and Woman, 1954) -- A time machine is used to observe the Crucifixion. A daring tale, which does not present a view of the event which will entirely please either skeptics or the faithful.

"When Day is Dun" (Fantastic Universe, May 1954) -- The last man on Earth writes a poem about the destruction of human civilization. There's an ironic twist.

"The Splendid Source" (Playboy, May 1956) -- Witty tale about a rich fellow who tracks down the origin of dirty jokes. Later adapted into an episode of The Family Guy.

"Lemmings" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1958) -- Very brief story about folks driving their cars to the sea. The title pretty much tells all.

"The Edge" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1958) -- A fellow meets someone who claims to know him intimately, but who is a total stranger to him. Pretty decent "what is reality" type story.

"A Visit to Santa Claus" (as "I'll Make It Look Good" by "Logan Swanson," Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March 1957) -- A guy arranges to have a hit man kill his wife while he takes their young son to visit a department store Santa. Effective suspense story.

"Dr. Morton's Folly" (on-line magazine Vice, December 2009) -- Macabre comedy about a most unusual client at a dentist's office.

"The Window of Time" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September/October 2010) -- The elderly narrator, clearly a self-portrait of the author (his name is Richard, and he's a writer) goes through a window and emerges in the 1940's, where he encounters his young self. A sweetly nostalgic story.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Next up: The 1990 Annual World's Best SF edited by Donald A. Wolheim with Arthur W. Saha

"Alphas" by Gregory Benford (Amazing Stories, March 1989) -- Aliens arrive in the solar system and use super-high technology to hollow out the core of Venus. This story seems to exist mostly to dramatize a physics problem; what happens when somebody falls through a hollow sphere? A little too much of a thought experiment for me.

"The Magic Bullet" by Brian Stableford (Interzone, May/June 1989) -- Deals with a secret biological discovery so important that it leads to murder. A good, solid story.

"North of the Abyss" by Brian W. Aldiss (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1989) -- An American tourist in Egypt and his encounter with ancient gods. Quite well done.

"Chiprunner" by Robert Silverberg (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, November 1989) -- An anorexic boy wants to disappear into the microscopic world of computer hardware. Best thought of as technological fantasy.

"Abe Lincoln in McDonald's" by James Morrow (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1989) -- The Great Emancipator travels to the 20th century, into a United States which still has slavery. Not exactly a subtle parable of the importance of the American Civil War.

"Death Ship" by Barrington J. Bayley (from the original anthology Zenith) -- A strange story about a sort of time machine, set in what seems to be a parallel Europe under a dictatorship, and presenting an odd philosophy of time. Interesting.

"In Translation" by Lisa Tuttle (also from Zenith) -- Mysterious aliens arrive on Earth, and certain humans are allowed to become "translators" or "guests" (neither term being very accurate.) Deals mostly with the relationship between two of the humans.

"A Sleep and a Forgetting" by Robert Silverberg (Playboy, July 1989) -- An electronic device orbiting the sun accidentally allows communication with a parallel past's Genghis Khan, who did not go on to conquest. Not bad.

"Not Without Honor" by Judith Moffett (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, May 1989) -- Set in what would seem to be just about our own time (the story's future), although there are already people living on Mars, this deals with aliens who come to Earth seeking the wisdom of the adult host of the 1950's Mickey Mouse Club. Amazingly, this is not a comedy, but seems to honestly present Jimmie Dodd as the best humanity has to offer.

"Dogwalker" by Orson Scott Card (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, November 1989) -- Cyberpunk story of a couple of young guys, one with a partially artificial brain, out to steal the password of an important government official. Perhaps a bit too slangy for some tastes.

"Surrender" by Lucius Shepard (Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, August 1989) -- Behind the horrific details of this tale of a biological experiment gone very wrong in Central America, this story also forces the reader to confront the real evils of the world. It pulls no punches and is uncomfortable to read.

"War Fever" by J. G. Ballard (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1989) -- Excellent story about an attempt to isolate the "disease" of war by confining it to a certain area.









"Chiprunner

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Since the book Revolt in 2100 by Robert A. Heinlein (1953) consists of revised versions of the short novel "If This Goes On---" and the two stories "Coventry" and "Misfit," it might be appropriate to discuss it here.

"If This Goes On---" (original version Astounding February and March 1940) -- Depicts a rebellion against a religious dictatorship that rules the USA. Notable for the way in which the revolution requires thousands of people, not just a few heroic types.

"Coventry" (original version Astounding July 1940) -- Takes place in the libertarian society which results from the revolt described above. A rebellious type, convicted of harming another citizen (he punched him in the nose for an insult), rejects the offer of psychological reconditioning and chooses to go to "Coventry," which lies behind a force field. He quickly finds out it's not a very nice place. Maybe a little too neat an example of Heinlein's common theme of the man who learned better.

"Misfit" (original version Astounding November 1939) -- A young man who doesn't fit into society joins the "Cosmic Construction Corps," and reveals a special talent while in space. Notable mostly for a realistic account, for 1939/1953, of what space travel might really be like.

 

[Fried Egg]

I just read "The Rounds" by Ramsey Campbell in "The End of the Line" anthology edited by Jonathan Oliver.

I bought the book before I realised there was a Ramsey Campbell story inside and when I spotted it I went straight to that story and read it first. A really good story set on the Liverpool underground system that feels very apt dealing with our fears of terrorist attack.

 

[J-Sun]

Read Eric Frank Russell's Men, Martians and Machines (1955). It contains the frequently reprinted "Jay Score" (1941 Astounding) which stars the titular character as part of the crew of the Upsydaisy in a solar system adventure. The rest of the contents have that character recede somewhat to the background and the (mixed race and species - but not gender) crew switches to the new interstellar ship, Marathon, and encounters the unfriendly and virtually mindless, speechless, and cultureless - but very dangerous - inhabitants of "Mechanistria" (1942 Astounding), "Symbiotica" (1943 Astounding), and "Mesmerica" (1955, written to pad things out to almost what was then book length (175 pages)). It's not great and could even be taken to task for the repetitive and remarkably pessimistic take on what it might be like Out There but it's solid - competently done, even imaginative in its depiction of the details of the stock types of alien menaces - and puts me in mind of things like Murray Leinster's Planet Explorers aka Colonial Survey and AE van Vogt's Voyage of the Space Beagle and so on. Anybody have more titles like that? Planet explorer story sequences?

Anyway - if you like this sort of thing, I give it a mild recommendation after the other titles. If you don't, you should probably avoid it.

 

[Randy M.]

Read Eric Frank Russell's Men, Martians and Machines (1955). It contains the frequently reprinted "Jay Score" (1941 Astounding) which stars the titular character as part of the crew of the Upsydaisy in a solar system adventure. The rest of the contents have that character recede somewhat to the background and the (mixed race and species - but not gender) crew switches to the new interstellar ship, Marathon, and encounters the unfriendly and virtually mindless, speechless, and cultureless - but very dangerous - inhabitants of "Mechanistria" (1942 Astounding), "Symbiotica" (1943 Astounding), and "Mesmerica" (1955, written to pad things out to almost what was then book length (175 pages)). It's not great and could even be taken to task for the repetitive and remarkably pessimistic take on what it might be like Out There but it's solid - competently done, even imaginative in its depiction of the details of the stock types of alien menaces - and puts me in mind of things like Murray Leinster's Planet Explorers aka Colonial Survey and AE van Vogt's Voyage of the Space Beagle and so on. Anybody have more titles like that? Planet explorer story sequences?

Anyway - if you like this sort of thing, I give it a mild recommendation after the other titles. If you don't, you should probably avoid it.

Mileage varies, I suppose.

Back when I first started reading s.f. this was a favorite of mine. What attracted me then was the sense of humor. I probably should reread it just to see if I feel the same. Certainly rereading some of what I loved then has been a sobering experience.


Randy

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Anybody have more titles like that? Planet explorer story sequences?

The Stardust Voyages by Stephen Tall (1975) is a collection of stories with that theme. One of the stories, "The Bear with the Knot on His Tail," was nominated for a Hugo.

Conscience Interplanetary by Joseph Green (1972) is similar. (Both series appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.) These stories deal with a team of explorers whose task is to determine if alien beings are sentient or not.

Robert Sheckley's "AAA Ace" series from the 1950's is a more satiric variation on the theme.

 

[dask]

Since J.D. was nice enough to rate these stories for me --- 14 if I counted correctly (the book's in the car, it's raining and I don't feel like going out to double check) --- I thought it'd be interesting to see how close we come in our reactions to them. I haven't consulted his ratings since starting the book and really can't recall what he had to say about each other than liking some and thinking some so bad that even I might not like them. (Is that even possible?) I know I wondered if they were even worth reading. I mean, if they were good to begin with they wouldn't need someone else to rewrite them, would they? And given there is a lot of Lovecraft's own material I haven't gotten to yet can I truly justify spending the time on these tales of secondary quality? So I decided to approach this book not as a collection of "collaborations and revisions" but a genuine anthology of Weird Tales so weird they couldn't be collected until now (or some such promise). The result? So far, so good, very good. This could even be viewed as an issue of Weird Tales in paperback form. Why? Just as you might expect from a pulp type magazine, after finishing the fourth story I find I'm only halfway through the book. Ten stories to go with 50% of the page count left. Sound familiar?

"The Last Test" by Adolphe de Castro, would have made a great mad doctor movie from the 1930s except here the doctor wasn't mad, just led astray. Attempting to rid the world of "fever" for all time he somehow resurrects an evil being so old it may not be alive by modern standards. The story takes its time, even dragging its feet here and there (or so it seemed) but a good solid weird tale nonetheless.

Time to go, more later.

 

[J-Sun]

The Stardust Voyages by Stephen Tall (1975)
Conscience Interplanetary by Joseph Green (1972)
Robert Sheckley's "AAA Ace" series

Thank you! Turns out I have the Sheckley series in The Masque of Manana and I ordered the other two.

I've heard of the Compton Crook award but don't recall ever having heard of Stephen Tall but they're one and the same. Seemed interesting.

And I'd heard of Green, I felt like. Turns out I only have couple of stories in a couple of Analogs. "And Be Lost Like Me" was about a new grandfather trying to figure out if his son has been mentally replaced with a stealth alien personality imprint and what it would take to force the alien to reveal itself, if so. "Raccoon Reaction" was about aloof aliens showing up needing deuterium for their ship and announcing they'd take some from our oceans and would then leave. Problem is, they're using an anti-grav siphon which is ripping the ocean up to their ship, casting off the vapor by-products into the atmosphere, and will cause an ice age before they're done, if not the total extinction of life on earth. We can't seem to get their attention - do we fight or die or is there a third option? Neither story is entirely successful (both a little too contrived to make a point vs. the point arising naturally from a naturally constructed tale) but both were interesting and I hope Conscience Interplanetary will be at least that for me.

 

[dask]

THE LOVED DEAD continued:

Where the previous story ("The Last Test") would have made a great 30s horror film, "Medusa's Coil" by Zealia Bishop is the perfect vehicle for current film making and could satisfy the modern lover of horror with virtually no problem. Except one. First let me explain that as a general rule I'm against any editing of a finished work of art as such an act is essentially censorship. But there are a few exceptions. One is CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. I refuse to watch it unless I can find a copy with the option to view it without the senseless butchering of live animals. I've been told one exists but haven't tried to locate it yet. Another is "Medusa's Coil." If I were an editor I would delete the last two paragraphs. You see, in them the author reveals a "hideous" "other horror" in an attempt to shock the audience one more time. But this additional denouement is so ugly and vile, all it does is showcase the author's ignorance and the depravity of her intent. Yeah, I know racism was politically correct at the time but it serves no purpose now and only throws sewage in the face of an otherwise powerful and well told story.