Seriously long post follows.
I have whittled (though it felt more like stabbed and slashed) my shortlist down to 16, which is about as much as I allow myself unless there are a LOT of stories, but I decided to do something different this time (and maybe in the future).
There are often stories that grab me for a particular turn of phrase or choice of words, or a concept or how something is conveyed with particular brilliance, and yet I may not want the whole story on my shortlist for whatever reason. And in the spirit of the new (old) blossoming discussions, I decided to pick out something(s) that struck me from every story and list them here.
Some of them are beautiful strings of words that paint a picture in the mind, some are bits that I felt did a stellar job of conveying the point of the story or portraying a particular character, some are brilliant bits of dialogue or combinations of words, and some just grabbed me on the way through the story and held on.
Anyway, everyone is here in this list for something (perhaps this is just a sneaky way of putting everyone on my shortlist?), and what would normally be my shortlist will be
underlined, my shorter list
bold, and my votes
*starred*. I hope that all makes sense.
Cat's Cradle
spirals behind me in breathtaking serpentine strands.
a starry soup of sky
springs
Tom hunted as he'd loved: focused; sure of us.
telford
All those stubbornly brave kids dying while trying to attack an elephant with an slingshot.
Remedy
I was equipped for suicide like some morbid boy scout.
farntfar
Our world was dying. Our species would die with it. And besides. We’d crashed. It was do something here or nothing.
Good luck meat babies!
ratsy
The radiation that had killed everyone he’d ever loved also made the world glow in beauty.
His tears caused small ripples as they fell.
Ashleyne
Janine tossed the pebble as hard as she could…. She was never going home again.
She placed her hands over her face in horror and wailed “No way. No… awww, Dad’s gonna kill me.”
Juliana
the Goddess had drawn her fingers across the sky, leaving red trails of dawn.
Ah, Mãe de Mães, Mother of Mothers protect me, now and forever.
A. Fare Wells
I have been through it before, so relish the silence of this place, my love, for soon it will be no more.
Let us and our children, our family and our friends leave this place for a better tomorrow.
Karn
It is said that if you wander through those woods, to the edge of that loch, you can still hear the girl's humming on the wind, a song now of despair and misery
*alchemist*
He was the only one’d talk to me like that, see, like I was all grown up, and it was real nice.
reiver33
However I undertook sublimation of the self in pursuit of social acceptance.
Unfortunately the awareness of an ‘outsider’ is so blinkered that only the most degenerate alcoholic has any grasp of reality.
Mouse
Have you ever licked the underside of a rat? No? You should.
Once you've gone your world will be beautiful again and, really, I don't know why you're crying anyway.
I'll bite your head off, okay? So it'll be quick.
Khayos
his smell travelling along the light breeze and causing my tight skin to feel loose again
WordSpinner
It outstretched what would have been its hand – if it were a man.
the light was simply swallowed into the nothingness of the shadowed being that hovered over him.
StilLearning
The angel smiled with ineffable patience.
“ I…. I…. I… no?”
Aun Doorback
I closed my eyes, sealed with the tears of mistakes and regrets
*Phyrebrat*
When the salmon run and the December skies open
Its fan-fingered branches comb the bloated surface of a flood-swollen river
In April when the chub melt back into the depths, the spates subside, shrinking like dried skin from a dead man’s brow
a stain of sandy yellow britches and russet wool jacket amongst the magpie suits of landed gentry
Victoria
Stars blazed overhead, like the glowing, many-colored insects that were so delicious, and so hard to catch.
Shullen scraped her claws on the stone nervously.
johnnyjet
He was not concerned with those stars. He had enough stars to deal with for now.
chrispy
no man of the republic had been directly involved with the fight, and our mages had stayed occupied with internal, profitable endeavours
gdoc
But as she looked up at the stars sprayed across the heavens, the trees silhouetted below, it gave her strength. They'd been happy there.
Perp
The darkness on the moor was silence, a creeping night that sank as deep as the foundations of granite, the same stones that covered the land: the bones of the earth.
Fear marked her face like a withering rose, as pale as the absent moon
mosaix
“…and removed your natural inclination to disbelieve what I’m about to tell you.”
“Let’s hear it.”
I should say that one of the side effects of the tablet is memory loss – usually round about now.”
“What tablet?”
Flyerman11
When I fly I long for this place, when I’m here I long for the stars.
Brev
I let her corpse slosh into the water, but my attention remains on the stars.
Starbeast
"Damn. I wanted to blast them with my sawed-off."
"Next time, Bopper…"
AmyCook
Purples in the sky matched the bruises on her heart.
Guilt weighed heavily on her shoulders, its murky depths drowning her as surely as the water at her feet could.
jastius
The shop door slammed wide, shattering glass as the epitome of visciousness sauntered in, smashing everything in sight.
Culhwch
Dad died in the fall, and we buried him as the last leaves fell. That was a long winter, but it broke into a beautiful spring, and in the summer we packed up and headed to the lake. No one said anything, but we all knew. This would be the last time.
Rafellin
The distances between the citadels of Heaven still stagger me,
“I know she will stand here soon, upon this very spot. When either of us stands here, we are together. We chose to join the fist that shields His Love. How can our love be any less enduring?”
Ursa
We wasted no time, knowing that the Pump Team would soon be sending lake water our way. Only they didn’t.
Bill dropped the end of a smallish pipe into the water. Only he didn’t.
*TJ*
As my feet slip and slide I try to calm myself, to think pleasurable thoughts. But my heart still races, my breath still comes ragged, as I recall three dead, mutilated Seekers.
TDZ
Waxibordicacaprilacornicus (sheer genius, that, if I must say so myself, which apparently I must)
BigJ
You are the pestilence, the filth, and we are the flood
God, which you had seen fit to leave forsaken as a monument to a history rife with comedic incompetence!
TSP
“He claims to have slain a god,” added another man.
“Did it bark at him?” said another.
Kylara
There were stars, and their shining wonder was reflected in still, clear water.
the last vestiges of humanity imprisoned in a virtual reality, just as the Programme knew they would be.
Abernovo
But, what matter 'bout magic cities, where food given you instead of havvin find it? Not sure even true.
"But I do miss lectric. And bananas."
Bananas? Mebbe another story.
Teresa (If only I had four votes....)
She and Callum slipping away at the midsummer festival, walking by the river, speaking in whispers.
She moved toward the music. Torches glared, feet stamped, dancers whirled. "Ah lass, you're soaked," spoke a voice from the crowd. "What a time to be bathing in the river!"
