Compiled by Jonathan K. Stephens. All thanks to Jonathan for assembling in one place the favorite stories named by readers over the past couple of days, and for his yeoman work in giving them a consistent format. He has also noted how many different lists a title appeared in. Get ready — 357 titles follow the jump.
- “Flowers for Algernon”, Daniel Keyes – 12
- “The Women Men Don’t See”, James Tiptree Jr. – 7
- “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, Ursula K. Le Guin – 6
- “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson – 6
- “A Rose For Ecclesiastes”, Roger Zelazny – 6
- “The Girl Who Was Plugged In”, James Tiptree Jr. – 5
- “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream”, Harlan Ellison – 5
- “The Day Before the Revolution”, Ursula K. Le Guin – 5
- “Harrison Bergeron”, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. – 5
- “All Summer in a Day”, Ray Bradbury – 4
- “Bloodchild”, Octavia Butler – 4
- “When It Changed”, Joanna Russ – 4
- “Story Of Your Life”, Ted Chiang – 4
- “The Screwfly Solution”, James Tiptree Jr. – 4
- “A Dry, Quiet War”, Tony Daniel – 4
- “Nightfall”, Isaac Asimov – 3
- “There Will Come Soft Rains”, Ray Bradbury – 3
- “The Veldt”, Ray Bradbury – 3
- “The Mountains of Mourning”, Lois McMaster Bujold – 3
- “A Study in Emerald”, Neil Gaiman – 3
- “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar,” Neil Gaiman – 3
- The Color Out Of Space”, H. P. Lovecraft – 3
- “Six Months, Three Days”, Charlie Jane Anders – 2
- “5,217,009”, Alfred Bester – 2
- “When Bears Discover Fire”, Terry Bisson – 2
- “The Million-Year Picnic”, Ray Bradbury – 2
- “Speech Sounds”, Octavia Butler – 2
- “Ender’s Game”, Orson Scott Card – 2
- “Or All the Seas with Oysters”, Avram Davidson – 2
- “Reasons To Be Cheerful”, Greg Egan – 2
- “Jeffty Is Five” by Harlan Ellison – 2
- “Snow, Glass, Apples”, Neil Gaiman – 2
- “The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change”, Kij Johnson – 2
- “Graveyard Shift”, Stephen King – 2
- “Survivor Type”, Stephen King – 2
- “Mimsy Were the Borogoves”, Lewis Padgett – 2
- “The Light of Other Days”, Bob Shaw – 2
- “Dogfight”, William Gibson / Michael Swanwick – 2
- “A Pail of Air”, Fritz Lieber – 2
- “Shambleau”, CL Moore – 2
- “Omnilingual”, H. Beam Piper – 2
- “Sredni Vashtar”, Saki, – 2
- “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?”, James Tiptree Jr. – 2
- “The Winds of Marble Arch”, Connie Willis – 2
- “Firewatch”, Connie Willis – 2
- “The Last of the Winnebagoes”, Connie Willis – 2
- “The Last Defender of Camelot”, Roger Zelazny – 2
- “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai”, Roger Zelazny – 2
- “The Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs”, Daniel Abraham
- “Who Can Replace a Man?”, Brian Aldiss
- “Heresies of the Huge God”, Brian Aldiss
- “Match Wits with Inspector Ford”, Woody Allen
- “Six Months, Three Days”, Charlie Jane Anders
- “The Martyr”, Poul Anderson
- “The Man Who Came Early”, Poul Anderson
- “No Truce With Kings”, Poul Anderson
- “The Grammarian’s Five Daughters”, Eleanor Arneson
- “Reason”, Isaac Asimov
- “Robbie”, Isaac Asimov
- “The Last Question”, Isaac Asimov
- “The Ugly Little Boy”, Isaac Asimov
- “The Martian Way” by Isaac Asimov
- “Shah Guido G”, Isaac Asimov
- “State of the Art”, Iain M. Banks
- “Hallucigenia”, Laird Barron
- “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers Game”, Donald Bartheleme
- “We Never Talk About My Brother”, Peter Beagle
- “Come Lady Death”, Peter S. Beagle
- “Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros”, Peter S. Beagle
- “Shoggoths in Bloom”, Elizabeth Bear
- “Sisters”, Greg Bear
- ‘The Perimeter”, Chris Beckett
- “Fondly Farenheit”, Alfred Bester
- “Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge”, Ambrose Bierce
- “It’s a Good Life”, Jerome Bixby
- “Surface Tension”, James Blish
- “Hell On Earth”, Robert Bloch
- “The Quest for Saint Aquin”, Anthony Boucher
- “Heart Transplant”, Ray Bradbury
- “Frost and Fire”, Ray Bradbury
- “Way in the Middle of the Air”, Ray Bradbury
- “The Great Wide World Over There”, Ray Bradbury
- “Mars Is Heaven!”, Ray Bradbury
- “Homecoming”, Ray Bradbury
- “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed”, Ray Bradbury
- “The Crowd”, Ray Bradbury
- “Kaleidoscope”, Ray Bradbury
- “Enchantress of Venus”, Leigh Brackett
- “Thor Meets Captain America”, David Brin
- “Piecework”, David Brin
- “Walk to the World”, Algis Budrys
- “Body Art”, A.S. Byatt
- “The Conjugal Angel”, A.S. Byatt
- “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out For Sushi”,Pat Cadigan
- “Unaccompanied Sonata”, Orson Scott Card
- “Saint Amy’s Tale”, Orson Scott Card
- “Mikal’s Songbird”, Orson Scott Card
- “The Originist”, Orson Scott Card
- “Friend’s Best Man”, Jonathan Carroll
- “The Company of Wolves”, Angela Carter
- “Masks of War”, J. Kathleen Cheney
- “A Thief in Korianth”, C.J. Cherryh
- “Seventy-Two Letters”, Ted Chiang,
- “Hell is the Absence of God”, Ted Chiang
- “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate”, Ted Chiang
- “The House of Aunts”, Zen Cho,
- “The Water that Falls on You From Nowhere”, John Chu
- “The Nine Billion Names of God”, Arthur C. Clarke
- “The Star”, Arthur C. Clarke
- “Superiority”, Arthur C. Clarke
- “The Sentinal”, Arthur C. Clarke
- “Star Bright”, Mark Clifton
- “Evening Primrose”, John Collier
- “The Spade of Reason”, Jim Cowan
- “The Sound Machine”, Roald Dahl
- “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”, Roald Dahl
- “Pig”, Roald Dahl
- “The Wish”, Roald Dahl
- “Time Considered as a Helix of Semiprecious Stones”, Samuel R. Delany
- “The Tale of Gorgik”, Samuel R. Delany
- “The Moon is Drowning As I Sleep”, Charles DeLint
- “Mr. Truepenny’s Book Emporium and Gallery”, Charles DeLint
- “Helen O’Loy”, Lester Del Rey
- “Biting Time”, Virginia Demarce
- “The Horla “,Guy de Maupassant
- “Human Is”, Philip K. Dick
- “Angouleme”, Thomas Disch
- “Hangman”, David Drake
- “Loyal to his Own”, David Drake
- “The Minstrel’s Tale”, Dave Duncan
- “Carcassonne”, Lord Dunsany
- “The Sword of Welleran”, Lord Dunsany
- “Oracle”, Greg Egan
- “Learning to Be Me”, Greg Egan
- “The Deathbird”, Harlan Ellison
- “A Boy and His Dog”, Harlan Ellison
- “Croatoan”, Harlan Ellison
- “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs”, Harlan Ellison
- “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman”, Harlan Ellison
- “The Truth About Owls”, Amal El-Mohtar
- “Second Chance,” Jack Finney
- “Of Missing Persons”, Jack Finney
- “Trixie and the Pandas of Dread”, Eugie Foster
- “What I didn’t See”, Karen Joy Fowler
- “The Price”, Neil Gaiman
- “The Sound of Her Wings”, Neil Gaiman
- “How to talk to Girls at Parties”, Neil Gaiman
- “Goliath”, Neil Gaiman
- “Nicholas Was …”, Neil Gaiman
- “Chivalry”, Neil Gaiman
- “Fragments of a Hologram Rose,” William Gibson
- “Burning Chrome”, William Gibson
- “New Rose Hotel”, William Gibson
- “The Gernsback Continuum”, William Gibson
- “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- “The Cold Equation”, Tom Goodwin
- “Cold Wind”, Nicola Griffith
- “Tricentennial”, Joe Haldeman
- “Hemingway Hoax”, Joe Haldeman
- “Gastronomicon”, Joanne Harris
- “August Heat”, W.F. Harvey
- “The Celestial Railroad,” Nathaniel Hawthorne
- “The Long Watch”, Robert A. Heinlein
- “The Menace From Earth,” Robert A. Heinlein
- “The Man Who Traveled in Elephants” Robert A. Heinlein
- “The Man Who Sold The Moon”, Robert A. Heinlein
- “Goldfish Bowl”, Robert Heinlein
- “All You Zombies”, Robert A. Heinlein
- “Izzy in Mexico”, Jaime Hernandez
- “The Adventure of The Piltdown Prelate”, Andrew Hickey
- “Three Miles Up”, Elizabeth Jane Howard
- “The Shadow Kingdom”, Robert E. Howard
- “Red Nails”, Robert E. Howard
- “Discreet Phenomena”, Dave Hutchinson
- “The Monkey’s Paw”, W. W. Jacobs
- “O Whistle and I’ll Come to Ye My Lad”, M.R. James
- “Stone Hunger”, N.K. Jemisin
- “The Nutcracker Coup”, Janet Kagan
- “The Railways on Cannis”, Colin Kapp
- “Think Like a Dinosaur”, James Patrick Kelly
- “Riding The White Bull”, Caitlin R. Kiernan
- “The Dry Salvages”, Caitlin R. Kiernan
- “Black Helicopters”, Caitlin R. Kiernan
- “The Boogeyman”, Stephen King
- “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut”, Stephen King
- “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet”, Stephen King
- “The Mist” by Stephen King
- “Wakulla Springs” by Ellen Klages and Andy Duncan
- “Four In One”, Damon Knight
- “Wake Up to Thunder”, Dean Koontz
- “The Little Black Bag”, Cyril M. Kornbluth
- “Gomez”, Cyril M. Kornbluth
- “The Marching Morons”, Cyril M. Kornbluth
- “Liberty’s Daughter’, Naomi Kritzer
- “All Pieces of a River Shore”, R. A. Lafferty
- “Days of Grass, Days of Straw”, R. A. Lafferty
- “Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies,” R. A. Lafferty
- “BLIT”, Dave Langford
- “The Freedom”, K M Lawrence
- “Red As Blood”, Tanith Lee
- “Fold”, Tanith Lee
- “Darkness Box”, Ursula K. Le Guin.
- ‘Sita Dulip’s Method”, Ursula K. Le Guin
- ‘Buffalo Gals Won’t You Come Out Tonight’, Ursula K. Le Guin
- “Intracom”, Ursula K. Le Guin
- “Solitude”, Ursula K. Le Guin,
- “Let Us Save the Universe”, Stanislaw Lem
- “Terminus”, Stanislaw Lem
- “The Black Gondoler”, Fritz Lieber
- “Space-Time for Springers”, Fritz Leiber,
- “The Button Molder”, Fritz Lieber
- “Lean Times in Lankhmar,” Fritz Lieber
- “Time Fighter,” Fritz Leiber
- “A Pail of Air” by Fritz Lieber
- “Ill Met in Lankmhar”, Fritz Leiber,
- “The Seventh Sally”, Stanislaw Lem
- “Uncle Flower’s Homecoming Waltz”, Marissa K. Lingen,
- “Two Houses”, Kelly Link
- “Magic For Beginners”, Kelly Link
- “Enemy Mine”, Barry B. Longyear
- “The Whisperer in Darkness”, H. P. Lovecraft
- “Cool Air”, H.P. Lovecraft
- “Iranon”, H. P. Lovecraft
- “At the Mountains of Madness”, H.P. Lovecraft
- “Pickman’s Model”, H. P. Lovecraft
- “The Snowball Effect”, Katherine Maclean
- “Sea Change with Monsters”, Paul McAuley
- “Unfinished Portrait of the King of Pain by Van Gogh”, Ian McDonald
- “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand”, Vonda McIntyre
- “Joey Ramone Saves The World”, Nick Mamatas
- “The Sandkings”, GRRM
- “A Beast for Norn” GRRM
- “A Song for Lya” GRRM
- “Nightflyers”, GRRM
- “The Masonic Dream Engine”, Th. Metzger
- “An End to Hunger”, China Mieville
- “The Ball Room”, China Mieville
- “A Broodmare For Gloriana”, Lawrence Miles
- “The Last Canticle”, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
- “Elegy For A Demon Lover”, Sarah Monette
- “His Vegetable Wife”, Pat Murphy
- “Rachel in Love”, Pat Murphy
- “A Falling Star is a Rock from Outer Space”, Pat Murphy
- “The Man Who Collected Barker”, Kim Newman,
- “The Ethics of Madness”, Larry Niven;
- “Inconstant Moon”, Larry Niven
- “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex”, Larry Niven
- “Neutron Star”, Larry Niven
- “Crossing Chao Meng Fu”, David Nordley
- “The Proud Robot”, Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore)
- “Private Eye”, Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore)
- “Going After Bobo“, Susan Palwick
- “Night Wind”, Edgar Pangborn
- “A Cask of Amontillado,” Edgar Allan Poe
- “Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus”, Frederic Pohl
- “Day Million”, Frederick Pohl
- “The Day After The Day The Martians Came”, Frederick Pohl
- “The Tunnel Under The World”, Frederick Pohl
- “Outnumbering the Dead”, Frederick Pohl
- “Impossible Dreams”, Tim Pratt
- “The Sea and Little Fishes”, Terry Pratchett
- “Troll Bridge”, Terry Pratchett
- “De Umbris Idearum”, Philip Purser-Hallard
- “Eight Episodes”, Robert Reed
- “Can These Bones Live?”, Ted Reynolds
- “Green Mars”, Kim Stanley Robinson
- “Voluntary State”, Christopher Rowe
- “Everyday Depressions”, Joanna Russ
- “The Witness”, Eric Frank Russell
- “Allamagoosa”, Eric Frank Russell
- “Plus X/The Space Willies”, Eric Frank Russell
- “Dear Devil”, Eric Frank Russell
- “The Open Window”, Saki
- “Tobermory”, Saki
- “The Wolves of Cernogratz”, Saki
- “In Persuasion Nation”, George Saunders
- “The Second Night of Summer”, James Schmitz
- “The Autopsy”, Michael Shea
- “Human Mans Burden”, Robert Sheckley
- “The Odour of Thought”, Robert Sheckley
- “The Accountant”, Robert Sheckley
- “The Man Who Painted The Dragon Griaule”, Lucius Shepard
- “The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter”, Lucius Shephard,
- “A Spanish Lesson”, Lucius Shepard
- “R&R”, Lucius Shepard
- “Georgia on my mind”, Charles Sheffield
- “Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another,” Robert Silverberg
- “Sailing to Byzantium”, Robert Silverberg
- “Sundance”, Robert Silverberg
- “The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov V”, Robert Silverburg,
- “Feast of St. Dionysius”, Robert Silverberg
- “Infinities”, Vandana Singh
- “Elephant with Wooden Leg,” John T. Sladek
- “Heavens Below: Fifteen Utopias”, John T. Sladek
- “The Ballad of Lost C’Mell,” Cordwainer Smith
- “The Game of Rat and Dragon”, Cordwainer Smith,
- “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard”, Cordwainer Smith
- “Under Old Earth”, Cordwainer Smith
- “The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal”, Cordwainer Smith
- “Scanners Live In Vain”, Cordwainer Smith
- “The Lady Who Sailed The Soul”, Cordwainer Smith
- “The Dark Eidolon”, Clark Ashton Smith
- “Alita In The Air”, Martha Soukup
- “Carcinoma Angels,” Norman Spinrad
- “Storming the Cosmos”, Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker
- “Swarm”, Bruce Sterling
- “The Gentle Seduction”, Marc Stiegler
- “Lobsters”, Charles Stross
- “Twilight”, Don A. Stuart
- “When You Care, When You Love,” Theodore Sturgeon
- “The Man Who Lost the Sea”, Theodore Sturgeon
- “Slow Sculpture”, Theodore Sturgeon
- “Microcosmic God”, Theodore Sturgeon,
- “The Claustrophile”, Theodore Sturgeon
- “Saucer of Loneliness”, Theodore Sturgeon
- “Baby is Three”, Theodore Sturgeon
- “More Than Human”, Theodore Sturgeon
- “The Dog Said Bow Wow”, Michael Swanwick:
- “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”, Rachel Swirsky
- “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window”, Rachel Swirsky
- “And I Awoke And Found Me Here On The Cold Hill’s Side”, James Tiptree Jr,
- ‘The Psychologist Who Wouldn’t Do Awful Things To Rats’, James Tiptree Jr
- “Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!”, James Tiptree Jr
- “Love is the Plan, The Plan is Death” by Tiptree;
- “The Road Not Taken”, Harry Turtledove
- “Silently and Very Fast”, Catherynne M. Valente
- “The Moon Moth”, Jack Vance
- “The Potters of Firsk”, Jack Vance
- “The Last Castle”, Jack Vance
- “Mazirian the Magician”, Jack Vance
- “The Transformation of Martin Lake”, Jeff VanderMeer:
- “Dradin, In Love”, Jeff VanderMeer
- “Miss Hathaway’s Spider”, James Van Pelt
- “The Weapon Shop”, A. E. van Vogt
- “In The Bowl”, John Varley
- “In the Hall of the Martian Kings”, John Varley
- “Press Enter”, John Varley
- “The Barbie Murders”, John Varley:
- “Toad Words”, Ursula Vernon
- “Jackalope Wives”, Ursula Vernon
- “To Bell The Cat”, Joan D. Vinge
- “True Names”, Vernor Vinge
- “Welcome to the Monkey House” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
- “Misericorde”, Karl Edward Wagner
- “Where the Summer Ends”, Karl Edward Wagner
- “Lynortis Reprise”, Karl Edward Wagner
- “Raven’s Eyrie”, Karl Edward Wagner
- “Lynortis Reprise”, Karl Edward Wagner
- “French Scenes”, Howard Waldrop
- “Flying Saucer Rock & Roll”, Howard Waldrop
- “The Ugly Chickens”, Howard Waldrop
- “Thirty Minutes Over Broadway,” Howard Waldrop
- “Mary Margaret Road-Grader”, Howard Waldrop
- “Baby You Were Great”, Kate Wilhelm
- “Video Star”, Walter Jon Williams
- “Death on the Nile”, Connie Willis
- “Epiphany”, Connie Willis.
- “All my Darling Daughters”, Connie Willis
- “Schwarzschild Radius”, Connie Willis
- “Spice Pogrom”, Connie Willis
- “This Peaceable Land”, Robert Charles Wilson
- “Has Anyone Seen Junie Moon”, Gene Wolfe
- “When I Was Ming The Merciless”, Gene Wolfe
- “Silhouette”, Gene Wolfe
- “Up there”, Donald A. Wollheim
- “Give Her Hell”, Donald Wollheim
- “Lost Girls”, Jane Yolen
- “The Cartographer Wasps & the Anarchist Bees”, E. Lily Yu
- “For a breath I tarry” Roger Zelazny
- “Home Is the Hangman,” Roger Zelazny
- “The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth”, Roger Zelazny
- “Unicorn Variations”, Roger Zelazny
- “The Game of Blood and Dust”, Roger Zelazny
- “Fire and Frost”, Roger Zelazny
- “KJWALLL’KJE’K’KOOTHAILLL’KJE’K”, Roger Zelazny
- “This Moment of the Storm,” Roger Zelazny
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We need Brad in here to narrow down the list to his friends, man.
Lotta classic SF there that’s about a lot more than gosh-wow adventure with manly heroes and buxom women.
But, uh, Leiber is misspelled most of the times it appears, as is Frederik Pohl, and “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers” is by Lawrence Watt-Evans, not Donald Barthelme.
FWIW, Charlie Jane Anders’ “Six Months, Three Days” is listed both a having received two votes and as having received one vote.
This is s very, very good list. I have a feeling I will be ordering lots of short story collections in the days to come.
Just in case you’re curious, here’s a tally of the total “votes” for each author – a “Most Beloved” list, if you will. Unscientifically, it appears that H.P. Lovecraft is exactly as popular as Stephen King. 🙂
22: James Tiptree Jr.
21: Ray Bradbury
18: Roger Zelazny
16: Ursula K. Le Guin
14: Neil Gaiman
12: Harlan Ellison
12: Daniel Keyes (all for “Flowers for Algernon”)
11: Connie Willis
9: Isaac Asimov
9: Fritz Leiber
8: Stephen King
8: H.P. Lovecraft
8: Theodore Sturgeon
7: Ted Chiang
7: Cordwainer Smith
6: Octavia Butler
6: Orson Scott Card
6: William Gibson
6: Robert Heinlein
6: Shirley Jackson (all for “The Lottery”)
6: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
5: Frederic Pohl
5: Joanna Russ
5: Saki
5: Robert Silverberg
5: Karl Edward Wagner
5: Howard Waldrop
4: Arthur C. Clarke
4: Roald Dahl
4: Tony Daniel (all for “A Dry, Quiet War”)
4: Greg Egan
4: George R.R. Martin
4: C.L. Moore
4: Larry Niven
4: Lewis Padgett
4: Eric Frank Russell
4: Lucius Shepard
4: Jack Vance
4: John Varley
3: Charlie Jane Anders
3: Poul Anderson
3: Peter S. Beagle
3: Alfred Bester
3: Lois McMaster Bujold (all for “The Mountains of Mourning”)
3: Caitlin R. Kiernan
3: Cyril M. Kornbluth
3: R. A. Lafferty
3: Stanislaw Lem
3: Pat Murphy
3: Robert Sheckley
3: Michael Swanwick
3: Gene Wolfe
Yeah, “Game” is by Donald Bartheleme (and I left the author off my Hamburger rec)–looks like the two got conflated. But man, great to have it all in one place!
Less useful than Mark’s summary, but below is a partial list of how many stories were suggested for each author. I may have overlooked dupes like the Anders one, so I stopped at 5.
Mark’s summary is more interesting, but IMHO not exactly “most beloved” (since 10 recs by one person for author X would beat five different recs by five people for author Y – but I’d call Y more beloved). And no, I’m not suggesting going back through comments to figure this out. 😉 Mark’s summary rocks as is – and makes it clear there are definitely a couple of very beloved stories (Flowers for Algernon by a mile, and The Lottery).
13 Ray Bradbury
11 Roger Zelazny
9 Neil Gaiman
8 Theodore Sturgeon
8 James Tiptree Jr
8 Fritz Leiber
7 Isaac Asimov
7 Harlan Ellison
7 Cordwainer Smith
7 Connie Willis
6 Ursula K. Le Guin
6 Stephen King
6 Robert A. Heinlein
6 H.P. Lovecraft
5 William Gibson
5 Orson Scott Card
5 Karl Edward Wagner
5 Howard Waldrop
…etc.
Is it ironic that Brad T’s admonishments against downbeat space opera is exactly the sort of thing that meant ‘Scanners Live in Vain’ almost didn’t get published, which would have robbed sf of one of its most distinctive, revered – and politically conservative – writers?
(Then again, all the stories about the Underpeople would probably have got Smith tagged as a closet SJW…)
Neither RedWombat nor I recced a story by Zenna Henderson by name. But, damn, her writing is good.
NESFA Press has collected all her People stories into one volume, including a previously unpublished one.
They would be good reading for Peace’s visiting kids, too.
Yeah, Henderson is an author I mentioned in my looking-back-at-older-SF column “Mining the Genre Asteroid”. I couldn’t decide on a single story, since really the whole weight of her world is what gives them power and heft.
#24 in the list has two digits transposed, it should be 5,271,009, not “,217,”
/nitpick
Not to mention the fact that this moose should have recommended more Bujold, Vance, Schmitz and Russell, as well as Simak, Anvil and James White. Bah! (Wanders off grumbling to self about missed opportunities and not thinking things through hard enough.)
This list needs more dinosaur stories.
“The Finder” by Ursula K. Le Guin was left out, probably due to the way I formatted my comment. (find it in Tales From Earthsea).
Bujold, alas, does not write much shorter fiction. Two short stories, four novellas (of which I think Mountains of Mourning is the best) and the forthcoming Penric’s Demon are it as far as I recall.
Thank you for the reminder. Happily, we have a copy of that very volume.
My rec of Philip José Farmer, “Extracts from the Memoirs of ‘Lord Greystoke'” was left out. But excellent job! What a great list!
Good to see Howard Waldrop on the list. For those not familiar with his writing, let me list 4 books you need.
His first collection – Howard Who? – has been reprinted by Small Beer Press -isbn – 1-931520-18-6
There are two retrospective collections, with a little overlap with the above.
– Things Will Never Be the Same: A Howard Waldrop Reader: Selected Short Fiction 1980-2005 – isbn -1-882968-36-0
– Other Worlds, Better Lives: A Howard Waldrop Reader: Selected Long Fiction 1989-2003 – isbn – 978-1-882968-38-1
(I’ll note that I was the publisher of the two collections.)
And lastly, his most recent collection: Horse of a Different Color: Stories, published by Small Beer, isbn 978-1-61873-073-2 (I was responsible for two of the stories.)
Jonathan and Mike, thanks for putting that together.
Um, “Lynortis Reprise” appears twice – is that a mistake, or is that the one that there are two different versions of? (I know there’s at least one Karl Edward Wagner story that’s been published in different versions….)
@Michael J. Walsh:
There’s also the Waldrop collection Going Home Again, published by St. Martin’s Press (although I have an earlier Eidolon edition).
I’m a sucker for a good list, which this is. I’m surprised that there are no mentions at all of three of the best practitioners of the short story in SF history — J.G. Ballard, William Tenn and H.G. Wells. For Ballard I’d offer up “Billennium”, “The Drowned Giant”, “The Voices of Time” and, oh, many more. For Tenn, the brilliant “The Liberation of Earth”. Hard to single out a Wells story, but there are many.
Howard has a lot of collections, but the four I listed have the advantage of being in print and relatively easy to get. But wait! There’s more !!
Small Beer has all four as eBooks. https://weightlessbooks.com/?s=Waldrop
And to note, their eBook imprint is Weightless Books.
If I had time to participate in puppy thread comments, if I read more short fiction, if I could remember amazing short story names/authors . . . I’d’ve made recommendations in those threads. I second the recs for #1, #4, #23/#53 (same story, awesome). #32, #107 (which SO deserved its Hugo win!), #108, #320 (amazing) . . . and shoot, I probably missed some in looking over the list.
I also recommend two authors with no specific recs in the list: Tim Pratt (e.g., “Impossible Dreams” and “Cup and Table”) and Nancy Kress (e.g., “Margin of Error”). And specific stories by Sam J. Miller: “57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides” (which won the Shirley Jackson Award) and “We Are the Cloud” (which was nominated for the Nebula and the Sturgeon). And Ted Chiang’s “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” (I was so torn between this & #320 for the Hugos). And Mur Lafferty’s poignant “I Look Forward To Remembering You.”
I have so much short fiction to read (having backed Queers Destroy Science Fiction, which gave me free issues of Lightspeed, Fantasy, & Nightmare), but reading this thread reminds me of some big names in the field I really must read one day – Ballard, Tenn, Waldrop, Henderson’s People stories (I have the NESFA collection), Ellison, Lovecraft, Sturgeon, et al.
@Michael J. Walsh: Ooh, I recommend Weightless Books in general, for their lack of DRM. Plus they also serve as an outlet for non-DRM books & magazines from other publishers.
As mentioned elsewhere, I compiled the list too, and wound up with a few more titles, probably because I was more generous in deciding what was a recommendation or luckier in filling out incomplete mentions. I also didn’t stop where Jonathan did, but kept adding titles, including the ones mentioning in this post’s comments.
In any case, here’s my list, organized slightly differently. Mike, feel free to delete this if it’s too long; I just figured it might be useful to some. And if anyone spots my sure-to-be-there typos or errors, let me know!
ABRAHAM, DANIEL
Balfour and Merriweather in The Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs
Flat Diane
ALDISS, BRIAN W
Heresies of the Huge God
Who Can Replace A Man?
ALLEN, WOODY
Match Wits With Inspector Ford (contains ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”)
ANDERS, CHARLIE JANE
Six Months, Three Days
ANDERSON, POUL
The Man Who Came Early
The Martyr
No Truce With Kings
ARNESON, ELEANOR
The Grammarian’s Five Daughters
Knapsack Poems
ASIMOV, ISAAC
The Bicentennial Man
The Last Quetion
The Martian Way
Nightfall
Reason
Robbie
Shah Guido G
The Ugly Little Boy
BACIGALUPI, PAULO
The People of Sand and Slag
BALLARD, J.G.
Billennium
The Drowned Giant
The Voices of Time
BANKS, IAN M.
State of the Art
BARRON, LAIRD
Hallucigenia
BARTHELME, DONALD
Game
BEAGLE, PETER
Come, Lady Death
Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinocerous
We Never Talk About My Brother
BEAR, ELIZABETH
Shoggoths in Bloom
BEAR, GREG
Sisters
BECKETT, CHRIS
The Perimeter
BENFORD, GREGORY
Freezeframe
BESTER, ALFRED
5,271,009
Fondly Fahrenheit
BIERCE, AMBROSE
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
BISSON, TERRY
Bears Discover Fire
BIXBY, JEROME
It’s A Good Life
BLISH, JAMES
Surface Tension
BLOCH, ROBERT
Hell On Earth
BOUCHER, ANTHONY
The Quest for Saint Aquin
BRACKETT, LEIGH
Enchantress of Venus
BRADBURY, RAY
All Summer In A Day
The Crowd
Dark They Were, And Golden-Eyed
Frost and Fire
The Great Wide World Over There
Heart Transplant
Homecoming
Kaleidoscope
Mars Is Heaven!
The Million-Year Picnic
There Will Comes Soft Rains
The Veldt
Way In The Middle Of The Air
BRIN, DAVID
Piecework
Thor Meets Captain America
BRODSKI, ENEASZ
Amazing Man
BUCHER-JONES, SIMON
Double Trouble At The Parasites On The Proletariat Club
Going On Passed Judgement
BUDRYS, ALGIS
Walk to the World
The War Is Over
BUJOLD, LOIS McMASTER
Mountains of Mourning
BUTLER, OCTAVIA
Bloodchild
Speech Sounds
BYATT, A.S.
Body Art
The Conjugal Angel
CADIGAN, PAT
The Girl-Thing Who Went Out For Sushi
CARD, ORSON SCOTT
Ender’s Game (novella)
Mikal’s Songbird
The Originist
Saint Amy’s Tale
Unaccompanied Sonata
CARROLL, JONATHAN
Friend’s Best Man
CARTER, ANGELA
The Company of Wolves
CHENEY, J. KATHLEEN
Masks of War
CHERRYH, C.J.
A Thief in Korianth
CHIANG, TED
Hell Is The Absence Of God
The Lifecycle of Software Objects
The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
Seventy-Two Letters
Story Of Your Life
CHO, ZEN
The House of Aunts
CHU, JOHN
The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere
CLARKE, ARTHUR C.
The Nine Billion Names of God
The Sentinel
The Star
Superiority
CLIFTON, MARK
Star Bright
COLLIER, JOHN
Evening Primrose
Thus I Refute Beelzy
COWAN, JIM
The Spade of Reason
DAHL, ROALD
Pig
The Sound Machine
The Wish
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
DANIEL, TONY
A Dry, Quiet War
DAVIDSON, AVRAM
Or All The Sea With Oysters
DEBODARD, ALIETTE
Immersion
DELANY, SAMUEL R
The Tale of Gorgik
Time Considered As A Helix Of Semi-Precious Stones
DE LINT, CHARLES
Mr. Truepenny’s Book Emporium and Gallery
The Moon Is Drowning As I Sleep
DEL REY, LESTER
Helen O’Loy
DEMARCE, VIRGINIA
Biting Time
DE MAUPASSANT, GUY
The Horla
DICK, P.K.
Beyond Lies the Wub
Human Is
DISCH, THOMAS
Angouleme
DRAKE, DAVID
Hangman
Loyal to His Own
DUNCAN, DAVE
The Minstrel’s Tale
DUE, TANANARIVE
Like Daughter
DUNSANY, LORD
Carcassonne
The Hoard of the Gibbelins
The Sword of Welleran
EGAN, GREG
Oracle
Learning To Be Me
Reasons To Be Cheerful
ELLISON, HARLAN
A Boy And His Dog
Croatoan
The Deathbird
I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
Jeffty is Five
Repent, Harlequin, Said The Ticktockman
The Whimper of Whipped Dogs
EL-MOHTAR, AMAL
The Truth About Owls
FARLEY, DONNA
It Must Be Someplace
FARMER, PHILIP JOSE
Extracts From the Memoirs of ‘Lord Greystoke’
FINNEY, JACK
Of Missing Persons
Second Chance
FOSTER, EUGIE
Trixie and the Pandas of Dread
When It Ends, He Catches Her
FOWLER, KAREN JOY
What I Didn’t See
FRIEDMAN, C.S.
The Dreaming Kind
GAIMAN, NEIL
A Study In Emerald
Chivalry
Goliath
How to Talk to Girls at Parties
Nicholas Was…
The Price
Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar
Snow Glass Apples
The Sound of Her Wings (comics story)
GARCIA-MARQUEZ, GABRIEL
The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
GIBSON, WILLIAM
Burning Chrome
Fragments of a Hologram Rose
The Gernsback Continuum
New Rose Hotel
GILMAN, CHARLOTTE PERKINS
Herland
The Yellow Wallpaper
GODWIN, TOM
The Cold Equations
GRIFFITH, NICOLA
Cold Wind
HALDEMAN, JOE
The Hemingway Hoax
Tricentennial
HARRIS, JOANNE
Gastronomicon
HARVEY, W.F.
August Heat
HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL
The Celestial Railroad
HEINLEIN, ROBERT A
All You Zombies
Goldfish Bowl
Green Hills of Earth
The Long Watch
The Man Who Sold the Moon
The Man Who Traveled in Elephants
The Menace From Earth
HERNANDEZ, JAIME
Izzy in Mexico (comics story)
HICKEY, ANDREW
The Adventure of the Piltdown Prelate
HOWARD, ELIZABETH JANE
Three Miles Up
HOWARD, ROBERT E.
Red Nails
The Shadow Kingdom
HUTCHINON, DAVE
Discreet Phenomena
ING, DEAN
Devil You Don’t Know
JACKSON, SHIRLEY
The Lottery
JACOBS, W.W.
The Monkey’s Paw
JAMES, M.R.
O Whistle and I’ll Come to Ye My Lad
JEMISIN, N.K.
Stone Hunger
JOHNSON, KIJ
The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change
JONES, DIANA WYNNE
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (any section)
KAGAN, JANET
The Nutcracker Coup
KAPP, COLIN
The Railways on Cannis
KELLY, JAMES PATRICK
Think Like A Dinosaur
KEYES, DANIEL
Flowers for Algernon
KIERNAN, CAITLIN R.
Black Helicopters
The Dry Salvages
Riding the White Bull
KING, STEPHEN
The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet
The Boogeyman
Graveyard Shift
The Mist
Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut
Survivor Type
KLAGES, ELLEN
In the House of the Seven Librarians
KLAGES, ELLEN and ANDY DUNCAN
Wakulla Springs
KNIGHT, DAMON
Four in One
KOONTZ, DEAN
Wake Up to Thunder
KORNBLUTH, C.M.
Gomez
The Little Black Bag
The Marching Morons
KOWAL, MARY ROBINETTE
Evil Robot Monkey
KRESS, NANCY
Margin of Error
LAFFERTY, MUR
I Look Forward to Remembering You
LAFFERTY, R.A.
All Pieces of a River Shore
Days of Grass, Days of Straw
Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies
LANGFORD, DAVE
BLIT
LAWRENCE, K.M.
The Freedom
LEE, TANITH
Fold
Red As Blood
LEGUIN, URSULA K
Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight
The Darkness Box
The Day Before The Revolution
The Finder
Intracom
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
Sita Dulip’s Method
Solitude
LEIBER, FRITZ
The Black Gondolier
The Button Molder
Ill Met In Lankhmar
Lean Times in Lankhmar
A Pail of Air
Space-Time for Springers
Time Fighter
LEM, STANISLAUS
Let Us Save the Universe
The Seventh Sally
Terminus
LINGEN, MARISSA K.
Uncle Flower’s Homecoming Waltz
LINK, KELLY
Magic for Beginners
Two Houses
LIU, KEN
Mon no Aware
LONGYEAR, BARRY B.
Enemy Mine
LOVECRAFT, H. P.
At the Mountains of Madness
The Call of Cthulhu
The Color Out Of Space
Cool Air
Iranon
Pickman’s Model
The Whisperer In Darkness
MACLEAN, KATHERINE
The Snowball Effect
MacLENNIN, PHYLLIS
Thus Love Betrays Us
MAMATAS, NICK
Joey Ramone Saves the World
MARTIN, GEORGE R R
A Beast for Norn
Nightflyers
The Sandkings
A Song for Lya
McAULEY, PAUL J.
Sea Change With Monsters
McDONAGH, MARTIN
The Pillowman (play)
McDONALD, IAN
Unfinished Portrait of the King of Pain by Van Gogh
McHUGH, MAUREEN
Necropolis
McINTYRE, VONDA
Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand
McKILLIP, PATRICIA A.
A Troll and Two Roses
McKINLEY, ROBIN
The Door in the Hedge (entire anthology)
The Princess and the Frog
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
MERRIL, JUDITH
That Only A Mother
METZGER, THOM
The Masonic Dream Engine
MIEVILLE, CHINA
The Ball Room
An End to Hunger
Familiar
Reports of Certain Events In London
MILES, LAWRENCE
A Broodmare for Gloriana
MILLER, LION
The Available Data on the Worp Reaction
MILLER, SAM J.
57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides
We Are the Cloud
MILLER, WALTER M. JR.
The Last Canticle
MITCHISON, NAOMI
Miss Omega Raven
MONETTE, SARAH
Elegy for a Demon Lover
MOORE, C.L.
Shambleau
MURPHY, PAT
A Falling Star Is A Rock From Outer Space
His Vegetable Wife
Rachel in Love
NEWMAN, KIM
The Man Who Collected Barker
NIVEN, LARRY
The Ethics of Madness
Inconstant Moon
Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex
Neutron Star
NORDLEY, G. DAVID
Crossing Chao Meng Fu
ORWELL, GEORGE
Animal Farm
PADGETT, LEWIS
Mimsy Were the Borogoves
Private Eye
The Proud Robot
PALWICK, SUSAN
Going After Bobo
PANGBORN, EDGAR
Night Wind
PIPER, H. BEAM
Omnilingual
POE, EDGAR ALLAN
A Cask of Amontillado
POHL, FREDERIK
The Day After The Day After The Martians Came
Day Million
Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus
Outnumbering the Dead
The Tunnel Under the World
POPKES, STEVEN
The Egg
PRATCHETT, TERRY
The Sea and Little Fishes
Troll Bridge
PRATT, TIM
Cup and Table
Impossible Dreams
PURSER-HALLARD, PHILIP
De Umbris Idearum
REED, ROBERT
Eight Episodes
REYNOLDS, TED
Can These Bones Live?
ROBINSON, KIM STANLEY
Green Mars (story, not novel)
ROWE, CHRISTOPHER
Voluntary State
RUSS, JOANNA
Everyday Depressions
When It Changed
RUSSELL, ERIC FRANK
Allamagoosa
Dear Devil
Plus X/The Space Willies
The Witness
SAKI
The Open Window
Sredni Vashtar
The Wolves of Cernogratz
SAUNDERS, GEORGE
In Persuasion Nation
SCHMITZ, JAMES
The Second Night of Summer
SHAW, BOB
The Light of Other Days
SHEA, MICHAEL
The Autopsy
SHECKLEY, ROBERT
The Accountant
Human Man’s Burden
The Odour of Thought
Protection
SHEFFIELD, CHARLES
Georgia On My Mind
SHELDON, RACCOONA (see also Tiptree)
The Screwfly Solution
SHEPARD, LUCIUS
The Man Who Painted The Dragon Griaule
R&R
The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter
A Spanish Lesson
SILVERBERG, ROBERT
The Dybbuk of Mazel Tov V
Enter A Soldier. Later: Enter Another
Feast of St. Dionysis
Sailing to Byzantium
Sundance
SINGH, VANDANA
Infinities
SLADEK, JOHN T.
Elephant With Wooden Leg
Heavens Below: Fifteen Utopias
SMITH, CLARK ASHTON
The Dark Eidolon
SMITH, CORDWAINER
Alpha Ralpha Boulevard
The Ballad of Lost C’Mell
The Crime and Glory of Commander Suzdal
The Dead Lady of Clown Town
The Game of Rat and Dragon
The Lady Who Sailed the Soul
Scanners Live In Vain
Under Old Earth
SOUKUP, MARTHA
Alita in the Air
SPINRAD, NORMAN
Carcinoma Angels
STERLING, BRUCE
Swarm
STERLING, BRUCE and RUDY RUCKER
Storming the Cosmos
STIEGLER, MARC
The Gentle Seduction
STROSS, CHARLES
Lobsters
STUART, DON A.
Twilight
STURGEON, THEODORE
Baby Is Three
The Claustrophile
The Man Who Lost The Sea
Microcosmic God
More Than Human
Saucer of Loneliness
Slow Sculpture
When You Care, When You Love
SWANWICK, MICHAEL
The Dog Said Bow Wow
SWANWICK, MICHAEL and WILLIAM GIBSON
Dogfight
SWIRSKY, RACHEL
If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love
The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window
TENN, WILLIAM
The Liberation of Earth
TIPTREE, JAMES JR.
And I Awoke And Found Me Here On The Cold Hill’s Side
The Girl Who Was Plugged In
Houston, Houston, Do You Read?
In the Midst of Life
Love Is The Plan, The Plan Is Death
The Psychologist Who Wouldn’t Do Awful Things to Rats
The Women Men Don’t See
Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!
TURTLEDOVE, HARRY
The Road Not Taken
UTLEY, STEVEN
Shattering
VALENTE, CATHERYNNE M.
Fade to White
Silently and Very Fast
VANCE, JACK
The Last Castle
Mazirian the Magician
The Moon Moth
The Potters of Firsk
VANDERMEER, JEFF
Dradin, in Love
The Transformation of Martin Lake
VAN PELT, JAMES
Miss Hathaway’s Spider
VAN VOGT, A.E.
The Weapon Shop
VARLEY, JOHN
The Barbie Murders
In The Bowl
In The Hall Of The Martian Kings
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank
Press Enter
VERNON, URSULA
Jackalope Wives
Toad Words
VINGE, JOAN D
To Bell The Cat
VINGE, VERNOR
True Names
VONNEGUT, KURT
Harrison Bergeron
Welcome to the Monkey House
WAGNER, KARL EDWARD
Lynortis Reprise
Misericorde
Raven’s Eyrie
Where the Summer Ends
WALDROP, HOWARD
Flying Saucer Rock & Roll
French Scenes
Mary Margaret Road-Grader
Thirty Minutes Over Broadway
The Ugly Chickens
WATT-EVANS, LAWRENCE
Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers
WEINBAUM, STANLEY G.
A Martian Odyssey
WHITE, T.H.
The Troll
WILHELM, KATE
Baby, You Were Great
WILLIAMS, WALTER JON
Video Star
WILLIS, CONNIE
All My Darling Daughters
Death On The Nile
Epiphany
Firewatch
The Last of the Winnebagoes
Schwartzchild Radius
Spice Pogrom
The Winds of Marble Arch
WILSON, ROBERT CHARLES
This Peacable Land
WOLFE, GENE
Has Anyone Seen Junie Moon
Silhouette
When I Was Ming the Merciless
WOLLHEIM, DONALD A.
Give Her Hell
Up There
YOLEN, JANE
Lost Girls
The Devil’s Arithmetic
YU, E. LILY
The Cartographer Wasps & the Anarchist Bees
ZELAZNY, ROGER
The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth
Fire and Frost
For A Breath I Tarry
The Game of Blood and Dust
Home Is The Hangman
KJWALLL’KJE’K’KOOTHAILLL’KJE’K
The Last Defender of Camelot
A Rose For Ecclesiastes
This Moment of the Storm
24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai
Unicorn Variations
AUTHORS RECOMMENDED IN GENERAL FOR GOOD SHORT FICTION
Akutagawa, Ryunosoke
Bishop, Michael
Bradbury, Ray
Collier, John
Fyfe, H.B.
Gaiman, Neil
Gunn, Eileen
Henderson, Zenna
Klages, Ellen
Lafferty, R.A.
Lee, Tanith
LeGuin, Ursula K
Park, Paul
Quaglia, Roberto
Smith, Cordwainer
Sturgeon, Theodore
Varley, John
Wells, H.G.
Willis, Connie
Wolfe, Gene
Thanks Kurt !
Kurt Busiek: I’m not only happy to host the comment, I propose to turn it into a complementary post with a credit to you. May I have your permission?
Mike:
Sure, go right ahead!
Kurt: While setting up the post I saw this entry —
ALLEN, WOODY
Match Wits With Inspector Ford (contains ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”)
I’m striking it the Guin reference.
Thanks for organizing it like that, @Kurt Busiek.
Mike:
Sure. I listed it that way because the original recommendation did. No need to keep it.
There are also a couple of comics stories and a play that probably don’t qualify as “short stories” unless you strictly go by word count rather than by form. And a recommendation for “any section” of THE TOUGH GUIDE TO FANTASYLAND that isn’t quite kosher either — the sections aren’t short stories.
But, well, I was being inclusive.
I also see I misspelled the title of Asimov’s “The Last Question.”
Kendall, Shambles:
My pleasure. I was making the list for my own convenience, but having done so, it seems useful to have both versions…
Nice to see recommendations for Lucius Shepard. But I am surprised to see no comment about the title of this posting …. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?20301.
Great writer … really miss the big guy. An obituary by Christopher Priest: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/26/lucius-shepard
Kurt Busiek: well, you asked…
Peter Beagle’s story — it’s Rhinoceros
Jerome Bixby’s story — Good is italicised for emphasis (importantly in this case)
Garcia is one of Marquez’s given names, not part his surname, I think
James’s story is “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”
Kapp’s story is “The Railways Up on Cannis”
Hutchinson not Hutchinon
It’s Stanislaw, not Stanislaus, though the ‘l’ is a Polish one with a strike through it (I don’t remember what it’s called)
George’s story is just “Sandkings”
Bob Shaw’s story is just “Light of Other Days”
Eric Frank Russell’s short novel is known in the UK as “Next of Kin”, not Plus X, or The Space Willies
Connie’s story is “Schwarzschild Radius”
And I’m sure All You Zombies has punctuation in the title…
Michael J. Walsh: Stephens told me the title is a Talking Heads reference….
Malcolm —
Thanks! Much appreciated. I’ve made the corrections on my Master Stickie. On the page here, it’s too late for me, but if Mike wants to clean either version up, I wouldn’t dream of stopping him.
On the Russell, according to ISFDb, as far as I can tell, SPACE WILLIES and NEXT OF KIN are titles of the novel, and “Plus X” is an earlier, novella-length version.
Given that this is a short fiction list, I just cropped the mention back to “Plus X.”
Malcolm/Kurt: I’ve made many of the recommended changes. In a few cases where I made a different change, I resolved story names and punctuation by following the ISFDb. In theory their entries are made after looking at the physical publications.
Mike:
Thanks. The ISFDb lists “All You Zombies…” in most publications as having quotation marks around it, but can’t seem to decide whether it ends with an ellipsis or a dash (and in some versions, it’s got dashes on both ends!). Punctuation is a strange and shifty thing.
Kurt: “All You Zombies—” Yes, it should have quotes. Although I haven’t found a way to eyeball the March 1959 F&SF where the story was first published, the online indexes for that issue show the story with one or more hyphens. So I guess I will go with that for the time being.
Is anyone working on a version of this for the MG/YA recommendations from a few days back? If not, would it be poor form of me to compile them into a goodreads list rather than as a comment here?
That will (selfishly) make it a lot easier for me to keep track of my purchases.
DMS —
I’d say go right ahead, and post a link to it when you’re done.
Dawn: In fact, if you send me the link I will publicize it in a post. (mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com)
Wow.
Heck of a list.
Cool. I’m starting from Mark’s comment on the “Far From the Barking Crowd 6/24” post and working forward. He cites File 770 for the source of two of the books he’s listed, but I don’t know when that was. If someone does, let me know and I’ll crawl through that one as well.
@ULTRAGOTHA–
“Neither RedWombat nor I recced a story by Zenna Henderson by name. But, damn, her writing is good.
NESFA Press has collected all her People stories into one volume, including a previously unpublished one”
I did think of her People stories but all I could access from my memory was the title “No Different Flesh”. I have that NESFA Press book so I just need to figure out where I put it and refresh my memory.
@Kate H:
Wait! What do you mean that Smith was “politically conservative”? Are you basing that on Linebarger’s CIA career? Because in itself, that doesn’t follow.
I personally read Smith’s Underpeople stories as what Linebarger did with his guilt. There’s some evidence that he was directly involved in some of the worst CIA-sponsored atrocities of the early Cold War. I’ve seen his name come up in connection with the massacres in Indonesia, for instance. The theme of the Return of the Repressed in the stories under his pen name is powerfully suggestive in that context.