...Aaannd...We're Back!
I promised to highlight some of my favorite short stories this time around; sorry it took so long to get around to it, but what with a root canal, sine-curve weather (as in, crazy stupid cold, then mid-50's, then repeat), and waves of insanity out of D.C., I've been slightly distracted. But here I am at last; so, if you're as ready to lose yourself in a good story as I am, then read on!
(Oh, and by the way...these stories are not in any particular order of preference or genre--I'm just writing them down as I think of them. Enjoy.)
Our Fair City (Robert Heinlein) - What do you get when you combine a corrupt mayor and his pet police force, an idealistic op-ed journalist, an elderly parking-lot attendant, and a sapient, mischievous urban whirlwind? An amazing fantasy by the amazing Robert Heinlein, that's what. And that's all I can say without spoiling the story, other than read it for yourself!
Sredni Vashtar (Saki) - "Saki" was the pen name of H.H. Munro, and you may remember him as the author of "The Open Window." But this tale of a boy under the thumb of a domineering relative, and his curious escape therefrom, is my favorite.
The Big Flash (Norman Spinrad) - It's hard to believe this story was written in 1969, because the author could have been talking about 80's heavy metal and Reaganesque Cold War maneuvers, plus the whole M-TV revolution. I still find this a scary story.
Battleground (Stephen King) - I hate bad guys who get away with shit, don't you? Well, so does King, apparently; because not only does the bad guy in this story get his just deserts, he gets it in a really cool way. I wouldn't mind congratulating that "Number 1 Idea Gal" myself. I have often wondered what happened after the story's end....
Anything by NK Jemisin - I can't say enough good things about this lady's short fiction. Her anthology is called How Long 'til Black Future Month?, and there's not a dull story in it. "The City Born Great" was nominated for a Hugo, and after reading it, I could only think, "Wow, did she get robbed." But just pick any of them--"L'Alchimista," "Cloud Dragon Skies," "The You Train"...heck, just buy the anthology and keep a talented author in business, okay?
Or The Grasses Grow (Avram Davidson) - Another story where karma bites the bad guys in the cojones, this one by an author who never got enough credit for his work while he was alive. It's one of those short stories that you read at open-mic night, and when you're done, you get silence...until the audience realizes that the story's over.
Blossom And Fruit (Stephen Vincent Benet) - Remember "The Devil And Daniel Webster"? How about "The Sobbin' Women" (hint: there's a song with that title in the musical made from this story)? Or "By The Waters of Babylon" (often seen under the title "The Place of the Gods," because reprint editors can't leave well enough alone)?
Well, this story is by the same author, but it's a much quieter tale: a man reflects on his life, wondering about the nature of love. My description is deceptively dull, but once you start reading, you won't be able to stop until the end.
Time Considered As a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones (Samuel R. Delany) - Okay, this is a long one, I admit. But it's action-packed, well-rounded, and a ton of fun. The protagonist's description of stolen goods as "things that are not mine" gives you an idea of Delany's mastery of writing...but just a taste. Read the rest of the story for more.
The Mindworm (Cyril Kornbluth) - You don't see the ending coming until it smashes right through your brain! But when you're finished, you can't help thinking, "Oh, so that's how you write it as SF."
Harrison Bergeron (Kurt Vonnegut) - Equality gone mad: not only is everyone equal, but everyone is forced to be average--or at least as much as can possibly be accomplished by lead weights, weird glasses, and earpieces that produce loud, distracting noises.
I'd have to say that the moral of the story is, if everything is reduced to the lowest common denominator, that denominator will only sink. But you may feel differently.
"East Wind, West Wind" (Frank M. Robinson) - This one scared the shit out of me when I first read it. It still does, because we are just like the uncaring people who insist on their creature comforts even as the world goes to hell on a greased rail. The story was written about 1971; it feels more like 2019.
The Initiation (Barry Longyear) - A short-short story. 'Nuff said. Read it.
The New One (Fredric Brown) - Another master wordsmith. Great description, deadly peril, a captive in a desperate struggle for his soul...and a nice dose of WW II patriotism, liberally sprinkled with humor.
Stubborn (Stephen Goldin) - Another short-short story, told as a morality tale for kids...and if I were them, I'd listen!
The Rocket (Ray Bradbury) - A classic author who could write just about anything. And this story, so happy and gentle and magical...I still cry at the end of it. If you have ever dreamed of having or doing something impossible, you will, too.
The Advent On Channel Twelve (Cyril Kornbluth) - The best SF story disguised as an anti-television rant ever written. Or maybe it's the best anti-TV rant disguised as a SF story....
...And That's Just A Few!
I've read probably thousands of other short stories in my lifetime, and I'm not even close to finished. But hopefully, this list will help you get started...and the next time you're in a library and you see a book subtitled "Stories," or another titled "The Best [pick a genre] Stories of [pick a year]," perhaps you'll try it out. You never know what gems you'll find.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Sunday, February 2, 2020
Short Stories, Part I
I Blame My School...
I love short stories.
Recently, I tried to define why, and I concluded that my grade school was to blame.
That was the place, after all, that loaned me textbooks titled Rainbows, and Kaleidoscope, and Serendipity, which, along with lessons in pronunciation and vocabulary, also contained all sorts of wonderful short stories. There were short poems, too, and the end of each unit featured a chapter from a longer book; some of these were "meh," but others inspired me to seek out the original.
But oh, those stories! Whenever I would get my reading book for the year, I would start reading. The lesson parts were boring, so I would always skip that stuff and go right for the short stories. I was usually done with my reading book before anybody else in class, but I never minded going back and re-reading the assigned story for the day.
Here are some of the stories I remember from those old readers. I don't remember all the titles, or even all the authors, but the stories themselves are still vivid after all these years:
The Talking Wire (author unknown) - A boy goes to stay with an older relative, who is a telegraph operator for the railroad. The old man demonstrates the Morse code for the station where he works (FS, for Fir Spring), and explains that if that signal ever comes over the receiver, it means someone on the wire is trying to get the operator's attention for something important. The man leaves to do something, and the boy sits and listens to all the clicks and clacks coming over the wire, and suddenly the FS signal comes through, again and again! The boy runs for his...uncle? Grandpa?...and convinces him that he really did hear the signal, and when the old man goes in and answers, it turns out that something has happened to the track ahead, and an approaching train must be stopped. The old man sets up a signal, the train stops, the boy gets kudos and the promise of real lessons in Morse starting the next day. Hurray...but I always wondered why it couldn't have been a girl doing that. A lot of these stories are like that.
The Fun They Had (Isaac Asimov) - This one's a classic. In a future where each child has his own computerized "teacher," a boy finds an actual, physical book in his attic and brings it to a girl's house, where they puzzle over words that stand still, classrooms with lots of kids (the book is about school as we would understand it), and human teachers (everybody knows that a human isn't knowledgeable enough to teach each child at his or her optimal level)!
Here's one I don't remember author or title for: A boy sets off on a "magical journey," in which he encounters danger, has adventures, and finally returns home...but the pictures for the story reveal that he is walking through an ordinary town, seeing an old tree, stopping for ice cream, etc. The magic is all in his mind! I read this story and came away with the sense that the author knew me, because I spent half my childhood overlaying imaginary landscapes and adventures over my ordinary environment! (Just as an example: our water tower had a red top. Naturally it became a volcano. And because of the way my mind worked, it was a pet volcano that would never erupt so as to hurt anyone!)
Evan's Corner (author unknown) - A boy in the inner city, who lives in a small apartment with a large family, can't have his own room. So he chooses a corner of the living room and tells everyone, "This is my corner." Everybody respects this. Evan decorates his corner with a plant (the corner is by a window), some pictures, books, etc. ...but once he gets his corner just the way he likes it, Evan still feels that something is missing. The missing thing is other people to share the corner. A nice lesson, but I remember feeling sad at the poverty of that family (the pictures showed them as black).
Another one without any identifiers: A boy (again, a black kid) wants a guitar. He tries making his own by nailing a slat onto a shallow wooden box, then stretching rubber bands over it. The results, as you can guess, are terrible--one of the illustrations shows the boy playing his homemade contraption, with one of his older siblings wincing at the noise! The boy is advised to earn money and save it for a real guitar (pic of kid writing "GUITAR MONEY" on the label of an empty tin can). The boy succeeds in his quest, of course; the final illustration shows him playing his instrument on his porch steps.
This Was Just A Sample.
If you ever get your hands on any of these books, look for the stories I just recapped, and see if I'm not right about how awesome they were. Next post, I'll list some of the stories I've read since then!
I love short stories.
Recently, I tried to define why, and I concluded that my grade school was to blame.
That was the place, after all, that loaned me textbooks titled Rainbows, and Kaleidoscope, and Serendipity, which, along with lessons in pronunciation and vocabulary, also contained all sorts of wonderful short stories. There were short poems, too, and the end of each unit featured a chapter from a longer book; some of these were "meh," but others inspired me to seek out the original.
But oh, those stories! Whenever I would get my reading book for the year, I would start reading. The lesson parts were boring, so I would always skip that stuff and go right for the short stories. I was usually done with my reading book before anybody else in class, but I never minded going back and re-reading the assigned story for the day.
Here are some of the stories I remember from those old readers. I don't remember all the titles, or even all the authors, but the stories themselves are still vivid after all these years:
The Talking Wire (author unknown) - A boy goes to stay with an older relative, who is a telegraph operator for the railroad. The old man demonstrates the Morse code for the station where he works (FS, for Fir Spring), and explains that if that signal ever comes over the receiver, it means someone on the wire is trying to get the operator's attention for something important. The man leaves to do something, and the boy sits and listens to all the clicks and clacks coming over the wire, and suddenly the FS signal comes through, again and again! The boy runs for his...uncle? Grandpa?...and convinces him that he really did hear the signal, and when the old man goes in and answers, it turns out that something has happened to the track ahead, and an approaching train must be stopped. The old man sets up a signal, the train stops, the boy gets kudos and the promise of real lessons in Morse starting the next day. Hurray...but I always wondered why it couldn't have been a girl doing that. A lot of these stories are like that.
The Fun They Had (Isaac Asimov) - This one's a classic. In a future where each child has his own computerized "teacher," a boy finds an actual, physical book in his attic and brings it to a girl's house, where they puzzle over words that stand still, classrooms with lots of kids (the book is about school as we would understand it), and human teachers (everybody knows that a human isn't knowledgeable enough to teach each child at his or her optimal level)!
Here's one I don't remember author or title for: A boy sets off on a "magical journey," in which he encounters danger, has adventures, and finally returns home...but the pictures for the story reveal that he is walking through an ordinary town, seeing an old tree, stopping for ice cream, etc. The magic is all in his mind! I read this story and came away with the sense that the author knew me, because I spent half my childhood overlaying imaginary landscapes and adventures over my ordinary environment! (Just as an example: our water tower had a red top. Naturally it became a volcano. And because of the way my mind worked, it was a pet volcano that would never erupt so as to hurt anyone!)
Evan's Corner (author unknown) - A boy in the inner city, who lives in a small apartment with a large family, can't have his own room. So he chooses a corner of the living room and tells everyone, "This is my corner." Everybody respects this. Evan decorates his corner with a plant (the corner is by a window), some pictures, books, etc. ...but once he gets his corner just the way he likes it, Evan still feels that something is missing. The missing thing is other people to share the corner. A nice lesson, but I remember feeling sad at the poverty of that family (the pictures showed them as black).
Another one without any identifiers: A boy (again, a black kid) wants a guitar. He tries making his own by nailing a slat onto a shallow wooden box, then stretching rubber bands over it. The results, as you can guess, are terrible--one of the illustrations shows the boy playing his homemade contraption, with one of his older siblings wincing at the noise! The boy is advised to earn money and save it for a real guitar (pic of kid writing "GUITAR MONEY" on the label of an empty tin can). The boy succeeds in his quest, of course; the final illustration shows him playing his instrument on his porch steps.
This Was Just A Sample.
If you ever get your hands on any of these books, look for the stories I just recapped, and see if I'm not right about how awesome they were. Next post, I'll list some of the stories I've read since then!
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