I mentioned my two favourite authors earlier as a source for a wealth of short stories. For some reason completely out the blue this wonderful Gothic tale popped into my mind – “Sardonicus”, by Ray Russell. It’s Gothic style horror that reads very much like it might have been written by Edgar Allan Poe, but in fact it’s a relatively modern creation first published in Playboy in 1961, and later made into a movie. Stephen King was effusive in his praise of it.
I was going to say something similar-- not that I prefer Hemingway’s short stories to his novels, necessarily, but that his writing style-- short declarative sentences that suggest much more happening between the lines-- really lends itself well to short stories.
I’ll nominate of Hemingway’s:
- A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
- The ‘Nick Adams’ stories
“Haircut” - Ring Lardner
“Lamb to the Slaughter” - Roald Dahl
De Sade – “Florville and Courval or Fate”
Maugham (from Ashenden) - “The Flip of a Coin”
Borges (from Ficciones) – “Death and the Compass”
Hammett (title story of collection) – “The Big Knockover”
I haven’t read it. Have you seen the movie? - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0190964/?ref_=hm_rvi_i_1
Like many others here, I really like the short story format and have read a lot of it. But the one that stands out for me is “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville. My favorite author has been Franz Kafka for decades, and I also had read “Moby Dick” before I discovered this story (which is a whole different work), but I instantly felt that this is a predecessor (60 years before Kafka first was published) of the kind of alienation in the “modern” world and workspace like Kafka expressed it. “I would prefer not to.” is one of the greatest sentences in literature.
I had that story in high school and thought about it for here but it didn;t quite make it onto the list.
The Jaunt - Stephen King - easily my favorite, no question, with runner up being:
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
I think Ursula LeGuin’s “The Bones of the Earth” is the very best later Earthsea story.
I used to do the reading as well. But I had that story in a textbook in school and while I really liked it it made me sad.. I also like Saki, H.H. Munro, and think of him as a British O. Henry. Did you ever read his Toys of Peace? It should be in schools today.
I used to love those and wrote in most of them. My own favorite of what I wrote had the first person protagonist contemplating murder at the end.
I don’t know if that Doper will ever be back to host, but how is it done?
Saki’s “Sredni Vashtar” is a rather ghoulish but entrancing story too.
He set up a dummy email account that you could email for an autoreply that had the story or poetry prompts, and so that also acted as a time marker when the clock started for you.
All the Birds Come Home To Roost - Harlan Ellison
Flopsweat - Harlan Ellison
Nightfall - Isaac Asimov
There Will Come Soft Rains - Ray Bradbury
Paladin of the Lost Hour - Harlan Ellison
The Last Defender of Camelot - Roger Zelazny
Have You Heard The One About…? - Spider Robinson
Shadow over Innsmouth is a classic! Can’t believe I left it off my list.
When I was a teenager, I read a terrific story in Omni Magazine called “Sandkings”. Only much later did I realize that it was written by George RR Martin. Wiki also says it’s a novelette, whatever that means, so I’m not sure if it counts here.
I’ve never heard the word “novelette”, but I know of novellas. I think that the borders between short stories, novellas and novels are quite stretchable. IMHO, a short story is up to 30 pages, a novella up to 100 and everything beyond is a novel.
According to Wikipedia,
The definition that the Hugos and Nebulas (science fiction awards) use is this:
- Short Story: Fewer than 7,500 words.
- Novelette: At least 7,500 words, but fewer than 17,500 words.
- Novella: At least 17,500 words, but fewer than 40,000 words.
- Novel: 40,000 words or more. [1, 2]
Some people use the term “flash fiction” for anything up to 1,000 or 1,500 words.
Ah, okay. “Sandkings” is 15,500 words, so that lines up.
Let me tell you, it’s an excellent novelette.
Death to the Easter Bunny - Alan Ryan
(You want to laugh and scream at the same time.)