What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

UPDATE (2019-02-14):
summary in #66; has links for RIO.
summary in #67; has the rest of the list.


I'm looking for some of you who're slightly older - which short stories have stuck with you for *years*, that you still think back upon / remember vividly?

I'm particularly interested in scifi, fantasy and horror - but if you've got something in a different genre: western, action, thriller, crime, etc - we'll give it a whirl.

I'm not looking for novels / whole books. There are plenty of 'best of novels' lists available... but the short stories seem to get some awards and then discarded; the popular ones pop up in anthologies - but a number (even award-winning ones) seem to just fall through the cracks.

Have you read An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and The Last Question? (I may have added the links to the collections, but I mean title stories)

They are not actually little-known, but I've been impressed, and yes, I read both these stories more than 5 years ago and am still impressed.

Unfortunately some stories left a greater impression on me than their respective authors, meaning, I can remember the story but not who wrote it, which leaves us with mostly known authors/stories I'm afraid.
Also not sure how much older you are looking for:

The Box, by Richard Ketchum - Horror
Trick or Treat, by Judith Garner - Horror / Suspense
Sitting In The Corner, Whimpering Quietly by Dennis Etchison - Horror / Thriller
An Infinity of Karen, by Lawrence Watt-Evans - Science Fiction
Dark Cavalry by Eric Brown - Science Fiction / Horror
I Borrow Dave's Time Machine, by S. N. Dyer - Science Fiction / Humour

The Lottery has got to be the first one on anyone's list.

The Birds this might actually qualify more as a novelette than a short story, but this is what Alfred Hitchcock based his movie on. It still gives me the creeps, even after all these years.

Toads of Grimmerdale from Wizards' Worlds

Unfortunately, many of the others short stories that still stick in my mind have had their titles and authors disappear into the sands of time. (There was this one where 2 humans have their spaceship run into troubles while orbiting the Moon and they set down in what they think is a crater--only to have the crater open up and swallow their ship. . . . Really do wish I could find that one again.)

All Cats are Grey is another one by Andre Norton that I've loved for years. But then again--I AM a cat person, and my youngest brother was, much like the MC in this story, totally colour blind. Most colour-blind people can not see only one set of colours, like they can see blue/yellow but not Red/green--although I'm no longer sure what the colour sets are any more. But my brother and the MC in this story see NO colours at all. I think that's one of the reasons that this one stuck in my mind, because I knew first hand someone who also suffered from the condition.

Definitely The Lottery. Kids, if you haven't read that one, rush out and read it now!

Ganymede by Daphne du Maurier.

Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl.

Harrison Bergeron

I'll just list a couple of my favorites that you can read online.

Okay, make that more than a couple. It's amazing what you can find online. Legally, even!

Monument by Lloyd Biggle Jr. A man who's been living on a paradise planet with innocent natives does his best to ensure they won't be taken advantage of when "civilization" inevitably finds and exploits them. The last line is one of my favorites of all time.

Field Test by Keith Laumer is another favorite. Laumer wrote a lot of stories about the Bolos, massively powerful AI controlled tanks that were humanity's first line of defense for thousands of years. Bolos started out as basically drones, but became much more than that. Field Test tells the story about the first Bolo that was truly a soldier, rather than a dumb machine. Again, the last line is one of my favorites.

Combat Unit is another fantastic Bolo story.

Superiority by Arthur C Clarke is about the dangers of always pursuing newer and sexier technology, rather than just getting the job done with what you've already got.

Arena by Frederic Brown is a good one. A human is forced into one on one combat with an alien to decide the fates of both their races. Remember the Gorn fighting Captain Kirk on Star Trek? That episode was based - badly - on this story.

A Pail Of Air by Fritz Leiber is about surviving when the planet gets so cold that even the atmosphere stops being gaseous.

Who Goes There? by John W Campbell is the story that inspired the various movies called "The Thing." Great read.

Answer by Frederic Brown is short enough it doesn't really need a summary.

The Ugly Chickens by Howard Waldrop is more of a novella than a short story, but it's a great read.

Night Of The Cooters by Howard Waldrop asks the burning question, "What if H.G. Wells' Martians had also invaded Pachuca County, Texas, and gone up against a sheriff modeled on the actor Slim Pickens?" Turns out things don't go as well for them as in England.

All right, that's enough.

Peter wrote: "A Pail Of Air by Fritz Leiber is about surviving when the planet gets so cold that even the atmosphere stops being gaseous...."

Completely forgot about that one, brilliant!

Brown's a genious of the short story, always found his "Nighmare in blue" to be rather disturbing.

From the popular short story authors there's also Robert Sheckley to name, by whom you can pick any story, they are all great, and Theodore Sturgeon; love his "It" most, I firmly believe that it inspired DC's Swamp Thing.

The Purple Pterodactyls: The Adventures of W. Wilson Newbury, Ensorcelled Financier is a book where most of the stories are totally enjoyable.

The Reluctant Shaman: And Other Fantastic Tales again a good selection of stories.

Three short stories, all by Robert A. Heinlein.
Thought provoking: "All You Zombies"
Make you cry: :Green Hills Of Earth", "The Long Watch"
(Johnny's body was brought back to Earth and then the rocket was sent away so it would never be used for a lesser purpose....)

"Yoo Retoont, Sneogg. Ay Noo." by Marek Huberath
it's available to read for free on http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/ar...

Oh yes, I second The Lottery :)

"There may come soft rains" by Ray Bradbury

"Where are you going, where have you been" by Joyce Carol Oates

"A good man is hard to find" by Flannery O'Connor

"The screw-fly solution" by Raccoona Sheldon aka James Tiptree

"2 B R 0 2 B" by Kurt Vonnegut

Everything -- literally everything -- by Ted Chiang; most are contained in Stories of Your Life and Others

Several of the ones I remember have been mentioned already. But there's also the title story from The Anything Box by Zenna Henderson. It's fantasy and I first read it decades ago but remembered it enough to have looked it up again recently.

Oh, and several O'Henry, like The Gift of the Magi. And The Catbird seat by Thurber.

Other People, by Neil Gaiman
The Quest of Iranon, by HP Lovecraft

"With a Finger in My I" by David Gerrold. A very clever story of a world where figures of speech are taken literally and one's thoughts and words can actually change reality. I've read this numerous times and it never ceases to tickle me. A funny story with sinister undertones. If you enjoy wordplay check it out.

This is a challenging request!

Sup/Horror:
"The Carp of My Dreams” and "The Chrysanthemum Vow" is one of my favorites from Ueda Akinari's seminal 1776 collection Tales of Moonlight and Rain. Spooky and alluring all at once.

Edith Wharton - "After Holbein": her second-best story about lifelong frenemies :P

Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives has a few startling domestic horror pieces in it that have stuck with me, particularly Margaret Millar's "The People Across the Canyon", Nedra Tyre's "A Nice Place to Stay". They also provide a nice illustration of where crime fiction overlaps with gothic horror.


SF/Speculative Fiction:
I feel like Vandana Singh's "Delhi" has been collected everywhere, but it def deserves it for being a bomb-ass time-travel story. I'm also a big fan of the titular story of her The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet collection.

Don't have it on me so I can't pick out any particular stories, but Robot Dreams is probably the essential Isaac Asimov book out there.

Speaking of classics, you can't go wrong with Jorge Luis Borges' trippy "The Garden of Forking Paths" right?

I also second Ray Bradbury's lovely "There may come soft rains". While I'm not a huge fan of Ted Chiang, "The Story of Your Life" is a goodie.


Fantasy:
An old favorite is Vivian Vande Velde's "The Witch's Son" (Curses, Inc. and Other Stories) which is a deeply felt take on the resurrection tale that really capitalizes on its historical setting.

Of more recent vintage, I've become a huge fan of Kelly Link. Her stories are free-wheeling, irreverent, dazzling, and terrifying-- often all at once. Particular favorites I go back to time and again are "Magic for Beginners", "The Surfer", and "The Constable of Abal".

Kaion wrote: "Speaking of classics, you can't go wrong with Jorge Luis Borges' trippy "The Garden of Forking Paths" right?"

Oh yes! How could I have left out Borges?? Great choice.

Anything by Ray Bradbury. Especially 'Illustrated Man, or Martian Chronicles". Bradbury could write a shopping list and it would be beautiful.

I agree with all the Bradbury love. Also Roger Zelazny - I wish I had something specific in mind, but all of his short fiction is generally worth reading.

Harlan Ellison has a ton of great short fiction. I recommend The Essential Ellison, it's a fantastic 35-year retrospective. "Jeffty is Five," "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream", and "Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman" are among my favorites.

For a more contemporary choice, Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts is simply jaw-droppingly amazing. This collection is easily one of the best books I've read in the last 20 years. I loved just about every story in this book, but Pop Art is really something special, original, weird, and beautiful.

Not sure if it qualifies as a short, but Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon is another one that should be required reading.

Scott wrote: "Harlan Ellison has a ton of great short fiction."

He certainly has. I'd recommend anything in Deathbird Stories. It was my introduction to his work and reading it in high school made a huge impression. If I have to pick from it, I'd go with "The Deathbird" or "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs."

Great idea for a list, and great recommendations! Here are a few of my favorite shorts:

"Closing Time" by Neil Gaiman (first thing I read by him and it got me hooked instantly)

"Safety Zone" by Ramsey Campbell

"The Small Assassin" by Ray Bradbury

"The Legend of Joe Lee" by John D. McDonald (Florida ghost story shout-out!)

"Flying Dutchman" by Ward Moore (a great anti-war tale)

"Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream" by James Alan Gardner. Brilliant and original SF.

"Candle Cove" by Kris Straub. Fantasy/horror, available on-line.

"Titanium Mike Saves the Day" by David D. Levine.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Rappacini's Daughter is fabulous and memorable, I read that one in high school and actually went back and read it again several times. Though I always love a good Sherlock Holmes story the only one that scared me to death was The Speckled Band, I listened to a really good reading of it ... at night. Then I had trouble sleeping. The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories I read it college and felt it was important to read and it stuck.

Hillary wrote: "Nathaniel Hawthorne's Rappacini's Daughter is fabulous and memorable, I read that one in high school and actually went back and read it again several times. Though I always love a g..."

Duh, how could I forget The Yellow Wallpaper?

A couple more oldie-but-goodie horror stories:

"Hop Frog" by Edgar Allan Poe
"Luella Miller" by Mary Wilkins Freeman

Pamela wrote:

"Candle Cove" by Kris Straub. Fantasy/horror, also on-lin..."

http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Can...

I also highly recommend Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John stories, which are a mixture of fantasy and horror.

I second Kelly Link, especially "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose" and "The Specialist's Hat," both from Stranger Things Happen. Also Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald," which you can find free online.

I'll second the recommendation for Wellman's Silver John stories. One collection, John The Balladeer, is available for free online:

http://hell.pl/szymon/Baen/When%20the...

Former SUMMARY list (it got too big with all the RIO linkage)

UPDATE (2019-02-14):
summary in #66; has links for RIO.
summary in #67; has the rest of the list.

The Ray Bradbury books are collections of short stories--and they were probably suggested because it's so hard to pick just one. (At least, I couldn't pick just one, and I've read book books, and remember most of the stories.)

I have a whole bunch of short stories that stick in my mind that I have no idea who wrote or what their titles are. But the memory of the stories lives on.

Oh, and since I didn't see it on the list, I'm going to add I am Legend (the short story that all 3 movies were based on.) I Am Legend and Other Stories is a link to a book with the story in it.

And, having hit POST I remembered another couple that I DID know the titles of. But I decided to just list them in a separate post, instead of tacking them onto the previous posting.

The Last Defender of Camelot by Roger Zelazny This has been made into a made-for-tv movie that starred Jenny Agutter as Morgan La Fay and Richard Kiley as the (very) aged Lancelot.

Damnation Alley which I'm not totally certain belongs here, since it was possibly a novella rather than a short story. And it too was made into a movie starring George Peppard. (Again, I think a made-for-tv-movie.)

I thought _I Am Legend_ was a novel; yes, not a meganovel by today's standards, but a novel nonetheless.

Btw, I'm updating the summary post, if anyone is following along. So back up and recheck it, if you'd already read it - filling in links as I have time/inclination, added a recommendation, etc, etc.

"Into the Miranda Rift" by G. David Nordley contains probably the most realistic characters I've ever read about in sci-fi. All of the characters are very flawed, very human, and very relatable. It's about a group of scientists trapped inside the underground caves of a moon, and they have to work together to figure out how to survive.

Searching for a Two-way Street inAmnesty Anthology is slightly chilling. Slightly falls into scifi? probably more dystopia. It's been five years since I read it, and I remember mostly how I felt while reading it.

The music of Erich Zann by HP Lovecraft
The yellow wallpaper

SF:
-"Jokester" by Isaac Asimov
- "The Tomb Wife" by Gwyneth Jones (available here: http://will.tip.dhappy.org/blog/Compr...)

More horror:
- "The Demon Lover" by Elizabeth Bowen is a classic (and darkly funny) example of the gothic.
- Mary Flanagan wonderfully captures the desperation of a housewife going mad in her dark "Cream Sauce".

Most of mine have already been mentioned; my first stop would be all of Poe.

Also, not classics, but you might really enjoy the free original short fiction from Tor.com:
http://www.tor.com/category/all-ficti...
Some of them are misses, but for the most part they are at least an enjoyable read and a few are brilliant. You can filter by genre, or author, or editor (if you notice someone who consistently acquires good stuff). My favorites tend to be the gory ones, so I'm not going to make particular recommendations, but they're free and one or two new ones go up every week.

Saki is awesome! A lot of his stuff is satirical social commentary, but he has a few freaky stories. Try The Beastly Chronicles Of Saki
Sredni Vashtar is one of his more mild freaky stories.

seconding the suggestion of Harlan Ellison. He had been my favorite author for a very long time.

I'd also add the v sort stories of Robert Heinlein. Expanded Universe is a good collection.

Robert Silverberg edited several collections of classic SF shorts, and there are Hugo Winners collections that are worth looking for.

Gerd wrote: "Unfortunately some stories left a greater impression on me than their respective authors, meaning, I can remember the story but not who wrote it."

That is the whole point of this group, Gerd :D

There's a lovely Unsolved folder, which I've used to find those distinctive stories, that I lost the author/title to.

So, any shorts that you don't know; but have the gist of the story - ask for them there, then come fill this one out with those memorable lost stories.

The Little Black Bag and Other Stories, the title story, is one of the funniest and most interesting genre crossovers I've read.

Yeah, that's already on my list. The little black bag from the future :D

Justanotherbiblophile wrote:
So, any shorts that you don't know; but have the gist of the story - ask for them there, then come fill this one out with those memorable lost stories.

Absolutely! We love helping people find their half-remembered stories.

Reading Sredni Vashtar gave me an eerie feeling. Still does. I like Saki's short stories very much in general :)
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/sk-vashta...

Mujina is a very short Japanese ghost story by Lafcadio Hearn that I also recommend.
http://www.trussel.com/hearn/mujina.htm

Heh, I linked a different version of Sredni Vashtar :D

Phil wrote: "Great idea for a list, and great recommendations! Here are a few of my favorite shorts:
...
"Safety Zone" by Ramsey Campbell"

Hey @Phil, I don't find this story by this author.

There's "Accident Zone" (1977), "The One Safe Place" (1995), and "Safe Words" (2009).

Could it be "Safety Zone" by Barry Malzberg, instead?

Sorry - Accident Zone is correct

Also check out The Graveyard Companion: Tales Of Hauntings And Horrors - great collection by a father and son. They also wrote Festival Of Fiends, which included some stories from the first book with a few new ones. They have a neat writing style and the tales are truly chilling.

Just finished Ellison's "Shoppe Keeper" included in Shatterday - a new twist on an old literary concept.

Just remembered this one, too -

Where Angels Come In by Adam Nevill

Very atmospheric and creepy

Terry Bison's "They're Made Out of Meat" (added to the summary)