3.69 avg rating — 42,933 ratings

4.16 avg rating — 288,998 ratings

""Nearly all of these short stories have downer endings.""

4.07 avg rating — 861 ratings

""...the Animals, having lost their innocence, must bear the weight of evil rather than completely overcoming it.""

3.96 avg rating — 8,279 ratings

""...Quincas Borba, sick and skeletal, desperately runs away searching for his dead friend and dies in the street three days later.""

4.27 avg rating — 12,627 ratings

4.23 avg rating — 10,400 ratings

"Automated house survives nuclear war alone."

3.48 avg rating — 254 ratings

3.23 avg rating — 88 ratings

3.60 avg rating — 50 ratings

3.60 avg rating — 126 ratings

3.63 avg rating — 1,196 ratings

3.91 avg rating — 2,396 ratings

3.78 avg rating — 2,923 ratings

""...poor old man just wanted to go for an evening walk and ends up getting sent to an insane asylum...""

3.49 avg rating — 823 ratings

4.26 avg rating — 39,468 ratings

""...he never had children, and thus, didn't pass down the legacy of humanity's misery.""

4.15 avg rating — 229,803 ratings

""...ends with every character in the posse dying, except for a figure which is either the villain...""

3.89 avg rating — 26,564 ratings

""...a last-minute attempt to save his and Rinthy's baby, but the strangers kill it first, rendering Rinthy's year-long journey to find it completely pointless...""

4.06 avg rating — 94,806 ratings

""The Tale of Túrin Turambar is one of the most tragic and central stories in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium, often regarded as his darkest tale.""

4.09 avg rating — 18,583 ratings

""The city is sacked, most of its inhabitants are killed, and the survivors flee, only for their leader, Tuor, to eventually disappear at sea...""

4.30 avg rating — 7,595 ratings

""...the greatest civilization of Men was destroyed by divine intervention after being corrupted by Sauron...""