Speculative Short Fiction Deserves Love discussion
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Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories is almost the entire reason I started writing short stories. Aaaaand, if anyone knows how to properly add titles using the GR app, I'm listening... >.>
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I picked up that book, then realized I should probably read her novel first and put it back down. Had you read the novel already?
Yes, I enjoyed Jonathan Strange & Mr Norril, but not nearly as much as her shorts. You don't need to know one for the other by any means. :)
I'm reading a collection of Francis Stevens's stories from University of Nebraska Press: http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/prod...I don't know if I'm enjoying it yet, but it's at least historically interesting and not difficult to read. The first story "The Nightmare" opens with (probably?) the torpedoing of the Lusitania, and there is some great writing in the description of a survivor who finds himself suddenly adrift on the ocean... So I'm hopeful when the stories start to get really weird there will be lots to like.
On the non-speculative side of things, I'm also reading a collection of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple short stories, which I am very much enjoying.
As with a lot of detective stories, there is a healthy dose of sensationalism, which does at times suggest the occult and fantastic... But Miss Marple always has a sensible down-to-earth answer. And I really like the idea that Miss Marple doesn't need to deviate from her quiet life in St Mary Meade to have interesting adventures.
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Charlotte wrote: "Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories is almost the entire reason I started writing short stories. Aaaaand, if anyone knows how to properly add titles using th..."
Oooh, yes, loved Ladies of Grace Adieu!
I'd like to recommend Patricia Russo's collection Shiny Thing. Patricia Russo's stories are like no others I come across; there's a curmudgeonly-ness combined with kindness, and I really like the voices of her narrators. She's been published in many, many spec-fic zines, and I always look out for her stories.
Charlotte wrote: "Susanna Clarke's The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories is almost the entire reason I started writing short stories..."Interesting. I had Jonathan Strange recommended to me by so many people and I just couldn't manage it, so maybe she will work better for me in short form. I have so little free time these days and what little I have is so broken up that tomes and I have had to part ways until I get some solid and connected free time.
Another reason to like short fiction right now. Sarah, I feel the same way you do about the Wimsey stories, and at one time I read a lot of mystery short fiction. For whatever reason I don't think he works as well short form.
Sarah wrote: "Interesting. I'm reading Dorothy Sayers' Peter Wimsey short stories right now and finding I prefer Wimsey at novel length. I haven't read a lot of mystery short fiction though, so this may be a case of my not having the reading toolkit for that genre."I have that book too! Or another just like it... Perhaps I'll read it when I'm done with Miss Marple. Though it doesn't sound very promising from the reviews in this thread.
Honestly, I can't think of any series of mystery short stories that I would enthusiastically recommend. Most that I've encountered quickly get repetitive or outlandish -- though there are a few detectives I'm curious to read more about (top of the list: Simenon's Jules Maigret and Chesterton's Father Brown).
But out of the handful I've read so far, Holmes is probably the most durable of the bunch. And the rest are... interesting, but not compelling. (Unless I've forgotten somebody, which is always possible.)
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I enthusiastically recommend Father Brown. Also Rumpole of the Bailey. They both work great in short form. I think they work because the writers keep the mystery to be solved within the bounds of something that can be worked through in a short story - they aren't terribly intricate and the solution is often found in just looking from a different perspective rather than a gradual gathering of small clues. I also think they work because in both cases there's a fair amount of humor about human foibles and blind spots.
Two good ones...Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor
Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee
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Sarah wrote: "I liked that she included some of her earliest stories in there. A lot of people hide their early fiction. I appreciate somebody who is willing to show it all."!
*jots this down furiously*
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Yay! And I even posted in it, and then promptly forgot that it existed. Ha. Recently read and enjoyed Permeable Borders
I really like Nina Kiriki Hoffman's short fiction a lot, she seems to be particularly gifted in that form. This collection is interesting because some of these are so short they feel like fragments as much as stories, to me anyway. Also some seem to have more narrative direction than others, some are very straightforward with a beginning middle end, but some sort of start in the middle and ramble about a bit and stop without a clear end.
But since most of the stories involve one or more of the same cast of characters, the whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts. Its not structured enough to feel entirely intentional but I end up feeling like I heard a series of anecdotes that gradually built up a picture of some fictional people.
Also, I'm not a musician so I can't speak from experience to how she handles music but there are a couple of music stories in here that I like. I particularly notice when music seems well handled to me because I sometimes feel like music doesn't work as well as it might in short stories. It becomes precious or it overloads the story or otherwise doesn't translate.
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I LOVED her early short fiction. All the stuff in Pulphouse and F & SF. Haven't read her more recent fiction, but I remember her handling music well. And I've always liked her voice and settings.
Back on my to-read list where it belongs.
I'm having the BEST time with Prophecies, Libels & Dreams: Stories.Here's just a little taste of the fun:
Like bees to honey, they cluster around him, Anibal Aguille y Wilkins, the golden boy of the Califa Police Department, thrice decorated, always decorative. Eyes like honey, skin as rich as molasses, a jaw square enough to serve as a cornerstone. He’s a dish, is Detective Wilkins, but that is only half of his charm. More than just ornamental, he gets the job done. When he is on the dog, no criminal is safe. He’s taken stealie boys and jackers, cagers and rum padders, sweeteners and dollymops. He’s arrested mashers and moochers, b- boys and bully rocks. He’s a real hero.
Everyone adores him. Well, not everyone. Not the shady element in Califa, who prefer their unlawful livelihoods and criminal hobbies to go unmolested. Not the families of those he has sent to the drop. They hate and fear Detective Wilkins. But the honest citizens of Califa consider him a real trump. Except for one lone constable, who thinks he is a real jackass. And whose opinion matters to this story as we shall soon hear. Hold that thought; you’ll need it later.
The language of these stories is inventive and colloquial and silly and excessive and intricate and full of wordplay for the sheer fun of it, so if you'd rather a story that just gets straight to the point already for goodness sake! this might make you a bit nuts. But if you like that sort of thing, this is a good example of that sort of thing.
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It's a collection of short stories about Califa, which is the alternate history California in which her novels are set. Goodreads tends to be a little completist about marking everything as part of a series if it has any connection. This really isn't part of the series it's just set in the same place as the novels and concerns some of the same characters but there isn't an overall story arc. For me in order to be really a series there needs to be a larger story arc that all the elements are part of. I feel the same way about Discworld which is listed as a series and then people are afraid to read the books out of order but there's no reason you can't read the books out of order. In fact there really isn't an order. Each one can stand alone they're just sharing a common setting
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Hi Alex, so you got it right when you mentioned your book in the "celebrate" section and the introductions. But now this is your third mention of your book in your three comments, and your book doesn't actually seem to be speculative, and you haven't contributed to any other thread. This is where self-promotion turns into spamming our group.
In the past year or so, I've read several single-author collections that I was very impressed by - in all senses of the word. Jagannath, Karen Tidbeck
Mortal Clay, Stone Heart and Other Stories, Eugie Foster
After the Apocalypse, Maureen McHugh
Conservation of Shadows, Yoon Ha Lee
Shoggoths in Bloom, Elizabeth Bear
Also, a former professor of mine published a collection of short spec fic a while back, many of which I found quite good. I would mention this collection even if I didn't know the author.
Horror Story and other Stories, Robert Boyczuk
My ever-growing pile of to-read books means that so many books fall farther behind. I've got an e-copy of Jagannath (I think from a book bundle) that I've been wanting to read, but am in award season mode right now, so I don't know when I'll get to it. :/
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Jagannath, Karen Tidbeck
Mortal Clay, Stone Heart and Other Stories, ..."
I loved After the Apocalypse. I've been meaning to read a bunch of those collections.
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So weird! So delightful!
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Like everyone here, my "to-read" list is enormous, but I have always enjoyed short story collections, from William Faulkner to Ambrose Bierce to Stephen King to Ray Bradbury. I need to discover newer authors who have a dark and twisted bent. Some I've seen in this thread seem to fit the bill.
Sarah wrote: "Misha, have you seen Wristcutters: A Love Story? It's a movie based on a Keret piece, and I adore it."That movie is superb. I did not know it was based on a short story.
I finally finished Theodora Goss's collection In the Forest of Forgetting this weekend. It took me months because some of the stories were so lovely, I wanted to let them rest in my mind before I charged on.
Tanith Lee's Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer is -- uneven. But the title story is stunning.
Speculative Short Fiction Deserves Love
Books mentioned in this topic
Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer (other topics)Jagannath (other topics)
Impromptu Scribe (other topics)
Impromptu Scribe (other topics)
Prophecies, Libels & Dreams (other topics)
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Some recent favorites off the top of my head:
At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories by Kij Johnson
The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories, Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands by Ursula Le Guin
Suddenly, a Knock on the Door by Etgar Keret
After the Apocalypse by Maureen McHugh
Right now I'm reading through The Best of Frederik Pohl, one story a day.