classic genre short stories

Haggis · Jun 19, 2008

I'm trying to put together a list of 6 to 10 classic short stories, representative of many different genres from horror to mystery to western to humor to whatever. I'll be sharing the list with a reading group that's pressuring me to join them.

(smilie added for the benefit of guilty party who also plays at AW).

I've got about five stories picked out. Anyone want to add their favorite?

Mine so far:

Ambrose Bierce: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge--historical fiction

Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart--horror

Mark Twain: A Dog's Tale--satire

O. Henry: The Ransom of Red Chief--humor

Edgar Allan Poe: Murders in the Rue Morgue--mystery

williemeikle · Jun 19, 2008

M R James, Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad - ghost story ( I always think of the ghost story as a distinct sub-genre of its own.)

Arthur C Clarke, The Nine Billion Names of God - science fiction

Willie

williemeikle · Jun 19, 2008

Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis - literary

TheIT · Jun 19, 2008

williemeikle said:
Arthur C Clarke, The Nine Billion Names of God - science fiction

Willie

Great minds think alike! I was about to recommend the same story.

Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall" is also classic SF.

Ken · Jun 19, 2008

Jack London: To Build A Fire--survival (wilderness)

mikeland · Jun 19, 2008

Some obvious ones, to be sure, but worth the list.

The Lottery -- Shirley Jackson

Any number of stories by Ray Bradbury, but I like The Veldt and All Summer in a Day.

Isaac Asimov -- something out of I, Robot

TerzaRima · Jun 19, 2008

M R James, Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad - ghost story

I adore this one.

How about:

In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, William H. Gass--postmodern.

The Swimmer, by John Cheever. That or his The Enormous Radio. I guess the genre would be, I dunno, magic realism? Cheever is just Cheever.

The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Gilman. Horror, but subtle with it.

A Good Man is Hard to Find, by Flannery O'Connor.

Oh! You have to put in some Willa Cather. How about Why I Live at the P.O.?

Lyra Jean · Jun 19, 2008

Edgar Allen Poe - "The Fall of the House of Usher"

also

Bradbury wrote a version of this story in his book, The Martian Chronicles, where a man moves to Mars rebuilds the House of Usher. He then invites all the censors who live on Earth to his house and kills them using the different ways that Poe killed his characters in his stories. To keep from being found out as they are killed off one by one they are replaced with robots. It's a great story and my favorite out of The Martian Chronicles.

I don't have the book with me right now but I will get the exact title of the short when I get back home.

Now it's time for class.

Bubastes · Jun 19, 2008

Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut (sci fi).

blacbird · Jun 19, 2008

Some good lists. Let me see if I can add a few more:

"Wine in the Desert" -- Max Brand (western)
"Afterward" -- Edith Wharton (ghost/horror)
"The Monkey's Paw" -- W.W. Jacobs (just plain creepy horror)
"The New Accelerator" -- H.G. Wells (SF)
"The Five Orange Pips" -- Arthur Conan Doyle (mystery)
"The Horde of the Gibbelins" -- Lord Dunsany (fantasy)
"The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" -- Mark Twain (humor)

caw

LaceWing · Jun 19, 2008

For magic realism

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: A Tale For Children
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

available here http://salvoblue.homestead.com/wings.html

kuwisdelu · Jun 19, 2008

"The Judgment," Kafka - literary

"The Garden of Forking Paths," "The Circular Ruins," "The Secret Miracle," Borges - magical realism

"Guts," Palahniuk - horror

"Araby," "The Dead," Joyce - literary

Haggis · Jun 19, 2008

Gah! There are so many good stories. How to pick?

The Lottery, Calaveras County and Metamorphosis are already on my short list. And I'd forgotten that Vonnegut did some shorts. I'm gonna have to check out some of the others.

Great suggestions, guys. Keep 'em coming. If it's too many for the group, I'll read them myself.

C.bronco · Jun 19, 2008

Melville: "Bartleby the Scrivener" and "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids."

Bradbury: "A Sound of Thunder," and "The Fog Horn."

Carver, "Cathedrals."

Flannery O'Connor: "Revelations"

Eudora Welty: "Why I live at the P.O."

Stephen King: "Gray Matter," "Quitters Inc."

Lyra Jean · Jun 19, 2008

Here is the title of that one short in The Martian Chronicles by Bradbury

April 2005: Usher II

LaceWing · Jun 19, 2008

I. B. Singer's Gimpel the Fool

http://www3.telus.net/Gimpel_Family/Gimpelthefool.html

waylander · Jun 20, 2008

Flowers for Algernon - classic SF, in the original short story form

Troo · Jun 20, 2008

More Tomorrow, Michael Marshall Smith: Horror.

eyeblink · Jun 29, 2008

Story of Your Life - Ted Chiang (SF)
The Dead - James Joyce (literary - the last story in Dubliners)
The Cloud - John Fowles (literary - the last story in The Ebony Tower)
Only Partly Here - Lucius Shepard (dark fantasy, the best post-9/11 story I've read)
Beggars in Spain - Nancy Kress (SF - the original story, a I haven't read the novel it was expanded into)
Martyrdom - Joyce Carol Oates (literary/horror and not for the squeamish)

I notice all the above are novelettes and novellas so here's a short story:

Singing My Sister Down - Margo Lanagan (literary/horror/YA)

Chris Huff · Jun 30, 2008

I'd second anything out of I, Robot.

Heinlein's "Life-Line."

Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu," "Pickman's Model," "Colour Out of Space," "At the Mountains of Madness," "Dunwich Horror," and so many others. These are the tops, IMO.

If you're not just going for genre fiction, then Hemingway. "Hills Like White Elephants" is the one most read for short story classes.

O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi."

And you can't go wrong with Neil Gaiman. He's got three anthologies out now, Angels and Visitations, Smoke and Mirrors, and Fragile Things. Most of Angels was reprinted in Smoke. Smoke and Fragile are in paperback. The stories you should really look for are "Chivalry," "Murder Mysteries," and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head, but those are the best.

Tburger · Jun 30, 2008

Saki - "The Music on the Hill" and "Shredni Vashtar" (horror-ish)
Saki - for humor, the guy can't be beat

emeraldcite · Jun 30, 2008

Guy de Maupassant, "The Necklace." -- classic twist.

ChimeraCreative · Jul 2, 2008

I pretty much echo Chris Huff's sentiments. O Henry's "Gift of the Magi" sprang to mind right away. And outta Robot Dreams or I, Robot, I think I would recommend Asimov's "Bicentennial Man".

-An

Summonere · Jul 6, 2008

Not all of these are classics, or even short stories (some stretch a bit), but I have, at one time or another, enjoyed them. Those marked with an asterisk have made a mark of one kind or another in their field.

H.P. Lovecraft - "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"* HORROR.

Harlan Ellison - "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"* ; "'Repent, Harlequin!' said the Ticktockman"* SF

William Hjortsberg - "Gray Matters" (Okay, a bit long, but good.) SF

Clive Barker - "The Midnight Meat Train"* HORRORS/SPLATTERPUNK

William Gibson - "Johnny Mnemonic" SF

Bruce Sterling - "Green Days in Brunei" SF

Marquis de Sade - "Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man" (Very short play.)

Poppy Z. Brite - "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves" HORROR

Thomas Pynchon - "Under the Rose" LIT

Italo Calvino - "Invisible Cities" (Shorty novel, but not you typical storytelling mode.) ; "The Dinosaurs," from the collection Cosmicomics. FANTASY

Kurt Vonnegut - "The Manned Missiles" SF/LIT

Alvah · Jul 6, 2008

Big Blonde --- Dorothy Parker

All that You Love Will Be Carried Away --- Stephen King

classic genre short stories

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