The #1 Best Short Story of All Time/Favorite Short Story

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tariqshwa

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off the top of my head...

-"views of my father weeping," barthelme
-"trilobites," breece pancake
-"for esme, with love and squalor," jd salinger
-"the swimmer," john cheever
-"cathedral," raymond carver
-"emergency," denis johnson
 

kennyc

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I've re-read "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty a couple of times recently. What an incredible story.

Yesterday I read another one that is sticking in my brain... Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston.
the dialect can make you work a bit, but man what a story!
 

Vladimir Grimmasi

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The Ninth Skeleton by Clark Ashton Smith
That was one of the stories that got me in to reading, so you could say I get a bit nostalgic about it.
 

OJCade

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This is another relatively new one, but "Love Over Glass, Skin Under Glass" by Penny Stirling (published in Aurealis, #64) is just one of the mot wonderful things I've ever read.
 

InspectorFarquar

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With apologies to Hemingway (probably 4 of my top 10) and Checkov (The Peasants!) and so many others, I put Bartleby, the Scrivener (Melville) on top of my personal heap. For me, a truly life altering read. Aside: I read a while back that there's been more literary criticism written on Bartleby than on Moby Dick. Which surprised, although I think that's how it should be ( the former "must read," and the latter, "Must I read?")

Also, re: Kobo Abe — I loved Box Man.
 
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euclid

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Thanks for that story, WritersCryWhiskey. So much of the detail was lost to me because of cultural differences, but still a moving story. Brilliant idea for a story. Brilliant story.
 

Fujuman

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My favorite short story has to be "Blood Music" by Greg Bear. It may have something to do with it being the first adult SF story I read, or at least understood, but something about it sticks with me. The imagery he creates is unsettling, but treated by some characters as beautiful. It was also the first story I read with a malignant ending outside the horror genre. While I like to write benign endings, I think that the former can make for a better story when done right.
 

gbondoni

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I love so many of the stories on this thread... but my all time favorite is a bit of a dark horse: "Zima Blue" by Alastair Reynolds.
 

cmi0616

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"Forever Overhead" by David Foster Wallace has been one that's always stuck with me. It's just so damn technically sound, not to mention incredibly moving. Interesting, since it's probably the least cerebral/most visceral thing Wallace ever wrote, and it's always been the one I've liked best.
 

williemeikle

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If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise.


STICKS is Karl Edward Wagner's homage to the weird tradition, and has been collected several times since it first appeared in Whispers back in the early '70s. It's also, purportedly, based on a true story of illustrator Lee Brown Coye's experiences in 1938 in a farmhouse in the Mann Brook region. I didn't know that when I first read it, in the Arkham House reprint of the 'Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos' anthology, and even if I had, it couldn't have made the impact of the tale any stronger than it was already.


I don't know if it's because I'm a country lad and spent a lot of my time rambling in woodland and playing with sticks myself, but something in this story crept into me and stayed there. I was reminded of it strongly in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and that made the movie even more creepy for me, but the story itself, simple enough as it is in plot, has depth and heft and a capacity to make you look over your shoulder to make sure you're not being watched. It still strikes a chord today, even after repeated readings.


It's the kind of story I aspire to write, and reminds me, in a way, of Algernon Blackwood's THE WILLOWS, or Machen's THE WHITE PEOPLE. It's in good company, and deserves to be.
 

Beanie5

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I have no mouth but I must scream.
Harlan Ellison who I never have been a fan off.
See he sued terminator over it for an out of court settlement, and you can't help think the Aliens byline borrowed the title.
 

porlock

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Most of mine are mysteries - I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Chandler and Dashell Hammett. My favorite opening is "Red Wind" by Chandler. Hammett's "Red Harvest" is one of my favorites - but really too many to count.
 
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Everything from Anton Chekhov and Ivan Turgenev.

By the way, Anton Chekhov is the King of short stories. Read something from him if you haven't already. He is one of the best writers of short fiction in history.
If you like horror and short fiction, Ivan Turgenev is the one for you. (E.A. Poe is great too)
 
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