Can anyone suggest some linked (by character) short story collections?

The Second Moon

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I love writing linked short story collections, but the thing is, I've never read one. I've searched for months now, but I can't find any that are linked by the same character. By "linked by the same character" I mean that the same character (or two) tells all the stories.

Can anyone suggest any? I would prefer something written in present day. I like science-fiction and fantasy.

Thanks!
 

Richard White

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Well, I'd recommend my own For a Few Gold Pieces More *grin*, but SF and Fantasy have a number of good collections. Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser show up in several collections, Michael Moorcock's Elric cycle, The Thieves' World series focuses on the same group of characters shared among various authors.

A more SF vein would be The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A. E. van Vogt while listed as a novel read like a series of short stories to me. The Star Trek Corps of Engineers e-series was a monthly collection of novellas about the same crew, Roger Zelazny's "The Long A.R.M of the Law" collecition and My Name is Legion also might fit your bill. Also, Earthman's Burden and Hoka by Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson are classic SF humor.

I'm sure people will be able to give you other examples. Maybe the St. Germain series (vampire tales) . . . can't remember if there were short story collections in there or not. Been a LONG time since I read them.
 
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Elle.

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The only thing that comes to mind which is recent would be Zoe Gilbert's Folk. All the short stories takes place in the same fictional village so the cast of characters appears in the stories however the MC tends to change from story to story.
 

Friendly Frog

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If you mean the same character narating, I got nothing.

If you mean one or two main characters recurring in one short story collection, I can recommend the Familiarity collection by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Several short stories about a magic potion-shopkeeper and his feline familiar.
 

Chris P

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Not SFF, but I enjoyed John Updike's The Maples Stories, following the lives of a married couple from the 50s to the 70s.
 

Ellis Clover

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Not SFF and marketed as a novel, but Olive Kitteridge is basically a collection of short stories with a central character. Gorgeous writing, too.
 

The Second Moon

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I'm going to bring my old thread back to life. I've still haven't found linked (by character) short story collection, but I'm going back to this thread and re-examining your suggestions.

Read the first post for my preferences, please
 

Paul Lamb

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You might try casting your net a little wider and search for story cycles. They're collections of short stories that have something common about them, whether characters or theme or setting. Faulkner's (very difficult) Go Down, Moses is an example.
 

mrsmig

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Not in present day, but I enjoyed George R.R. Martin's Tuf Voyaging, a collection of short stories about Haviland Tuf, an exceptionally tall, bald, very pale, overweight, phlegmatic, vegetarian, cat-loving-but-otherwise solitary space trader.
 

Brightdreamer

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Been thinking about this, and the only other collection that qualifies (that I've read) might be the Witcher tales by Andrzej Sapkowski, which are both shorts and novels and are ongoing, though they started in the 1980's/1990's.

In classic SF, there's Stanislaw Lem's Star Diaries and Memoirs of a Space Traveler, which were somewhat humorous/satirical stories of a hapless star traveler, and of course Fritz Leiber's lighthearted Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories of sword and sorcery.
 
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Paul Lamb

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If you want to step out of SFF you may find the stories about Nero Wolfe to be what you're after. I think they're all narrated by his "assistant" Archie Goodwin. Really good television series too.
 

litdawg

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This is a common technique in literary writing. See, for instance, Sherman Alexie's short story collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
 

AW Admin

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Armistead Maupin Tales of the City. Boccacio De Cameron. Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales.

See also "Shared world" anthologies, mostly but not exclusively, SF/F in nature; Thieve's World, Liavek, Borderland.
 

lonestarlibrarian

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Giant chunks of mystery/adventure are going to fall into that criteria. Most of them prior to WW2 were originally written in magazines, and then later compiled into anthologies. Others written later in time were originally written for other people's anthologies, and then, when there were enough short stories, compiled into the author's own anthology. I know you say you like present-day stories (by which I take it you mean things written in the last 5 years?) but you cut yourself off from a lot of great, readable stuff, especially from the early/mid-20th c.

On the fantasy/sci-fi side of things-- the Conan stories, for example. A lot of Miles Vorkosigan stories are either short stories or novellas.

On the mystery side of things--- Nero Wolfe, as was suggested, for sure. And then a bunch of the other famous ones-- Sherlock Holmes, Peter Wimsey, Miss Marple, Poirot, Harley Quin, Parker Pyne. There are two Selena Mead books I really enjoyed-- one was a short story anthology, and the other was a novel, except each chapter had originally been published as a stand-alone story. So there was a very nice payoff at every single chapter, which you don't normally get...
 
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stephenf

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My suggestion doesn't quite fit your requirements, but Jake Arnott's The Long Firm is a novel made up of interlinking short stories . It is about Harry Starks ,a homosexual mobster in the early sixties London . Even if you don't think it's your cup of tea , it is worth investigating.
 
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writergirl1994

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'Jesus' Son' by Denis Johnson is pretty good. All the stories are about a drug addict living on the fringes of society.