I would like to hear peoples thoughts on short stories. Is it something you read, occasionally or often?
Most other readers I know read mostly novels - and often long series with recurring characters or same universe. I have been there myself, mostly in the science fiction genre, but in the last couple of years I have switched to mostly reading short stories. I found many novels that had decent stories, but they were simply too long and felt padded. Many 600 pages novels that could have been 200 pages - or even less. With short stories I can get the joys of several good stories in a week and the bad ones doesn’t feel like a huge time waste.
However it seems like the trend with many forms of cultural consumption these days are familiarity. Season after season of the same tv series. Series of movies in same universe. Book series with recurring characters and many seem to think the longer the better. Especially in fantasy.
Many writers start with short stories before their first novel and many readers will try a short story as a sort of sample of that author. Nothing wrong with that, but short stories deserves recognition on its own merit and I love when otherwise well established authors are still publishing short stories.
A novel is usually better for longer character developments or grand world building, but for me there is great value in “less is more”. Don’t always need the entire backstory or have every loose end tied up neatly. Focus on one thing. Especially in a genre like science fiction where a short story can be a great way to explore a concept or an idea, limited to some thousands words and get to the core of what the authors wants to tell.
The short story is an underappreciated art form, though many, many short stories are published each year in small presses. I’d recommend Pushcart Prize as a good yearly anthology.
In fact, I’d say the short story is my favorite medium as far as literature is concerned Building on that, Donald Barthelme is my favorite short story author, and I’d recommend Sixty Stories as a good starting place, followed by Forty Stories. Either that, or find a couple of his works online and jump to the Library of America anthology if you like them.
I don’t ‘read’ them so much as I listen, LaVar Burton Reads is an amazing podcast where he reads a short story a week.
Sure, I love short stories! They are quite a different art form from novels, and sadly I think they aren’t as common as they used to be. But a lot of my favorite authors released a number of collections of short stories.
Yes, I thoroughly enjoy short stories, for all the reasons that you give.
I grew up on the classic fantasy tales: Conan, Fafhred and the Grey Mouser, the Dying Earth tales, and all of Dunsany, Clarke Ashton Smith etc etc as well as Lovecraft, Poe and M R James and the rest.
As well as focusing on a single mood or concept, as you suggest, short stories - particularly the more literary ones - are great as single character studies, or dealing with particular interactions in a way that isolates and brings them to the forefront simply by being given a beginning and end.
I normally read them when they’re of historical or cultural significance or when someone explicitly recommends them.
I primarily read novels, but i have read a decent amount of short stories. Most recently the ones from “Stories of your life and other stories” by Ted Chiang. Aside from that i have a few other short story collections, and a science magazine i am subscribed to (Spektrum der Wissenschaft) has one with each issue.
I read them more than novels now, mostly because of limited time and I want to read something complete.
I highly recommend the short stories of Barbara Gowdy, Alice Munro and Amy Hempel.
Short scifi is also fun, I like Game of Thrones but George RR Martin’s short scifi fiction is far better in my opinion.
But I am looking for new stuff. Anyone else want to recommend some great short fiction authors? (of any genre)
George RR Martin was a fantastic short story writer in the 70s and 80s. Another benefit of short stories - writers usually finish those :D
Another recommendation of mine would be John Varley who was already popular in that time period and wrote some great progressive (for the time at least) stories.
Hahah, yes! hes good at endings too if he ever gets to that point
Thanks for the recommendation! I will check him out. :)
