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The best short stories ever written.


polishgenius

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Would something of the length of a Dunk & Egg novella be considered a short story? This is clearly not the place to pick nits, but I thought "novellas" were usually considerably longer than "short stories". (I would not have considered Garcia Marquez "Chronicle" a short story either.)

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There are so, so many great ones!



I would like to third Ted Chiang's "Story of your Life" and would urge anybody who is anybody to read the collection of which it is a part.



My absolute favourite is Ursula Le Guin's "The Ones who walk away from Omelas".



I adore George's "The Monkey Treatment" and "Unsound Variations" among others.



"A House Taken Over" by Julio Cortázar. Creepy and amazing.



"The Fluted Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi and would recommend the collection "Pump Six and Other Stories".



Kelly Link's "Louise’s Ghost" is weird but fun.



I could go on. I guess we all could :)


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Would something of the length of a Dunk & Egg novella be considered a short story? This is clearly not the place to pick nits, but I thought "novellas" were usually considerably longer than "short stories". (I would not have considered Garcia Marquez "Chronicle" a short story either.)

D&E are novellas. first one is a nice formal example, even, with a tidy anagnoritic schwerpunkt.

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Not much to add. I would second "A Good Man is Hard to Find" "In the Penal Colony" and "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" for mainstream work and "The Story of Your Life" , "Terminus" and "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" for genre. Also, "The Library of Babel" by Borges and "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death" by James Tiptree jr.


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some favorites:



'O Logos, Terrence Holt


Tracking Song, Gene Wolfe


Seven American Nights, Gene Wolfe


A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Flannery O'Connor


The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule, Lucius Shepard


The Joy and Melancholy Baseball Trivia Quiz, Ken Kalfus


Pu-239, Ken Kalfus


Story of your Life, Ted Chiang


Tower of Babylon, Ted Chiang


Car Crash While Hitchhiking, Denis Johnson



"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is also pretty kickass, and i think anyone who likes boxing would love "Rocket Man" by Thom Jones (and probably a lotta Jones's other stuff too).


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I really like the D&E tales too but I've often wondered how they'd read if you were new to the ASOIAF universe, as a stand alone. I'd love to hear from someone that read them before the novels. I was devasted when it was announced that Dangerous Women wouldn't include a Dunk and Egg story but instead the Dance of Dragons back history.

Very slim chance that read Dunk & Egg on this forum, and not ASOIAF........

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I really like the D&E tales too but I've often wondered how they'd read if you were new to the ASOIAF universe, as a stand alone. I'd love to hear from someone that read them before the novels.

I read The Hedge Knight first in the Legends anthology and thought Dunk and Egg were great characters. Then I picked up AGoT expecting more of the same and was not disappointed.

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How did I forget Cortazar? Check out all of Blow-Up and Other Stories.

Cortazar is my favourite short story teller!! Also check out Bestiario, by far my fav book of him. Sorry, I don't know the translated titles, but in case is not thesame book you mentioned, "historias de cronopios y de famas".

Kafka is also great, but really depressing...

Another great collection of short stories is "stories of love madness and death" by quiroga.

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Well, this took a turn for the worse.

Insightful comment, whine explain more please.

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I second the "Gene Wolfe writes best short stories" comment. His one about the chess-gladiators was my favorite, I think. KJ Parker's short stories are also great: particularly enjoy "The Sun and I," and "The Things We do for Love." Sub Press has them both for free, I believe.

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