Here’s week three (Feb. 13 – 19) listed in story-author-source format.
* An asterisk indicates a story I particularly liked.
Death in December * – Victor Gunn (Edwy Searles Brooks) – Crimson Snow edited by Martin Edwards
From Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi by John Scalzi (entire contents)
- Missives from Possible Futures #1: Alternate History Search Results *
- Pluto Tells All
- Denise Jones, Superbooker *
- When the Yogurt Took Over *
- The Other Large Thing
- The State of Super Villainy
- New Directives for Employee-Manxtse Interactions
- To Sue the World
- How I Keep Myself Amused On Long Flights
- How I Keep Myself Amused On Long Flights Part II
- Life On Earth: Human-Alien Relations
- Morning Announcements at the Lucas Interspecies School For Troubled Youth *
- Your Smart Appliances Talk About You Behind Your Back *
- The AI Are Absolutely Positively Without A Doubt Not Here to End Humanity
- Important Holidays on Gronghu
- Cute Adorable Extortionists
- Penelope
- The Queen of Air and Darkness – Poul Anderson – Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson, Volume 2: The Queen of Air and Darkness edited by Rick Katze (NESFA)
- Industrial Revolution * – ibid
- Operation Afreet * – ibid
A few thoughts:
Twenty-one stories this week, with the majority very short ones.
Over at Bitter Tea and Mystery short stories are being read. See Tracy’s short story post HERE.
When I laid out a dozen books from which to read short stories, as a way of organizing things, one of them was the Scalzi, which I’d recently gotten. It’s a thin book, of very short stories, and as expected I read it straight through. I liked a few stories (asterisked) but over all it was just so-so. I like his novel length science fiction much better.
I have long been a fan of Poul Anderson’s stories since first reading them in Astounding Science Fiction back in the old days. I’ve been buying the collected short works volumes as they were published by NESFA Press. I read the first one, and the rest look nice on the shelf, but it was past time I started reading the second one. I said last week it had been too long since I read any Hemingway. The same goes for Anderson.
With this week I’ve come back around to the beginning of the row of books I set out. However, three books have been pulled and replacements made, so you will notice the new sources as you look at the lists for the next two weeks.
Tip the Wink 
Short Stories read this week:
Utriusque Cosmi by Robert Charles Wilson from Galactic Empires.
You reach for your hat from Complete Short Stories of James Purdy
From A Very British History by Paul McAuley 4 stories:
The Choice The Two Dicks
Recording Angel
The Thought War
City of the Dead
From The Best of Ian MacDonald 3 stories
The Djinns Wife
Verhandis Ring
King of Morning Queen of Day3 stories
From A SF Omnibus edited by Brian Aldiss
Grandpa by James Schmitz
The Country of the Kind by Damon Knight
Poor Little Warrior by Brian Aldiss
lot by Ward Moore
Track by JG Ballard
the Snowball Effect by Katherine Maclean
15 short stories this week-several rereads like the ones from SF Omnibus.
Read two novels this week : What You Break by Reed Farrell Coleman And Heartbreak Hotel by Jonathan Kellerman. Just started Rusty Puppy by Joe Lansdale.
Steve, you’re doing great reading stories! I don’t think I’ve read any of those collections. I’ll be interested in your opinion on the Lansdale, he’s an author I always want to read but don’t get to.
Rusty Puppy is the newest Hap & Leonard novel. The characters featured in the Sundance channel show of the same name. I have enjoyed all the Hap & Leonard novels. If you have never read any Lansdale I would highly recommend his novels The Thicket, The Bottoms or Paradise Sky.
I think I have something about a drive-in, would that work?
The Drive In books are among his weakest. I wouldn’t start there.
Thanks, Steve.
Have not seen James Purdy’s name in years, Steve.
I read some James Purdy back in the late 60’s early 70’s and had totally forgotten about him until I saw The Complete Stories and picked it up a couple of years ago. Just now gotten around to reading it. Remember reading his novels Malcolm, Cabot Wright Begins and Eustace Chisolm and the Works but can’t recall anything about them. Then he fell off my radar for some reason.
I continue to be impressed by all the wonderful short stories Steve is reading! This Friday you’ll see the project I’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks. Meanwhile, one of my many Library books was coming up to its Due Date so I had to drop everything and read Patricia A. McKillip’s DREAMS OF DISTANCE SHORES. Marvelous! Here’s the list of the stories I read:
Weird
Mer (original to this collection)
The Gorgon in the Cupboard
Which Witch
Edith and Henry Go Motoring (original to this collection)
Alien (original to this collection)
Something Rich and Strange
Writing High Fantasy (original to this collection)
That McKillip sounds very good, George. I’ll have to check the library for it. I’ve read and liked some of her novels.
Again, no short stories for me this week, Richard, which is unusual since I normally read at least one collection or anthology a week. Maybe I’ll get off the stick this week.
It’s been a slow week all around, reading only three books: Lee Child’s PERSONAL (another Reacher novel — good as always), Richard B. Parker’s CHANCE (a Spencer novel — irritatingly readable, but habit-forming), and Roald Dahl’s GOING SOLO (a memoir of his first three years away from home, first in Africa working for Shell Oil, then in the RAF during World War II — as with just about everything by Dahl, I found this one to be fascinating).
Quiet days here on the Florida Panhandle. I managed to avoid PensaCon, the big SF convention held across the bay from us, and I will likely avoid Mardi Gras next week (Mardi Gras is big in both Pensacola and nearby Mobile, Alabama, which started the whole Mardi Gras thing way, way back).
May you read and enjoy a zillion short stories this coming week, my friend.
Marci Gras! Is it that time already? Wow. I read GOING SOLO a few years ago, and liked it quite a lot. So, no cons for you?
I used to enjoy them, Richard. Now they are too big and too noisy.
They certainly are that, but they can be fun, too.
I’m continuing with the three collections by Fitzgerald, Saki, and Humphrey. William Humphrey was born and grew up in Texas. He moved to New York in 1945 to try and make it as a playwright, and lived most of his adult life in the New York area, so a lot of his stories are set upstate, His are most substantive than the early, silly work by Fitzgerald, and this is the book I will finish first.
Humphrey – The Fauve
In Sickness and in Health
Dolce far’ Niente
The Patience of a Saint
A Fresh Snow
The Ballad of Jesse Neighbours
The Last Husband (by far the longest story)
Fitzgerald – The Trail of the Duke
Shadow Laurels
The Ordeal
The Old Frontiersman
The Diary of a Sophomore
The Prince of Pests
I’m up to 1919 with Fitzgerald, so I hope there will be better to come soon.
Saki – Reginald on Desetting Sins
Reginald’s Drama
Reginald on Tariffs
Reginald’s Christmas Revel
Reginald’s Rubaiyat
The Innocence of Reginald
Reginald in Russia
The Reticence of Lady Anne
Most of these are extremely light an forgettable.
Total for the week: 21.
I did read one other book, DEFENDERS by Will McIntosh (a library download). I’m reading Andre Norton’s THE TIME TRADERS (first of the series) after reading about it on the Galactic Journey blog. (Since I didn’t read much science fiction in my teens, I missed a lot of obvious stuff.)
I borrowed two more library books to the Kindle, including the Connie Willis book,, CROSSTALK, which I plan to start after finishing the Norton.
Nice list of stories, Jeff, and thanks for the brief bio of Humphrey. I finished one more Anderson story last night, but didn’t want to bother with updating the post, so it’ll show next time, then I read 2 Stories by Conrad Aiken this morning. They were both about sick, dying people and were depressing. I may take him out of my mix, as I don’t need depressing. So I think Theroux is next up.
Saki is about 6 books away at this point. Yes, I have the row of them laid out on the dining room table. I read that Norton a long time ago, remember liking it.
I just started Gillian White’s COPYCAT. It was one of the free Kindle downloads from December. It’s a psychological suspense novel written in the alternating voices of two women. We know from the prologue that one of them has committed a murder–but which one? And why? So far it’s good stuff
But Deb, not a single short story? Not even one?
COPYCAT does sound intriguing. How is the writing?
Thanks for linking to my short story post, Richard. Still focusing on short stories. Reading from Miniatures by Scalzi. I agree on your assessment on Scalzi’s stories, although I find them a nice light break from some of the darker stories I am reading. Also reading from Mattaponi Queen by Belle Boggs. And I have a couple more short story books on order that I hope to read some stories from before the end of February.
You’re welcome, it’s great that you’re reading short stories along with us. I’ll keep an eye out for your next short story post.