SHORT FICTION

Last year I named this thread Short Stories And Microfiction, but then I learned that there are many different flavours of short fiction: short stories of course, microfiction, which is a subset of flash fiction, dribbles, drabbles and I'm sure I forgot some. This is the thread where we can discuss all of this in 2024.

Short novels (novellas, novelettes, are there other denominations?) are not to my mind short fiction, but who am I to judge if you want to discuss them here too ;-)

Welcome to the 2024 short fiction thread!

Will try to stop in from time to time. All my fiction is "short fiction" these days. Not sure there is much to say about the length of our choice, but I'll give it try :-)

"How Many Words Are in a Novel? Word Count by Genre & More
Word Count: Novel vs. Novella

Novel: 40,000+ words (though you're better off above 50,000 words)
Novella: 17,500-40,000 words.
Novelette: 7,500-20,000 words.
Short story: 1,000-10,000 words.
Flash fiction: 1-1,000 words."

I have been using Serial Reader to read some short stories. So far I have been wowed by three stories by Anton Chekhov: "The Darling", "The Bet", and "The Lady with a Dog".

Starting the year with a weird short story. I found this because several people here mentioned The Time Traveller’s Almanac, I went to look for it but didn't find a digital edition, but I found this instead. I think I missed a lot of references in this one, but I liked it.

Errata by Jeff VanderMeer

Reading Paul Yoon's latest short fictionin The Hive and the Honey: Stories. His output is spare but oh, what great stuff.

>5 avaland: I read a bit into that one for LJ's Best Short Stories, and really liked what I saw—I want to finish it at some point.

>4 FlorenceArt: It's weird that you weren't able to find a copy of The time traveller's almanac, I see it on kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/fr/en/ebook/the-time-traveller-s-almanac-3

Maybe you were tricked (as was I) by the difference of US/UK spelling, traveller vs. traveler?

I'll have a look at Errata, this seems intriguing.

>7 chlorine: Oh great, thank you! I’ve been having difficulties with the search at Kobo, but in this case I may simply have used the French spelling almanach. Or maybe it’s the spelling of traveller as you say.

>8 FlorenceArt: I used the French spelling also! I remember the trap of UK vs. US English from when I bought the book and I was careful to do two searches, one for "Time traveler's almanach" and the other for "Time traveller's almanach". I wasn't finding anything and I headed back to Calibre to see in which format I had purchased the book and notice that almanac is not spellt as I thought in English! :D

My first 2 2024 books fit here: Stand-in Companion is about 6K words and The Sixth Day and Other Stories contains 23 stories. Reviews in the works and in my thread.

>2 avaland: I tend to use the 7.5K/17K/40K split (the way the Hugos do it) simply because this was the only one that ever made sense to me and is unambiguous (as long as you stay in English anyway), with 1K for micro and flash fiction if I want to cut it even more. But your overlapping categories work as well - and 10K is a common place to cut the short stories in the literary world it seems.

>4 FlorenceArt: I like the authors work very much and love time travel; I was able to get it on kindle, so it must be out there somewhere!

Per my usual start of the year, I have best american short stories and best american science fiction, I suspect Ill find something interesting as I read to share with you all!

I’m looking forward to the recently published Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri. I have it on hold at NYPL - 14 week wait.

>11 cindydavid4: I'm part-way through the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019, myself. I'm reading it as a between book, a la rocketjk, so it'll be a while before I finish.

I originally planned on saving all of my individual story reviews for when I was finished and ready to review the volume as a whole, but I think I'll post my story reviews here as I go, too. Then, when I'm done, I'll put them all in one post on my thread to go with the volume review.

yeah it will be a while for me too! and that how I review as well lots easier .

ETA oh thought you were talking about the 2024 edition; I might just have the 2019, will have to look,

I’m having difficulties keeping track of the short stories I read, I have quite a few books under way, plus the ones I read online…

Roman Stories has come up several times around here, it sounds interesting.

"Pitcher Plant" by Adam-Troy Castro: 4 stars. 2nd person worked really well for me. I realized what was going on fairly early – as I suspect that readers are meant to do – and that only enhanced my enjoyment. Reminded me a little of volume 1 of The Sandman. Weird but in a good way. I enjoyed it.

"What Everyone Knows" by Seanan McGuire: 3.5 stars. well written, but not my particular subgenre.

"The Storyteller’s Replacement" by N. K. Jemisin: 3.5 stars. great up until the end with the second bit of the frame narrative. Not sure why the storyteller’s replacement was having sex with their audience. Not sure why the audience was only one person. I had assumed a group setting. Would have worked better for me without the second part of the frame. I liked the folktale vibe.

"Poor Unfortunate Fools" by Silvia Park: 3.5 stars. The ending is too ambiguous for me me. Interesting. Love all the color detail and the in-universe document with footnotes format.

"Six Hangings in the Land of Unkillable Women" by Theodore McCombs: 4 stars. Intriguing concept. Great characterization and prose. Made me think. Ending felt right.

"Hard Mary" by Sofia Samatar: 4 stars. Very readable prose. I like the use of language, especially in regard to sensory detail, description, and metaphor. The way that Samatar conveys culture and character through dialogue is impressive, as well. More tension than I’d personally prefer right now, but Samatar handles it expertly. I’m not sure I completely get it, but it definitely made me think, and I enjoyed the reading process, so 4 stars.

>16 Julie_in_the_Library: Love Jemisin! is that a short story or part of a new novel? I read city we becameloved it been meaning to read the sequel (tho I think Im two behind!)

ETA misread the date of the collection. nvm

>17 cindydavid4: These are all short stories collected in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019

>17 cindydavid4: If you like N. K. Jemisin, by the way, you should try her Broken Earth trilogy. It absolutely blew me away.

It also occurs to me now, re "The Storyteller's Replacement," that there might have been a Scheherazade connection that I didn't pick up on, which would explain the bit at the end.

>20 Julie_in_the_Library: oh yes that was my first read of hers and indeed blew me away. What an incredible master work. I did try to read her Inheritance trilogy but didn't get far, may have try again later. just realized I did read storytellers replacement, and recognized it in her dreamblood duology which was quite exceptional and and an introduction into the killing moon

also in that same collection, there is a short story that is the base of Broken earth

and finaly speaking of short stories, you must read her collection How Long 'Til Black Future Month? which has more excellent pieces as well. Happy reading!

Did any of you read the Machine of Death stories that came out in 2010? It was a contest of sorts. People were invited to submit a story all containing a machine that could predict how someone would die. The stories were published online and later collected into books. The stories ranged widely in plot, style, and level of writing, but some were fascinating.

Premise from Wikipedia: "All of the stories featured in Machine of Death center around a device which, when provided with a blood sample, can identify the way a person will die. The machine relays this information by printing a short word or phrase, which serves as the title of each story, on a small card. The machine is never wrong, but often vague or cryptic."

I listened to the stories on the Machine of Death podcast. The stories were read by the authors, not professionals, but I thought they were interesting.

>23 labfs39: Oh that is interesting! I hadn't heard of that before. Thanks for sharing!

>23 labfs39: I loved those books!

>23 labfs39: That sounds familiar.

Two more reviews from 2019's Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy:

"Variations on a Theme from Turandot" by Ada Hoffmann: 4.5 stars. I loved it. I loved how meta it is. I loved the themes of stories and choice and agency. I loved the format. The prose is very well written. Absolutely beautiful.

"Through the Flash" by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: 4.5 stars. I was sucked in from the very beginning. Highly readable prose. Definite narrative transport. Beautiful. Loved the ending. Breathtaking. Interesting parallels with the last book I read, The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle → time loops, the ways that they effect the people in them, what people do and become on a day with no consequences. That there are, in fact, consequences. Also, a more communal take on the usual time-loop narrative, which is very individual.

>27 Julie_in_the_Library: These two sound great. I have the 2017 edition of this series, haven’t started reading it yet.

>28 FlorenceArt: They were excellent. So far, every story I've read in this collection has been at the very least good, and most of them have been very good. I'm impressed, and looking forward to the 2023 edition, which is on deck for when I finish the 2019. (I shouldn't be surprised, I supposed, given that the whole premise is that these are the best of the best for each year, rather than themed or author-based collections, but still).

I'm interested to hear about the 2017 edition when you get to it.

Finished The Hive and the Honey: Stories by Paul Yoon. Another excellent (slim) collection. I have Paui Yoon's four previous collections -- such excellent stories and he writes with empathy for his characters... (similar to Claire Keegen in that respect).

Dearborn is a short story collection by Ghassan Zeineddine that is phenomenal -- all the stories are centered on the Arab American community in that city and there's not a single weak story in the collection.

>27 Julie_in_the_Library: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut story collection, Friday Black, is superlatively good.

I am so excited to finally get a stroke of the pen for my birthday and loving these stories. my fav so far is the fossil beach, this will be fun reading

>31 RidgewayGirl: I had already added it to my tbr on the strength of that one story alone. It is, in fact, from Friday Black, according to my anthology.

>32 cindydavid4: First of all, I didn't know about that collection, and now I am very interested. Second of all, your touchstone for "The Fossil Beach" goes to an unrelated police procedural, just fyi. A lot of short stories aren't in LT as their own works.

I am so excited to finally get a stroke of the pen for my birthday and loving these stories. my fav so far is the fossil beach, by terry pratchett. this will be fun reading

>33 Julie_in_the_Library: got it, thx!

Terry Pratchetts' new' collection of stories a stroke of the pen were good; certainly shows the beginnings of his talent, dry humor, fun plots and unusal characters, but none of the really grabbed me, tho I got a good chuckle from "wanted a fat jolly man in a red wooly hat" and" how scrooge saw the spectral light and went happily back to humbug" But the origial story that started the search "the quest for the key" is my fav Loved the forward by Neil Gaiman and the intro by Colin Smith with background of how the stories were discovered.
well worth reading if you are a fan

I liked the machine of death stories! I still think about them from time to time.

Good idea to post reviews of short stories as you get to them rather than waiting to finish the whole book - I might steal that idea!

>27 Julie_in_the_Library: I'm not surprised that this is a strong collection—the editor, Carmen Maria Machado, is such an outside-the-box literary fiction writer, so I'd expect it to be good. I don't have that one, but my library does—I'll check it out.

What do people think of Lydia Davis? I keep reading that she is the master of the short form.

>39 dianeham: I’ve been reading through a collection of hers. I like it, though I wouldn’t call it riveting. They are mostly very short, it’s a form I like.

Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim at Clarke's World Magazine: 4 stars

I happened to see a post linking to this story on social media, so I clicked and gave it a read. I'm glad that I did.

This story is, as the title signals, a response - or perhaps more accurately a continuation of, or a riff on - Ursula K. Le Guin's 1793 original, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." Without having read the original, this story would be not just meaningless, but incomprehensible. This is not a weakness of Kim's story; it is just an inescapable fact. This story is, inherently, intertextual.

I like that sort of thing, so that wasn't a problem for me. But if that's offputting for you, you're going to have trouble with this one.

The story kept my attention from start to finish. The length was just right, not too long or too short. Kim nails the cadence and narrative voice of the original, while also situating the world of Omelas in the world we live in today. Like Le Guin, she poses lots of questions and provides no easy answers. This is a story designed to make you think, and it does that job well.

There are, as in the original, no individual characters with names and backstories. The plot is loose and open ended. This is very much philosophical fiction, and as such, it's much more concerned with the questions it's raising than the specifics of the narrative it uses to frame them.

Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but it does what it sets out to do very well, indeed. I enjoyed reading it, and I'm still thinking about it days later. 4 stars.

N K Jemison has a similar riff on the Omela story in her collection How long 'til black future month "the ones who stay to fight" which i liked quite a lot.

>41 Julie_in_the_Library: Sounds interesting! I read LeGuin’s story only recently. I think I will read this one.

>42 cindydavid4: Omelas is something of a staple in (certain sections of) the speculative fiction world - and a staple of quite a lot of curricula at the high school and college level, at least in the US - so there's a fair number of stories riffing on it. I'll be interested to see Jemisin's take when I get to it - as I'm sure I will eventually.

>43 FlorenceArt: I'll be interested to hear what you think of it.

>44 Julie_in_the_Library: "a fair number of stories riffing on it"

Sounds like a great idea for an anthology.

>41 Julie_in_the_Library: Should one be _very_ familiar with the original Le Guin story before reading the Kim one? I read the Le Guin story but only remember the outline, would that be enough to tackle the Kim story?

For those who are interested, the Le Guin story is available online at https://files.libcom.org/files/ursula-k-le-guin-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omel... for free. It's only four pages, so quick enough reading. (I think it's complete.)

Here’s a link to the N.K. Jemisin story that Cindy mentioned. https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/

thx diane I reread it and still am amazed at how wonderful it is, esp when you know the story of the Omalas

Since I am the one going on and on about podcasts, here's some recommendations for podcasts that have audio narrations of short stories.

The New Yorker Fiction Podcast: This has authors published in the New Yorker, choosing, reading out, and commenting on a short story previously published in The New Yorker by another author. The quality varies: not all writers are good at speaking, or narrating, but sometimes it can be very good. I recently listened to and enjoyed a story by Colm Toibin read by Hisham Matar, and one by Margaret Atwood reading Alice Munro.

Levar Burton Reads: Actor Levar Burton has a huge catalogue of mostly sci-fi fiction that he chooses and reads aloud. He's an excellent narrator, and will add a few comments of his own at the end of the story. Some of the stories mentioned on this thread have appeared on his podcast. He recently did Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu which was very good.

Selected Shorts: These are audio recordings of live performances of short stories by actors, hosted by the writer Meg Wolitzer. There's usually several stories, each narrated by a different person. They recently did a Ray Bradbury special with Neil Gaiman, who introduced three short stories by Bradbury, performed by actors: There Will Come Soft Rains,” read by Yetide Badaki; “The Fog Horn,” read by Javier Muñoz, and “Embroidery,” read by Kirsten Vangsness

>50 rv1988: Since I've stalled in my audiobook listening, I wonder if I should try some podcasts? Perhaps a shorter form would work better and help train my listening ability. Thanks for the recommendations, they all look interesting.

>51 labfs39: I like these, because it works well when I have less time to give (an audiobook is a whole commitment). Also, sorry, I just realised I wrote 'sci fi fiction'.

>52 rv1988: Since I only listen sporadically, usually when I happen to be in the car alone which is rare, I think podcasts might work well for me. I subscribed to all three and will dabble next time I have the opportunity. I used to listen to Books on the Nightstand and a couple of others that were about books, not works in and of themselves.

Podcasts are great! I have tons that I love if anyone is ever looking for recs.

>46 chlorine: I think remembering the premise and basic idea is enough.

>45 KeithChaffee: It would be a great premise for an anothology. Not all of the riffs I've encountered are officially published works, but I'd guess there are enough that are to put together an anothology, if all the authors agreed.

>54 Julie_in_the_Library: If you wanted to make a list, Julie, I would certainly bookmark it for future reference.

>54 Julie_in_the_Library: That's good to know about the Kim story, thanks! I'll get to it at some point, but not right now, because:

I'm reading the finalists for Clarkesworld magazine to be able to vote. The novelettes are out of the topic of this thread so I won't mention them, but the first short story I read, Better living through algorithms by Naomi Kritzer was really good!

It's about a phone app that goes viral whose advertised goal is to make users happy. The story was original and very well written.

I have read two other of the Clarkesworld short story finalists and they seem to be all better than each other.
The Mub by Thomas Ha was a really good, disquiting story reminiscent of older fantastic stories, and Zeta-Epsilon by Isabel J. Kim was a gem that is difficult to describe without spoiling because the way the construction is original and reveals the story in a very interesting way. It's about spaceships and AI and free will and ethics but also so more than that.

Some people in my online circles have been raving about Isabel J. Kim as the new emerging talent to follow in SFF short stories. I had read one of her stories, The Narrative Implications of your untimely Death, and was not swept away. Now with this story I finally understand what the fuss is about.

>58 chlorine: Ooh, adding those to my TBR! (By which I mean opening them in tabs to sit on my laptop until I remember to get to them...)

reading Kate Atkinsons collection of shorts normal rules dont apply. The first story, the void started out good, a touch of sci fi , but then it ended and I am not sure what the point of it was. Read the second one, another downer. Not sure whats going on, I have always loved her work but she seems to have taken a different turn now

>58 chlorine: Thanks for the links! I have saved them to my pocket account so they should be available on my Kobo. Now all I have to do is read them……….

>59 Julie_in_the_Library: >61 FlorenceArt: If either of you have an ebook reader (obviously Florence does :), are you aware of the dotepub browser extension? It transforms a webpage into an epub (or kindle ebook) that you can then upload to your reader. It is smart about it as well by removing the clutter like things that are in the side bar etc. and focusing on the main text.

>62 chlorine: Thanks! I just tried dotepub with a short story and it worked like a charm. Great tool

>63 labfs39: Glad it worked well for you! There's also another extension called epubPress that will convert several pages opened in different tabs in a single epub.

>62 chlorine: I didn't know about that. Thanks! I don't have an ereader, but it's still good to know.

>64 chlorine: Thanks, I'll note it. I'm still fairly new to e-readers, only having taken the plunge last year.

>62 chlorine: Thanks! My preferred method to get articles on my reader is via Pocket (IMO the main selling point for the Kobo, apart from the fact that it’s not Amazon), but that doesn’t always work, so it’s good to have an alternative.

>67 FlorenceArt: This sounds like a good selling point for kobo indeed. :)

I've read three short stories so far this year: Jokester by Isaac Asimov, an excerpt from The Song of Roland (55 pages), and The Jilting of Granny Weatherall by Katherine Anne Porter. I found Jokester on the Internet Archive - another good source for short stories.

The Paris Review has unpaywalled a story by Junichiro Tanizaki titled The Victim, translated by Ivan Morris, and also released an audio reading of the story by actor George Takei. I took the opportunity to re-read it, and am dropping the links here for anyone else who wants to.

https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/4872/the-victim-junichiro-tanizaki

https://www.theparisreview.org/podcast/6070/the-victim-by-junichiro-tanizaki

This might be interesting to some.
I don't understand the website Rocket Stack Rank well yet, but they seem to propose lists of short stories while keeping track of which stories have been recommended by various reviewers.
Here is a list that is the compilation of the Locus 2023 recommended reading list as well as Rocket Stack Ranks's most recommanded stories:
http://www.rocketstackrank.com/2024/02/annotated-2023-locus-reading-list-for.htm...

The stories highlighted in yellow are the ones that are freely available online. From what I understand the stories are given points if they are recommended by different sources, and the stories in the list are ranked by decreasing total number of points.

>60 cindydavid4: I really enjoyed Kate Atkinson’s earlier novels, but went off her last one about the nightclub people. She was riding on a wave that has flattened.

>71 chlorine: well, I’m intrigued looking at the site, but a bit overwhelmed too.

>73 dchaikin: On top of the complexity of the site and ranking system, what I feel overwhelmed by is that the commentary says the list contains 245 stories by 208 authors. I have started reading many more short stories since a year or so in the hope of becoming somewhat well read in the speculative fiction short fiction scene, but these numbers show that the quantity of works is so huge that my goal seems hopeless.
This being said, since I started keeping track of the stories I read last April, I read 228 short stories by 146 different authors, which seems enormous to me. But I really don't feel like I have any command of the field.

>74 chlorine: You might want to start with a series like the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, and other award lists. That'll give you a nice survey of high quality stories, enough to at least break into the field a little more, and give you an idea of trends, topics, etc.

>75 Julie_in_the_Library: I do read Best of the Year anthologies. :) I was planning to buy Neil Clarke's for 2023. They are indeed a good starting point but I think the numbers simply show that at my reading rate I just can't hope to have a broad view of the field.
I think I'll focus on following editors I like in the future.I really wish Strahan's Best of the year antholgogies had kept coming out. I really loved the two I read.

>76 chlorine: That's fair. I'd also say that speculative fiction is a very, very broad category. Keeping a wide-lens view of the entire spec fic short story world, even just in English, or just in America, might be a task too big for anyone who wants to also pursue other reading.

The Letters Regarding Jeeves book club has started with "Jeeves Takes Charge," from 1916. I thought that it was fine, but not actually funny. 3 stars. Hopefully, they get better. Though given the reactions of others doing the group read, this may be a problem of audience, rather than text, so to speak.

>70 rv1988: Thanks to Rasdhar, I read "The Victim" by Junichiro Tanizaki, which has some interesting connotations about women reclaiming power. And thanks to Avatiakh, I read a graphic adaptation of a short story by Giacomo Debenedetti called Rome 16 October 1943. The adaptation is by Sarah Laing. It's about the roundup of Italian Jews in Rome on that date. Very moving.

Oops, wrong thread!

"Oops, wrong thread!" look a micro story!

😊

I read Obasute, by Yasushi Inoue last Saturday. It's in the collection The Izu Dancer and other Stories. The writing is spare, stripped of excessive description. I suppose it could be a story about people who want out of their lives, and includes a couple of examples from the narrator's family who have left what would be considered successful lives for new lives that aren't really successful, but where they have more freedom to be themselves. On the surface, it's about a man's obsession with an ancient Japanese legend where people who reach the age of 70 are taken to a mountain, Obasute, and abandoned. Overall, the story evokes a feeling of loneliness and abandonment.

I want to point out that the short story collection in this case has only one story, the Izu Dancer, by Kawabata, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. The other three stories are by Inoue, who was a prominent Japanese writer, but not well known outside of Japan. I purchased the book in 1974 in Japan.

>83 janoorani24: how interesting. Also, you’ve had that book 50 years! Wow.

>83 janoorani24: I’m reading Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata.

As far as short fiction goes - I am reading Samuel Johnson Is Indignant: Stories by Lydia Davis. First thing I’ve read by her. Liking it so far.

>85 dianeham: I'm looking forward to your impressions of Thousand Cranes. I like Kawabata's writing.

I read The Izu Dancer some years ago, after I visited the spa at Izu with Japanese friends. I think I felt a little disappointed by the story, though I don’t remember why. Maybe I was expecting too much.

A very long time ago I loved The Hunting Gun by Inoue. It’s probably more a novella than a short story though. Maybe I should revisit it.

I finished Isaac Asimov's Gold - a collection of short stories, and essays that were unpublished at the time of his death. Some good ones there, including the titular story, Gold, which won him a Hugo Award.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_(Asimov_book)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_(short_story)

I started reading the greatest stories of Edith Wharton last fall, but put it aside due to many books I needed to ready over the holidays. So this morning insomnia made me look for a diversion, happened upon it, and started reading though the morning. My goodness these are good . Includes his fathers son, the reckoning,the fullness of life, the descent of man. my favorite of all is a venitian nights entertainment Very fun reading.

I read one short story from The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel, Mama, Rimma, and Alla last week.

The story covers day in the life of a mother and her two daughters in Moscow. It's hard to be precise as to the time of the story, but it was first published in a Russian literary journal in 1916, and three of the characters are students, and no mention of the war is made, so I think it may be set sometime shortly before the start of the World War One. Hardly anything happens in this one short day, but there is still a lot of detail. The maid "had begun putting on airs and walked out," the electric bill came...two of three student borders announce they are leaving and want their rent money returned...one of the students is Polish, resents the mother, lusts after the older daughter...the father is a magistrate in faraway Kamchatka and powerless to assist. The two daughters have their own difficulties, the youngest is seventeen and loves someone who doesn't love her, and the oldest wants freedom from her mother.

The translation (by Peter Constantine) seems excellent to me. I got the sense of a largish, messy house with many rooms but no privacy. All of the words are perfectly placed and barren of excess emotion. I feel so sorry for this long ago imaginary family with their money woes, personal sorrows, and the father thousands of miles away.

>90 janoorani24: The story sounds terrific

>89 cindydavid4: never mind. Just read the introduction to the book and not only tells you wbat will happen in each story, she maked Edith a very sorrowful person which I dont think she isl I may come back to it, but for now reading four lost cities for the non fiction challenge theme this mont:forensics

dnf’d Samuel Johnson Is Indignant: Stories by Lydia Davis. I was very unimpressed and just didn’t want to read any more.

>87 FlorenceArt: Lilisin and I just took the "Odoriko" (dancing girl) train down the Izu peninsula last month - there is a statue of the girl at the station where we got off (for a cherry blossom festival) and in the station, a shelf of copies of the book for you to borrow and post back when you are done.

>94 wandering_star: that sounds like so much fun

>94 wandering_star: I love LT meetups! Even when I'm not there, it's fun to read about them.

I see now why so many lovedladies lunch Loved these stories of close life long friends and their stories. I think my favorites Dandelion, Making Good When Lottie Lost Bessie and Ladies Zoom, but there is not a bad one in the bunch

So this my first experience with this writer, I see she has written some fiction and other work. can anyone suggest where I should start?

I like her sense of humor.
“She called Henry and said ‘can you remember exactly why we got divorced?’
You always think things can be explained exactly, said Henry.
Oh really she said. Is this one of those things I always think?
If you want to argue you’ll have to call back after I’ve had my coffee, said Henry.
Anything else I have to do? she said and hung up.”

I can’t find anything other than short stories by her in my library. I think Ladies’ Lunch is her most recent work.

I've also read two more Jeeves stories: "Extricating Young Gussie" from 1915, and "Leave it to Jeeves" from 1916.

"Extricating Young Gussie" by P.G. Wodehouse: 3 stars. fun enough, though not actually funny.

"Leave it to Jeeves" by P.G. Wodehouse: 3.5 stars. fun, entertaining, and enjoyable, though not laugh out loud funny

>99 kjuliff: That is funny!

>99 kjuliff: Lol, I can relate.

>99 kjuliff: yes that got me laughing; lots of similar relationship stuff I could relate to and smiled.

Crossposting from the lists thread. Here are the novelettes and short stories longlisted for the 2023 Nebula Awards. With one exception, all are available online for free.

Best Novelette
A Short Biography of a Conscious Chair”, Renan Bernardo (Samovar 2/23) http://samovar.strangehorizons.com/2023/02/27/a-short-biography-of-a-conscious-c...
I Am AI, Ai Jiang (Shortwave)
“The Year Without Sunshine”, Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny 11-12/23) https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/the-year-without-sunshine/
“Imagine: Purple-Haired Girl Shooting Down The Moon”, Angela Liu (Clarkesworld 6/23) https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liu_06_23/
“Saturday’s Song”, Wole Talabi (Lightspeed 5/23) https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/saturdays-song/
“Six Versions of My Brother Found Under the Bridge”, Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny 9-10/23) https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/six-versions-of-my-brother-found-under-t...

Best Short Story
“Once Upon a Time at The Oakmont”, P.A. Cornell (Fantasy 10/23) https://www.fantasy-magazine.com/fm/fiction/once-upon-a-time-at-the-oakmont/
“Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200”, R.S.A Garcia (Uncanny 7-8/23) https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/tantie-merle-and-the-farmhand-4200/
“Window Boy”, Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld 8/23) https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/ha_08_23/
“The Sound of Children Screaming”, Rachael K. Jones (Nightmare 10/23) https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/the-sound-of-children-screaming/
“Better Living Through Algorithms”, Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld 5/23) https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_05_23/
“Bad Doors”, John Wiswell (Uncanny 1-2/23) https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/bad-doors/

Thank you for this. I will definitely try some.

>104 rv1988: Thanks for sharing.

>104 rv1988: Thanks for the list!

Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer
I had this on my reader following a mention by Clémence/Chlorine I think, and was reminded of it when >104 rv1988: posted the longlist for the Nebula awards. I was a little disappointed. It's cute and very naive.

On The Fox Roads by Nghi Vo
I don't remember why this one was on my reader. I liked it. It's weird and poetic and rather moving. And weird.

>108 FlorenceArt: I loved On the Fox Roads when I read it.

Congrats, Florence, this thread was called out by Tim in the State of the Thing!

>2 avaland: Is there a table of how these work out into pages anywhere?

>111 robnbrwn: That will depend on the publisher, the format of the book and how they handle spaces between chapters (and even for the same publisher, they change fonts and what's not).

So you can have a 15,000 words novelette taking 150 pages, a 60K words novel at 120 pages (especially the very old mass market paperbacks... but some modern POD renditions as well) and a 39K words novella taking 288 pages (all of those are actual books I had seen).

>111 robnbrwn: roughly 280 words per page for fiction (with a wide variations)

So:

Novel: 40,000+ words = roughly >140 pages
Novella: 17,500-40,000 words. ~60 to 140 pages
Novelette: 7,500-20,000 words. ~25 to 70 pages
Short story: 1,000-10,000 words. ~3-35 pages
Flash fiction: 1-1,000 words. - less than 3 pages

Levar Burton (the actor who hosted Reading Rainbow on PBS, for Americans here) has a podcast where he selects and reads out short fiction. Recently he read Percival Everett's story, 'The Appropriation of Cultures'. We've been talking about Everett on several threads, so here are some links.

Link to the story text (you need JSTOR access - your library might have it) https://www.jstor.org/stable/3299316

Link to the audio, read by Levar Burton
Apple podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-appropriation-of-cultures-by-percival-...
Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/7E1dvud8Z7PtBSGadBSx6q
it's on Pandora too, but I don't have access to Pandora in my country

I read a strange short story by Balzac because it was mentioned in the catalog of the Gilles Aillaud exhibition I saw a few weeks ago. Une passion dans le désert (A Passion in the Desert) is the weird story of a passion between a soldier of Napoleon lost in the desert and… a leopard. I’m still not sure what to make of that ☺️