What a beautiful story. I read it as a metaphor for the way we shelter children from “dangerous” media. How we control what our children are allowed to see or read, and how that may limit them. But of course all turned up to 11!
This reminds me of Snow Crash, specifically the concept of a cognitohazardous image file that can be viewed in virtual reality and nuke your brain in real life. The topic of words or patterns that can bypass your higher brain function and mess with your base processing/programming is always such a cool one to play with. See also: Lexicon by Max Barry
If you're looking for more fiction with a focus on cognitohazards I highly recommend the SCP wiki. If that's all that you're interested in there's a robust tag system for articles.
Andy Weir adapted it from a conversation with someone who believes in that philosophy literally. I'm pretty sure they keyword search reddit for mentions of it to let people know because they messaged me about it after I mentioned it myself.
Isn’t the premise of Omelas that a single child has to suffer for everything to be paradise for the rest? I get that it’s supposed to be this huge moral quandary, but compared to today where billions are suffering so the rest of us can have a much worse standard of living than in the story, it seems like an absolute no brainer to take the deal.
I really recommend reading it because while that is sort of the premise, I don’t think that’s a fair summary of the point of the story. And/or you can poke around to see what Le Guin herself had to say about it.
It’s not really meant to be a trolley problem, more a commentary on how perfection doesn’t seem real, there has to be some sort of dark secret to every utopia
They do this story almost exactly in the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode 'Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach.' The kid they pulled out of the machine still gives me the heebies.
I think, in regards to le Guin's story, it's meant to make you think about acceptance and consent in that system. You're fine with it being a random child? What about when your kid's name comes up in the draw? Why would it take being your child to suddenly care about the brutality of the system? The kid also isn't told why things are like this, they beg and cry and waste away. When their body gives out, they pop another kid in there.
It's not paradise if people are still suffering. What we have now is a bunch of extremely wealthy people at the top living in paradise. They likely decided your suffering is worth their happiness.
Cheers! Try r/tipofmytongue if you're looking for anything else, they definitely would have found it over there based on as simple a description as "story where people ask a computer how to have energy forever"
Fucking omelas. Found it so deeply disturbing the first time I heard it I wished I could've gouged the story out of my brain. And now it's just nestled up there, next to ninja turtles quotes, as if it belongs
There is an actual Butterfly House exhibition in my hometown, and last year my cousin and I went and there are SO. MANY. RULES. about watching where you step and what you’re wearing (which is obviously understandable) but there were also SO. MANY. CHILDREN. there that I asked the guide if she had nightmares about ‘A Sound of Thunder,’ and she HAD NEVER HEARD OF IT and I was legitimately so shocked that she could’ve smacked me in the face and I would’ve been less surprised.
Is that the one where everyone's worth is determined by how attractive they are and an ugly couple have a child that they refuse to let outdoors because he was an uncanny super child?
Oh I’m not familiar with that one!! “All summer in a day” takes place on Venus where the sun doesn’t come out except once every few years, and one girl from earth still remembers the sun so her classmates are jealous. I won’t spoil the rest but that’s the premise!
I Have No Mouth is one of the ones that absolutely sticks for life.
And does anyone remember that story where the guy has to find the book of his life with no mistakes or even a character out of place in an infinite library of books containing all possible combinations of letters?
Not exactly 15 minutes short, but I will forever recommend "There is no Antimemetics Divition" by qntm. It stands out as a piece that when you realize how the world operates and what the protagonist is up against, it fills you with extreme dread at how impossible the situation is
I've seen another piece by the same author that was also great. Don't remember the title but it was about a research assistant's consciousness being digitally cloned as commercial AI.
That is part of “Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories”, it is one of the free short reads on his website. I highly recommend the book (and all of his other work honestly, I love antimemes <3
I wanted to reread a short story about the development of a friendly AI who warned that they were in fact the second self improving AI, and that the first was probably hostile. I was sure it was qntm, but couldn't find it again.
This is where a lot of my tastes are when it comes to sci-fi horror. The clinical prose does a lot to create a dreadful atmosphere. It's a big part of why I love the SCP Wiki and similar projects.
So true! I read it like 6 or so years ago and there has not been a week that’s gone by without me thinking about it. There’s also this one Isaac Asimov story about a device that makes someone’s muscles contract super hard and crush their bones. Impeccable story length : brain space ratio there.
I’m sitting here with machine in my meat, I’m moving my meat all over the machine writing meat words with my meat meatgers , I’m flapping my meat rn, it makes a sound: “hehehehehe”
For a while you could only find re-uploads of dubious quality. Glad you find the original author, pity they only thought to upload it in 2019, 15 years after the original publication.
I still occasionally think of its music, and the way the characters play with their cigarettes at the beginning.
I love 17776. It’s one of those rare pieces of art on the internet that literally cannot be recreated in another medium. If it was writing it could be a book, if it was images it could be a movie. But it’s both and neither of those things because the way you interact with it is unique to using a web browser. Just a delight. Now I’ve got to re-read it.
Despite the title, it is not a chud 'kids these days with their pronouns' screed but a cool examination of the military industrial complex by and about a trans person.
I remember there being a huge controversy about that story, though I can’t remember if it was because the author was trans or because people who didn’t read it saw the title and automatically assumed it was chuddy
The second—and N K Jemisin and Neon Yang were a big part of it. They used their influence to pile onto the author without even reading the story. It was really really gross.
Who Goes There? The story that The Thing was based on is really great. I Have No Mouth Yet I Must Scream is obviously a great one. Pump Six and other stories by Paolo baciagalupi is pretty great.
“Cool Air” by HP Lovecraft is really good when you don’t have a little bitch in your ear saying “wow Lovecraft was afraid of air conditioners, that’s so lame”
"(Blank)" by HP Lovecraft is good when you dont have a little bitch in your ear saying "wow Lovecraft was so afraid of (Blank), that's so lame"
Applies to just about all his works, the unhinged irrational fear towards everything from people to machinery to colour's are, quite frankly, what made his work great
And cool air isn’t about “wow air conditioners are scary,” it’s about “a scientist used some kind of advanced tech to extend his life beyond his natural death, and then I saw him dissolve into a puddle of horrible goo because the air conditioner that kept his body stable failed. Now when I hear an aircon going it reminds me of the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen in my life”
It's worse than that, because the narrator is the scientist's friend and finds the horrible goo when he comes into the room to try to do an emergency fix on the machine. Lovecraft never mentioned this, but Cool Air was written just as Iron Lungs were being invented. Polio patients in iron lungs would live in constant fear of dying from equipment failure because their caretakers couldn't get a replacement part in time, just like in the story. It's a very timely and classic bit of horror.
I think the internet has focused so much on the racist roots of Lovecraft's horror that they completely miss that Lovecraft was one of the first scifi horror authors, and a lot of his stories reflect some valid fears at the time. A lot of his work focuses on people assuming that new technology can solve their problems. Sometimes it seems to work, but other times it just delays the inevitable or fails to stop a larger issue. His concerns about technology, especially earlier in life before he really goes off the deep end, are reasonable for the time.
In a way I agree, but I think the spirit of the comment its still true
Harping in someone's ear that they shouldn't be enjoying Lovecraft, or that his works are somehow lesser for their racism, is kind of a redundant point
Sure the racism is intense and blatant, but its also part of the story and it doesnt actually diminish the quality of the writing, even if it does make the subject matter more complicated to engage with
And as an aside, the lunacy of Lovecrafts specific flavour of racism is in of itself fascinating, to the point i almost wanna call it racial-phobia instead
Hi! Just wanted to say that I see you posting the links in so many threads and I really appreciate you. I read 3 stories that I would not have read today had the link not been so easily accessible. I hope you have a great day because you brightened up mine!
I’m really so glad to hear that! That’s exactly what I hope for when I share links, that someone else will want to read that thing just like I did and maybe more people will check it out if it’s just a click away.
Came to the comments to write this! Vonnegut's other short stories are also great - especially 2 B R 0 2 B this link is to the wiki page with the plot summary (there're also links there for the e-book and audio file) - I've thought about it for years.
I've tried to look it up before, but there was this post about an 'Almost Deer', describing a deer and what kind of 'almost deer' is scarier...
- The Deer that WAS a deer, and is just deformed: Horrifying because of disease, illness, or other physical deformities making the deer not look like a Deer anymore. It spots you and hacks widly, hobbling closer as it cried for help. It's legs seems to deteriorate with each step as it's howl gets louder... closer...
-The thing that WAS a deer, but is no more... It's clearly got the features of a deer, but it's not moving like a deer anymore... it doesn't sound like a deer anymore... It doesn't breath like it used to... something else is in that skin...
-The thing trying to pretend to be a deer... to attract prey. It stands in the field, listening quietly. It looks fine at a distance, but through a scope you can see it... Too many antlers... too many legs moving the wrong way... too many eyes, scanning the tree line... too many ears listening for your foot to crunch an unnoticed branch...
-The thing trying to hide amongst the deer. As an outsider, you can clearly see on of the flock is different. it's skulking and machinations are clear as day to you, but to the deer it walks amongst they have no idea the danger they're in...
"The Machine Stops" by EM Forster is about people who never leave their homes and exclusively interact with each other remotely through the Machine that controls all their lives.
To this day I keep thinking from time to time about this short story that I read 20+ years ago about a guy who would gain weight when people lied to him but figured out as he got older that he lost weight when he lied. (It was so sad when you figured out he was overweight as a kid because all the adults were constantly lying to him.)
The sci fi part comes in at the end where he signs up for some Mars expedition that goes wrong, and he’s stuck under something but is not strong enough to lift it - he’d basically become very underweight from all the lying that then isolated him from people because they didn’t want to associate with a liar.
He has almost like a mirage vision of the physical manifestation of Hope, who promised to save him. He gains the strength to push the thing he was stuck under and escape. But it’s kind of left vague if he got stronger because Hope lied to him, or because she followed through. I’m 90% sure the last sentence was something along the lines of “Hope dies last.”
I have no clue what the name was, and if it was translated from English or someone’s original story from Bulgarian. I just remember reading it in a magazine in a waiting room as a kid, and it just stuck.
I read it in the Minority Report and other short stories anthology. Can't remember most of the other short stories in it but my god that one.... That one has stuck with me for 12 years.
I'm desperate to talk to anyone about The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2017 Edition." Someone please talk to me about *Blood Grains Speak Through Memories.
Please talk to me about That Game We Played During The War. Talk to me about All That Robot Shit.
Fair warning that many of these stories are incredibly sad. And even fairer warning that I haven't finished the book yet, so you may very well be left in the same state by the end, wishing that I had read it, too.
Almost every Friday Black story by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is amazing, but Through the Flash (scroll most of the way down or just Ctrl+f "through the flash") is one of the best time loop stories ive ever read. it's genuinely almost impossible to find a decent copy online though, had to search for almost 20 minutes to find this one
There’s this one comic I read in middle school school that was part of an anthology book, about some guys who find a safe that when you’re locked inside, time doesn’t pass for you. I don’t remember most of it but I remember at the end one girl locks herself in for a long time, with her friend intending to open it eventually. But they never do and eventually she falls asleep.
Then she wakes up in the cool sci fi future when they finally open it, but it’s actually revealed to be a dream and the last panel is the safe buried under tons of rubble after a nuclear war.
So yeah it kinda fucked me up a bit and I’ve never been able to find the damn comic again or remember what it’s called
I'm not huge into AI or chatgpt - but I'm always really impressed by chatgpt's ability to find stuff from not a lot of info. Talking old specials that ran once on TV, fanfiction stories, weird memories, etc. Anyways, I just copy/pasted your thing into it and got this response. Enjoy!
Yep — I think I found exactly what you’re talking about! It’s a short comic story called “The Forever Box” by Sarah Mensinga, and it appeared in a graphic-novel anthology series Flight (specifically Flight Vol. 4) edited by Kazu Kibuishi.
I can name a few, and describe a few more. Harrison Bergeron comes to mind as somebody who grew up around disability, another person mentioned The Lottery. I can vaguely remember one about a button, but can't remember who it's by. The others I can only describe the scenes that stuck and hope people can name them for me
The first is a Scifi short, where a pilot is manning a single occupant ship with just enough fuel to get medicine to a research colony on a distant planet. There is a stowed away young girl, and her weight is enough to jepordize the mission because it is taking more and more fuel, meaning they won't get off the planet should she survive.
The second is more Farenheit 451 than Starwars, where a nuclear family lives in a house dominated by machines. Theres a robot that cooks for them, cleans for them, ties the kid's shoes before school. The parents buy the children a room where anything is possible, and anything is real. All I really remember is at the end, The father gets upset and punishes the children for always playing in that room by unplugging or deactivating all of the robotic helpers in the house. The children disappear into the room, set to perfectly mimic the African Savannah, where at least the mother is eaten by a pride of lions.
Did people generally get to read short stories in their language/literature classes at school?
We did and I always thought that was a great option that should be more widespread. Sure, you want students to learn how to engage with full-length novels too, but working through a variety of short stories can get them exposed to a whole set of literary genres, writing techniques, and new ideas pretty efficiently. And in my experience, it helps keep the attention of more students who are resistant to reading for one reason or another.
I think so? I feel like there's a few authors people know mainly because their short stories are much easier to tackle in a school setting. Like I wager more people have read Kafka's The Metamorphosis rather than The Trial because it's super common in classes in Europe in my experience, and I don't think I've ever seen Shirley Jackson mentioned beyond her short stories outside of actual literary groups for an American example. Not to mention authors like Borges and Akutagawa who are pretty much exclusively short story authors. I think the only scifi adjacent thing we covered was LeGuin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas though, and that's honestly not really scifi.
Though, shout out to novellas (books shorter than 100 pages) doing the same - I deffo remember covering more of them and damn some of them are a lot.
Read EC Comics. Their sci-fi and horror anthology comics have all been published as EC Archives and are easily available on Hoopla if your library has that. EC Comics specialized in comics that were meant to make you think and were shockingly progressive for the era they were written in, so much so that they were one of the first victims to the Comics Code Authority when they refused to alter their comics and the messages. One of the biggest stories was when the CCA tried to make them alter a story about alien racism that ended by revealing the human astronaut was Black, with the intent being readers would be horrified by the aliens then be forcefully reminded the aliens reflected Earth’s society.
I highly recommend The Hidden Girl and Other Stories collection of shorts by Ken Liu. I'm so used to scifi classics from decades ago that I was shocked by compelling scifi based on the last ten years of technology, politics, and culture. Thoughts and Prayers, and Byzentine Empathy come to mind.
exhalation by Ted Chiang caused me to have an existential crisis and extra bad dissociative episode. so like definitely read it unless you have issues with death. I couldn't even finish it. highly recommend
Not necessarily sci-fi, but there's this one swedish short-story that will forever be with me. It's called Huvudsaken, and it's from a book of short-stories called Spelreglerna. I don't know if it's been translated into english. The title translates to "The Main Thing", but the word huvud also means head. The book's title translates to "The Game Rules"
The story is about a man who, after realizing that he's never held an opinion or thought of his own, wanted to self-isolate. He shut himself inside a cabin, away from the rest of the world so he could find out who he is when he is alone.
Then one day, he grows a pimple on his back. This pimple become bigger and bigger, until he sees a tiny head poking out from it. The second head is initially afraid of him, but with time gains the confidence to talk to him. It insists that they should go outside, to the people, but the man refuses. He becomes angry at it, and tries to cut it off with scissors, but is unsuccessful.
It just keeps growing, and as the head grows, it starts to migrates up the back, until it rests on his shoulder. As it grows, the old head atrophies.
Towards the end of the story, the old head shrivels up and falls off, while the new head takes it's place. He tucks his old head into bed, and then walks out into the world. When he returns, and the old head asks him how it was "out there", he tells him he wouldn't have survived it.
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-of-darkness/
This one has lived with me since i was 10.
What a beautiful story. I read it as a metaphor for the way we shelter children from “dangerous” media. How we control what our children are allowed to see or read, and how that may limit them. But of course all turned up to 11!
Thanks for sharing!!
This reminds me of Snow Crash, specifically the concept of a cognitohazardous image file that can be viewed in virtual reality and nuke your brain in real life. The topic of words or patterns that can bypass your higher brain function and mess with your base processing/programming is always such a cool one to play with. See also: Lexicon by Max Barry
If you're looking for more fiction with a focus on cognitohazards I highly recommend the SCP wiki. If that's all that you're interested in there's a robust tag system for articles.
Yes huge fan already!! Great rec!
It's like cognitohazards
That's a damn good one
Thanks for introducing it to us. It’ll live with me for a long time, I bet.
You're absolutely welcome! I love sharing my favorite Sci-fi story with people. The concepts in it have kept me occupied for years
OMG so that's why the SCP-001 memetic kill agent is called a Berryman-Langford!!! This is awesome, thanks for the link!
thank you for sharing. incredible story.
I'll admit the novelty of the idea was somewhat dampened by my knowledge of scp cognitohazards but damn this is great
Shit this is good
This is fascinating. Quality stuff
The Egg, The Last Question, and The Ones who walk away from Omelas, pop to mind
Links, for the curious.
The Egg by Andy Weir
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
I had no idea Andy weir wrote the egg. I saw it as a comic on tumblr for the first time years and years ago.
Andy Weir adapted it from a conversation with someone who believes in that philosophy literally. I'm pretty sure they keyword search reddit for mentions of it to let people know because they messaged me about it after I mentioned it myself.
I first saw the kursgetstat video
I was similarly surprised to hear that after my wife started reading his books.
the egg has a lovely animated music video adaptation too
And then there's Isabel Kim's amazing followup to LeGuin -
Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole?
Isn’t the premise of Omelas that a single child has to suffer for everything to be paradise for the rest? I get that it’s supposed to be this huge moral quandary, but compared to today where billions are suffering so the rest of us can have a much worse standard of living than in the story, it seems like an absolute no brainer to take the deal.
I really recommend reading it because while that is sort of the premise, I don’t think that’s a fair summary of the point of the story. And/or you can poke around to see what Le Guin herself had to say about it.
Exactly right, kind of the premise, very much not the point!
It’s not really meant to be a trolley problem, more a commentary on how perfection doesn’t seem real, there has to be some sort of dark secret to every utopia
in a sense it's a criticism of people seeing trolley problems everywhere
They do this story almost exactly in the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode 'Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach.' The kid they pulled out of the machine still gives me the heebies.
I think, in regards to le Guin's story, it's meant to make you think about acceptance and consent in that system. You're fine with it being a random child? What about when your kid's name comes up in the draw? Why would it take being your child to suddenly care about the brutality of the system? The kid also isn't told why things are like this, they beg and cry and waste away. When their body gives out, they pop another kid in there.
It's not paradise if people are still suffering. What we have now is a bunch of extremely wealthy people at the top living in paradise. They likely decided your suffering is worth their happiness.
It's a big critique of utilitarianism, since she either has or greatly trends towards consequentialist ideas.
the last question is a story ive been trying to find for like 15 years, thank you!
Cheers! Try r/tipofmytongue if you're looking for anything else, they definitely would have found it over there based on as simple a description as "story where people ask a computer how to have energy forever"
Fucking omelas. Found it so deeply disturbing the first time I heard it I wished I could've gouged the story out of my brain. And now it's just nestled up there, next to ninja turtles quotes, as if it belongs
You might get some appreciation out of this response story to Omelas - Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole?
Buddy. There is now room for one less ninja turtle quote in my head. I hope you can live with yourself.
😭 My deepest apologies 🙇♀️
Asimov's always a good one.
Hey you should read the Scholomance series by Naomi Novik!
... no reason...
You picked three that are impossible to beat. Damn.
“I have no mouth and I must scream” “there will come soft rains” “All summer in a day”
Links for the curious
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
Bradbury is the absolute best.
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
Yessss another gut punch from him, he’s so good at that
There is an actual Butterfly House exhibition in my hometown, and last year my cousin and I went and there are SO. MANY. RULES. about watching where you step and what you’re wearing (which is obviously understandable) but there were also SO. MANY. CHILDREN. there that I asked the guide if she had nightmares about ‘A Sound of Thunder,’ and she HAD NEVER HEARD OF IT and I was legitimately so shocked that she could’ve smacked me in the face and I would’ve been less surprised.
Thank you!!
All summer in a day still upsets me to think about
People can be so cruel :(
Is that the one where everyone's worth is determined by how attractive they are and an ugly couple have a child that they refuse to let outdoors because he was an uncanny super child?
Oh I’m not familiar with that one!! “All summer in a day” takes place on Venus where the sun doesn’t come out except once every few years, and one girl from earth still remembers the sun so her classmates are jealous. I won’t spoil the rest but that’s the premise!
The one I mentioned is by the guy who wrote "I have no mouth", had to look it up, it's called "eyes of dust"
I actually do remember the Venus one from a class assignment, thanks for reminding me about it
Oh an Ellison story!! I’ll look into it, maybe it’ll jog my memory once I read more of it too. Thank you!!
I second “there will come soft rains”
It’s so haunting to think about!!
Came here to recommend “All Summer in a Day”. When we read it in class, there was a sort of heavy sadness afterwards. Poor girl.
I Have No Mouth is one of the ones that absolutely sticks for life.
And does anyone remember that story where the guy has to find the book of his life with no mistakes or even a character out of place in an infinite library of books containing all possible combinations of letters?
“A Short Stay In Hell.” 90 or so pages, read it in an afternoon, years of existential dread
Based on The Library of Babel, by Jorges Borges, no doubt.
All Summer in a Day still breaks my heart
Ray Bradbury in general kinda fucks you up
I think about There Will Come Soft Rains at least four times a week since I read it over a decade ago
If I may...
The Jaunt
Not exactly 15 minutes short, but I will forever recommend "There is no Antimemetics Divition" by qntm. It stands out as a piece that when you realize how the world operates and what the protagonist is up against, it fills you with extreme dread at how impossible the situation is
I've seen another piece by the same author that was also great. Don't remember the title but it was about a research assistant's consciousness being digitally cloned as commercial AI.
Edit: Found it! https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
“Lena” https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
That is part of “Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories”, it is one of the free short reads on his website. I highly recommend the book (and all of his other work honestly, I love antimemes <3
https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
I wanted to reread a short story about the development of a friendly AI who warned that they were in fact the second self improving AI, and that the first was probably hostile. I was sure it was qntm, but couldn't find it again.
Came here to recommend the Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories collection, my favourite is https://qntm.org/differenc
Oh man, Lena is so good. It's certainly not short fiction, but his Ra is also one of the best hard-fantasy series I've ever read.
This is where a lot of my tastes are when it comes to sci-fi horror. The clinical prose does a lot to create a dreadful atmosphere. It's a big part of why I love the SCP Wiki and similar projects.
So true! I read it like 6 or so years ago and there has not been a week that’s gone by without me thinking about it. There’s also this one Isaac Asimov story about a device that makes someone’s muscles contract super hard and crush their bones. Impeccable story length : brain space ratio there.
Antimemetic is a term I've only ever heard in scp stories, is this one and do u have the number?
It is!
https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub
Thanks!
There is no Antimemetics Division is a canon hub adapted into a book by it's author. It's really cool
Elite ball knowledge. Such a good read too
idk why but saying "ball knowledge" about short stories is so funny to me
The story was re-edited and published commercially.
It's an improved version of the story, with some plot threads cleaned up. The author, Sam Hughes, gave me the sales pitch in an AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/sciencefiction/comments/1ovl42j/comment/noppfvc/
However, as part of the publishing deal he did have to break it apart from the SCP universe for obvious copyright reasons.
Also, people have made a Youtube series that is great: https://youtu.be/w-IiVeGAydE?si=QaXyazD5-fu7Tu_3
They’re Made Out of Meat
3-5 min read, maybe.
I’m sitting here with machine in my meat, I’m moving my meat all over the machine writing meat words with my meat meatgers , I’m flapping my meat rn, it makes a sound: “hehehehehe”
Man, i remember that one. Good times!
Stephen O'Regan also made a fantastic short film version of it!
it funny that the short film predated YouTube.
For a while you could only find re-uploads of dubious quality. Glad you find the original author, pity they only thought to upload it in 2019, 15 years after the original publication.
I still occasionally think of its music, and the way the characters play with their cigarettes at the beginning.
Deadass if I go into voice acting I'm using a dub of this as part of my demo reel, I mutter the intro to myself from time to time and it still gets me
Stephen King's The Jaunt
https://ia601904.us.archive.org/35/items/the-jaunt-stephen-king/The%20Jaunt%20-%20Stephen%20King.pdf
Does that count as a “short story”?
It’s longer than you think.
Well played, well played.
If you like this one, you may also be interested in Junji Ito’s graphic novel short story The Long Dream
Or "Emesis Blu" on Youtube (Although it is an hour and a half movie so)
Taking this opportunity to plug my favorites album of all time, The Jaunt by Ophelion, a 50 minute prog metal album retelling The Jaunt
Shirley Jackson's the Lottery
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Oh yeah, Vault 11! That's a good one.
I must have read that about fifteen years ago now and I still think about it sometimes
i read 17776 just a few days ago and i was furious about how short it was but i can’t stop talking about it
I love 17776. It’s one of those rare pieces of art on the internet that literally cannot be recreated in another medium. If it was writing it could be a book, if it was images it could be a movie. But it’s both and neither of those things because the way you interact with it is unique to using a web browser. Just a delight. Now I’ve got to re-read it.
Otherwise known as The Future of Football
Did you also read the sequel, 20020: The Future of College Football? I didn't know it existed for years and was so mad when I found out.
I Sexually Identify As an Attack Helicopter
https://isabelfall.neocities.org/Isabel_Fall_-_I_Sexually_Identify_as_an_Attack_Helicopter.pdf
Despite the title, it is not a chud 'kids these days with their pronouns' screed but a cool examination of the military industrial complex by and about a trans person.
I remember there being a huge controversy about that story, though I can’t remember if it was because the author was trans or because people who didn’t read it saw the title and automatically assumed it was chuddy
From what I encountered mostly the second one.
Second one. ): Isabell Fall was forced back into the closet before she even came out.
everytime I'm reminded of that, I am always dismayed and also hoping to all hell that she's doing okay now...
Yeah it’s because they thought the author wasn’t trans - it was a real mess
The second—and N K Jemisin and Neon Yang were a big part of it. They used their influence to pile onto the author without even reading the story. It was really really gross.
Who Goes There? The story that The Thing was based on is really great. I Have No Mouth Yet I Must Scream is obviously a great one. Pump Six and other stories by Paolo baciagalupi is pretty great.
Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr
Reimagined from the Thing's perspective by Peter Watts (author the critically-acclaimed Blindsight novel):
The Things
You beat me to mentioning Paolo Bacigalupi by three minutes, haha. I loved The Fluted Girl, feels very prescient
Commenting so I can check out later and see what stuff other people posted
Yeah, I'll hijack your comment for the same purpose, thanks!
Note to self: good SciFi short stories here! Get your SciFi short stories! Hot and fresh!
Same
“Cool Air” by HP Lovecraft is really good when you don’t have a little bitch in your ear saying “wow Lovecraft was afraid of air conditioners, that’s so lame”
"(Blank)" by HP Lovecraft is good when you dont have a little bitch in your ear saying "wow Lovecraft was so afraid of (Blank), that's so lame"
Applies to just about all his works, the unhinged irrational fear towards everything from people to machinery to colour's are, quite frankly, what made his work great
And cool air isn’t about “wow air conditioners are scary,” it’s about “a scientist used some kind of advanced tech to extend his life beyond his natural death, and then I saw him dissolve into a puddle of horrible goo because the air conditioner that kept his body stable failed. Now when I hear an aircon going it reminds me of the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen in my life”
It's worse than that, because the narrator is the scientist's friend and finds the horrible goo when he comes into the room to try to do an emergency fix on the machine. Lovecraft never mentioned this, but Cool Air was written just as Iron Lungs were being invented. Polio patients in iron lungs would live in constant fear of dying from equipment failure because their caretakers couldn't get a replacement part in time, just like in the story. It's a very timely and classic bit of horror.
I think the internet has focused so much on the racist roots of Lovecraft's horror that they completely miss that Lovecraft was one of the first scifi horror authors, and a lot of his stories reflect some valid fears at the time. A lot of his work focuses on people assuming that new technology can solve their problems. Sometimes it seems to work, but other times it just delays the inevitable or fails to stop a larger issue. His concerns about technology, especially earlier in life before he really goes off the deep end, are reasonable for the time.
I'm gonna say with the exception of his fear of nonwhite people, those have not aged well.
In a way I agree, but I think the spirit of the comment its still true
Harping in someone's ear that they shouldn't be enjoying Lovecraft, or that his works are somehow lesser for their racism, is kind of a redundant point
Sure the racism is intense and blatant, but its also part of the story and it doesnt actually diminish the quality of the writing, even if it does make the subject matter more complicated to engage with
And as an aside, the lunacy of Lovecrafts specific flavour of racism is in of itself fascinating, to the point i almost wanna call it racial-phobia instead
Cool Air by HP Lovecraft
I can't say it enough, but thank you for providing links to all these stories
You’re very welcome! I figure if I’m looking them up for myself, might as well share and make it a bit more likely that others will see them too.
Daniel H. Wilson's "The Blue Afternoon That Lasted Forever" absolutely destroyed me.
Just went & read it, lord.
As a parent of toddlers it killed me!
Parent of two, the same. Goddamn.
Pretty much any Bad Space comic, but The Suit has stuck with me the most.
Man, I read that for a lit class years ago and it still gets to me
Harlan Ellison and Frederic Brown. I quite like Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman. Reminds me to be silly sometimes.
“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison
William Gibson did a few. I really like "red star, winter orbit" and "the winter market"
William Gibson is well known as one of the early kickstarters of the cyberpunk genre for writing neuromancer
Red Star, Winter Orbit by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson
Hi! Just wanted to say that I see you posting the links in so many threads and I really appreciate you. I read 3 stories that I would not have read today had the link not been so easily accessible. I hope you have a great day because you brightened up mine!
I’m really so glad to hear that! That’s exactly what I hope for when I share links, that someone else will want to read that thing just like I did and maybe more people will check it out if it’s just a click away.
Gibson is the undisputed king for me. No one else writes things that stick with me as long and as profoundly as he does.
Many that have been mentioned here are great but I instantly thought of The Yellow Wallpaper.
I was hesitant to mention it bc it's not sci-fi, but I immediately thought of this too!
The God of Arepo
Harrison Bergeron, by Vonnegut.
Came to the comments to write this! Vonnegut's other short stories are also great - especially 2 B R 0 2 B this link is to the wiki page with the plot summary (there're also links there for the e-book and audio file) - I've thought about it for years.
There Will Come Soft Rains has lived in my head rent free since high school
I read the whole Martian Chronicles as a kid expecting it to be fun scifi stores. It was not
I've tried to look it up before, but there was this post about an 'Almost Deer', describing a deer and what kind of 'almost deer' is scarier...
- The Deer that WAS a deer, and is just deformed: Horrifying because of disease, illness, or other physical deformities making the deer not look like a Deer anymore. It spots you and hacks widly, hobbling closer as it cried for help. It's legs seems to deteriorate with each step as it's howl gets louder... closer...
-The thing that WAS a deer, but is no more... It's clearly got the features of a deer, but it's not moving like a deer anymore... it doesn't sound like a deer anymore... It doesn't breath like it used to... something else is in that skin...
-The thing trying to pretend to be a deer... to attract prey. It stands in the field, listening quietly. It looks fine at a distance, but through a scope you can see it... Too many antlers... too many legs moving the wrong way... too many eyes, scanning the tree line... too many ears listening for your foot to crunch an unnoticed branch...
-The thing trying to hide amongst the deer. As an outsider, you can clearly see on of the flock is different. it's skulking and machinations are clear as day to you, but to the deer it walks amongst they have no idea the danger they're in...
Prions!!
"The Machine Stops" by EM Forster is about people who never leave their homes and exclusively interact with each other remotely through the Machine that controls all their lives.
It was written in 1909.
To this day I keep thinking from time to time about this short story that I read 20+ years ago about a guy who would gain weight when people lied to him but figured out as he got older that he lost weight when he lied. (It was so sad when you figured out he was overweight as a kid because all the adults were constantly lying to him.)
The sci fi part comes in at the end where he signs up for some Mars expedition that goes wrong, and he’s stuck under something but is not strong enough to lift it - he’d basically become very underweight from all the lying that then isolated him from people because they didn’t want to associate with a liar.
He has almost like a mirage vision of the physical manifestation of Hope, who promised to save him. He gains the strength to push the thing he was stuck under and escape. But it’s kind of left vague if he got stronger because Hope lied to him, or because she followed through. I’m 90% sure the last sentence was something along the lines of “Hope dies last.”
I have no clue what the name was, and if it was translated from English or someone’s original story from Bulgarian. I just remember reading it in a magazine in a waiting room as a kid, and it just stuck.
I read “The Fluted Girl” by Paolo Bacigalupi a couple of weeks ago and have been thinking about it ever since. Recommend: x
Phillip K. Dick's "Captive Market"
I read it in the Minority Report and other short stories anthology. Can't remember most of the other short stories in it but my god that one.... That one has stuck with me for 12 years.
absolutely anything by Ted Chiang
I had to read exhalation for class. I couldn't finish it and had a panic attack for a week
link
https://web.archive.org/web/20090327122505/http://www.nightshadebooks.com/Downloads/Exhalation%20-%20Ted%20Chiang.html
Octavia Butler - Bloodchild
freesfonline.net you’re all welcome
“A Pail of Air” by Fritz Leiber: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51461/pg51461-images.html
“The Road Not Taken” by Harry Turtledove: https://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf
Out of all reads in the comments, does anyone know which ones won't give me nightmares, please?
They're Made Out of Meat
Just read it from the comments, its very short and not too terrible. You can read it easily from the MIT website
https://youtu.be/oOFB_SJEa-Q?si=w2ZdJ1uoxZpxQAC6
The Belonging Kind. Short story premised on would you give up what makes you an individual to become someone who fits in everywhere?
I was coming to recommend that one! Everything in that book is great but that is my fav.
I stumbled on this story years ago on reddit. It has not left my mind, and it both sooths me and makes me feel like the universe is ripping me apart
https://reactormag.com/divided-by-infinity/
https://youtube.com/@watchdust?si=uCLxFvMIoFfZRP02
DUST is a channel that features short sci-fi films; not exactly what you asked for but there's been some bangers.
I really liked Laboratory Conditions, that's what got me hooked.
https://youtu.be/1N25e4Ss34Q?si=ZI6rbCxQwVRMt5nR
i'd give my soul to write something half as good as The Fog Horn
I'm desperate to talk to anyone about The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2017 Edition." Someone please talk to me about *Blood Grains Speak Through Memories. Please talk to me about That Game We Played During The War. Talk to me about All That Robot Shit.
Fair warning that many of these stories are incredibly sad. And even fairer warning that I haven't finished the book yet, so you may very well be left in the same state by the end, wishing that I had read it, too.
Almost every Friday Black story by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is amazing, but Through the Flash (scroll most of the way down or just Ctrl+f "through the flash") is one of the best time loop stories ive ever read. it's genuinely almost impossible to find a decent copy online though, had to search for almost 20 minutes to find this one
There’s this one comic I read in middle school school that was part of an anthology book, about some guys who find a safe that when you’re locked inside, time doesn’t pass for you. I don’t remember most of it but I remember at the end one girl locks herself in for a long time, with her friend intending to open it eventually. But they never do and eventually she falls asleep.
Then she wakes up in the cool sci fi future when they finally open it, but it’s actually revealed to be a dream and the last panel is the safe buried under tons of rubble after a nuclear war.
So yeah it kinda fucked me up a bit and I’ve never been able to find the damn comic again or remember what it’s called
I'm not huge into AI or chatgpt - but I'm always really impressed by chatgpt's ability to find stuff from not a lot of info. Talking old specials that ran once on TV, fanfiction stories, weird memories, etc. Anyways, I just copy/pasted your thing into it and got this response. Enjoy!
Yep — I think I found exactly what you’re talking about! It’s a short comic story called “The Forever Box” by Sarah Mensinga, and it appeared in a graphic-novel anthology series Flight (specifically Flight Vol. 4) edited by Kazu Kibuishi.
Some of my favourites from the golden age of sci-fi:
Time Wants a Skeleton by Ross Rocklynne
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury (I highly recommend the radio adaptation of this from the show "X Minus One")
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov
Edit: And for a more recent one: The Fliers of Gy by Ursula K LeGuin
I can name a few, and describe a few more. Harrison Bergeron comes to mind as somebody who grew up around disability, another person mentioned The Lottery. I can vaguely remember one about a button, but can't remember who it's by. The others I can only describe the scenes that stuck and hope people can name them for me
The first is a Scifi short, where a pilot is manning a single occupant ship with just enough fuel to get medicine to a research colony on a distant planet. There is a stowed away young girl, and her weight is enough to jepordize the mission because it is taking more and more fuel, meaning they won't get off the planet should she survive.
The second is more Farenheit 451 than Starwars, where a nuclear family lives in a house dominated by machines. Theres a robot that cooks for them, cleans for them, ties the kid's shoes before school. The parents buy the children a room where anything is possible, and anything is real. All I really remember is at the end, The father gets upset and punishes the children for always playing in that room by unplugging or deactivating all of the robotic helpers in the house. The children disappear into the room, set to perfectly mimic the African Savannah, where at least the mother is eaten by a pride of lions.
There was one I read about a father saving his daughter from a black hole (?) that was about consume the planet. Amazing story. The name escapes me.
The blue afternoon that lasted forever
the blue afternoon that lasted forever? it did not end as positively as you describe so maybe not.
SCP-3930 “Pattern screamer”
Speaking of SCP, SCP-093 "Red Sea Object". The imagery of that one is horrifying.
Did people generally get to read short stories in their language/literature classes at school?
We did and I always thought that was a great option that should be more widespread. Sure, you want students to learn how to engage with full-length novels too, but working through a variety of short stories can get them exposed to a whole set of literary genres, writing techniques, and new ideas pretty efficiently. And in my experience, it helps keep the attention of more students who are resistant to reading for one reason or another.
I think so? I feel like there's a few authors people know mainly because their short stories are much easier to tackle in a school setting. Like I wager more people have read Kafka's The Metamorphosis rather than The Trial because it's super common in classes in Europe in my experience, and I don't think I've ever seen Shirley Jackson mentioned beyond her short stories outside of actual literary groups for an American example. Not to mention authors like Borges and Akutagawa who are pretty much exclusively short story authors. I think the only scifi adjacent thing we covered was LeGuin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas though, and that's honestly not really scifi.
Though, shout out to novellas (books shorter than 100 pages) doing the same - I deffo remember covering more of them and damn some of them are a lot.
"MS Fnd in a Lbry" is definitely one of these fascinating stories for me!
I read a condensed version of Flowers for Algernon in middle school that was in a collection of other sci-fi short stories.
Fucked me all the way up then, still does now.
I still remember the short sci-fi alien/human m-preg story my English professor had us read in my first year of university. That was 6 years ago.
I'm sorry I can't remember the name of it.
"Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler?
The last question - Isaac Asimov
All tommorrows lives in my head rent free and it's free
Don't mind me, just commenting so I can find my new reading list again
Lena by qntm
Got Illustrated Man in my carry on cause I gotta refresh
i recommend "The Hidden Girl and Other Stories" by Ken Liu, lot of incredible ideas, some that will drop ur jaw and haunt you
I found a YouTuber a while back that writes these named exurb1a
Read EC Comics. Their sci-fi and horror anthology comics have all been published as EC Archives and are easily available on Hoopla if your library has that. EC Comics specialized in comics that were meant to make you think and were shockingly progressive for the era they were written in, so much so that they were one of the first victims to the Comics Code Authority when they refused to alter their comics and the messages. One of the biggest stories was when the CCA tried to make them alter a story about alien racism that ended by revealing the human astronaut was Black, with the intent being readers would be horrified by the aliens then be forcefully reminded the aliens reflected Earth’s society.
All summer in a day is just brutal.
And 17776 is just… 17776.
Cold Equations lives rent free in my head since high school.
The Things They Carried starts on page 12 in the table of contents. I read this one in college and the weight stayed.
Lily, the Immortal always fucks with my head
I think about George R. R. Martin’s “Sandkings” all the time. True horror.
The Magnus Archives has a bunch of these. More Eldritch horror than sci fi, but the concepts of fear and monsters still rattles me sometimes.
The Jaunt by Steven king
Soft by F Paul Wilson and The Suit from Bad Space used to keep me up at night. Soft is a favorite to this day, but The Suit wigs me out real bad
The Things by Peter Watts - it's way better if you've seen the movie The Thing first though.
I highly recommend The Hidden Girl and Other Stories collection of shorts by Ken Liu. I'm so used to scifi classics from decades ago that I was shocked by compelling scifi based on the last ten years of technology, politics, and culture. Thoughts and Prayers, and Byzentine Empathy come to mind.
Samuel Delaney - Aye, and Gomorrah
Philip K Dick - We Can Remember It For you Wholesale
This one isn’t that life changing, but it’s amusing
https://www.abyssapexzine.com/archives/abyss-and-apex2007/wikihistory/
Flowers for Algernon is a classic
Dark they were, and Golden Eyed by Ray Bradbury. Read it in school, and it certainly is something I still remember
Edit to clarify: it is one story. It had a comma
https://web.archive.org/web/20090327122505/http://www.nightshadebooks.com/Downloads/Exhalation%20-%20Ted%20Chiang.html
exhalation by Ted Chiang caused me to have an existential crisis and extra bad dissociative episode. so like definitely read it unless you have issues with death. I couldn't even finish it. highly recommend
Larry Niven is great! Here's a list.
Not necessarily sci-fi, but there's this one swedish short-story that will forever be with me. It's called Huvudsaken, and it's from a book of short-stories called Spelreglerna. I don't know if it's been translated into english. The title translates to "The Main Thing", but the word huvud also means head. The book's title translates to "The Game Rules"
The story is about a man who, after realizing that he's never held an opinion or thought of his own, wanted to self-isolate. He shut himself inside a cabin, away from the rest of the world so he could find out who he is when he is alone.
Then one day, he grows a pimple on his back. This pimple become bigger and bigger, until he sees a tiny head poking out from it. The second head is initially afraid of him, but with time gains the confidence to talk to him. It insists that they should go outside, to the people, but the man refuses. He becomes angry at it, and tries to cut it off with scissors, but is unsuccessful.
It just keeps growing, and as the head grows, it starts to migrates up the back, until it rests on his shoulder. As it grows, the old head atrophies.
Towards the end of the story, the old head shrivels up and falls off, while the new head takes it's place. He tucks his old head into bed, and then walks out into the world. When he returns, and the old head asks him how it was "out there", he tells him he wouldn't have survived it.
All these comments and no mention of The Screwfly Solution? I've never read a story that hit quite as hard as this one did.
A content warning would perhaps defeat the point. IYKYK.