Short Story Club?

This is a great idea. I think we'll get alot more participants in they don't have to commit to reading an entire novel in a month. Not that that is impossible or even difficult under the right circumstances but not everyone has the free time to devote.

So yeah, really good idea and let's get this started as soon as possible.

I really enjoyed the shorts you posted by W C Baer ('Velvet' and another). You have superb internet story finding abilities. I wish I knew some links. It'd be nice to throw one or two from the Informers up. I know that'll grab some of the shmucks around here's attention.

And a big hello to you too!!!!!

Baer has two great stories up on his site, well remembered, and SGJ has loads too. Zombie Sharks With Metal Teeth I remember being particularly good. In fact, I think nearly all of SGJ's stories are fantastic. They build a space inside you, that despite dealing with some really old-fashioned things, frightens you to fuck. Links below. There are more, of course. But I think it'd be cheating linking to more than one for each author.

[URL=http://www.willchristopherbaer.com/bloodporn1.php]Blood Porn[/URL], [URL=http://www.willchristopherbaer.com/bloodporn2.php](Pt.2)[/URL], [URL=http://www.willchristopherbaer.com/bloodporn3.php](Pt.3)[/URL], by Will Christopher Baer
[URL=http://juked.com/2005/09/zombiesharks.asp]Zombie Sharks with Metal Teeth[/URL] by Stephen Graham Jones

Dude awesome. Check the Who's Online and what thread they're viewing over the next couple of days. You'll find me here everytime. This rocks. Feel free to post as many shorts as you'd like.

I'm down. I needs all the readins i sa' can gets.

[QUOTE=loveandhatex;1126612]Having a short story club could be interesting.
I'd definitely be interested in joining in on the discussion.
Perhaps instead of monthly picks, we could have weekly story choices?[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=JKabol;1126616]i think that is a half cool idea

but i wouldnt think it should be limited to online sources
short stories, any published

my thinking, just brainstorming.. a novel pick needs to take a month, novels are such vast expressions

a short story should take a week before people run outta steam, a few exceptions (like memento mori by jonathan nolan, that was an engrossing read and would warrant an engrossed discussion)

i dont know.. if someone would be able to step up, someone who reads mostly short stories from month to month, and can find a short in whatever new magazine or online publication that others (others who are interested in joining the discussion) could get to easily if they wanted to get involved, they could easily start a poll at the first of each month and the last week of that month, say the last monday at the stroke of midnight sunday, close the poll and start the discussion, anyone can go out and find that mag or hit that link and print the story--reading it [while making notes] would take maybe an hour, tops, and can discuss vantage points of view

a few thoughts:

i would partake. though i couldnt lead well, being that i dont foresee
having the time to invest finding fresh new short stories each month
i would be able to dedicate an hour a month to read the choice and
give my two ..'s in play and converse other thoughts to the blade tip
but im thinking no more than a week would be needed to confront it
to discuss its values merits and faults, basically the parts we'd learn
a choice venture and a damn fine one
your idea, these are my thoughts on it
kabol

..[/QUOTE]

Perhaps then the discussion time for each short could be decided on the length of the short - The Dead by Joyce for example is almost a novella, whereas some other stories may just be a short 2,000 words long. I don't think it'd be worth our time to discuss anything shorter. So for The Dead, we could practically spend a month on that, whereas another piece we might be better of spending two weeks on it, to give everyone a chance to read it and give their two cents.

The thing about stories in magazines are the limited availability for us to get them. How many magazines are there that will publish a single global edition? How many of those are going to have short stories? How many of those short stories will be worth our time? I'm not disagreeing of course, I think if someone finds a story that they out and out think deserves to be spoken about, then people should order it and we'll discuss it. But as a general rule of thumb I think most stories people are going to enjoy will be found online. You're right though, the idea of a rule for no print publications is absurd. I've been meaning to subscribe to [URL=http://blackclock.org/news.html]Black Clock[/URL] for ages now, so when this thing get's off the ground I'm sure we'd be able to pick some stories from there, and I've no doubt each one is brilliant.I guess also, if a short story is in a printed collection that's widely available we could be able to recommend it with a bit of notice.

And I'm delighted so many of you seem to have taken to this. I want to get us up and running soon as possible. So when I get the greenlight, I'll make a poll out of whatever stories people seem keen on. Stories which need to be posted in this thread, so I can know to include them.

[QUOTE=corellion;1126642]Perhaps then the discussion time for each short could be decided on the length of the short - The Dead by Joyce for example is almost a novella, whereas some other stories may just be a short 2,000 words long. I don't think it'd be worth our time to discuss anything shorter. So for The Dead, we could practically spend a month on that, whereas another piece we might be better of spending two weeks on it, to give everyone a chance to read it and give their two cents.

The thing about stories in magazines are the limited availability for us to get them. How many magazines are there that will publish a single global edition? How many of those are going to have short stories? How many of those short stories will be worth our time? I'm not disagreeing of course, I think if someone finds a story that they out and out think deserves to be spoken about, then people should order it and we'll discuss it. But as a general rule of thumb I think most stories people are going to enjoy will be found online. You're right though, the idea of a rule for no print publications is absurd. I've been meaning to subscribe to [URL=http://blackclock.org/news.html]Black Clock[/URL] for ages now, so when this thing get's off the ground I'm sure we'd be able to pick some stories from there, and I've no doubt each one is brilliant.I guess also, if a short story is in a printed collection that's widely available we could be able to recommend it with a bit of notice.[/QUOTE]

Very true - it should depend on the size and subject matter, the density, of the prospective story. The club could work if we start out with the more popular stories out there just so we can determine how many are interested and will actually stay with the club.

[QUOTE=Simon57;1126644]I've only read one Ballard novel - Empire Of The Sun - is there anything else i should be checking out?[/QUOTE]

I'd recommend High Rise and two of his best collections: the Terminal Beach, and Vermillion Sands in that order. If you're the compulsive collector type, Amazon UK the Complete collection of short stories in two paperback volumes.

Never read Bradbury, though I'd love to.

[QUOTE=bigshrimpn;1126657]Never read Bradbury, though I'd love to.[/QUOTE]

Most of his short stories are no more than a few pages long - stuff like A Sound of Thunder and There Will Come Soft Rains - so he might be a perfect candidate for timely club discussion.

[QUOTE=Simon57;1126658]Cheers, good advice. I'll pick up those mentioned and browse through them in the bookshop tomorrow and see if i fancy them. Empire Of The Sun was great i thought.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, it was a great read, way better than the overrated Crash. Many readers start with Crash and are instantly turned off because of the numbing, sterile prose. The thing about Ballard is that with many of his novels, specifically Crash, Super-Cannes, and many have thought he same about The Atrocity Exhibition, he has a habit of weighing down the prose with psychological reflection. High Rise is his most important novel and doesn't suffer from the tendency.

Oh, these courtesy from the [URL=http://www.welcometothevelvet.com]Velvet[/URL].

[URL=http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html]Wikihistory[/URL] by Desmond Warzel
[SIZE=1]Laugh out loud funny. Lots of room for discussion when it comes to how the story works.[/SIZE]
[URL=http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/barth.htm]Click[/URL] by John Barth
[SIZE=1]For those not in the know John Barth is a bastard. It's thick reading for a while but releases towards the end.[/SIZE]

Lots of classics coming now.

These are the big classics now. I'd advise copying and pasting them into word as half of these sites are bloody useless. May as well have red writing and yellow backgrounds. There are more of course, I could go on for a long long time, but this is enough classics now.

[URL=http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/micsun/IrishResources/dead.htm]The Dead[/URL] by James Joyce
[URL=http://www.geocities.com/short_stories_page/tolstoydeath.html]The Death of Ivan Ilyich[/URL] by Leo Tolstoy
[URL=http://englishlibrary.org/stories_thethief.html]An Honest Theif[/URL] by Fyodor Dostoevsky
[URL=http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/kafka/inthepenalcolony.htm]In the Penal Colony[/URL] by Franz Kafka
[URL=http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/bookid.240/sec./]The Bet[/URL] by Anton Chekhov
[URL=http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecallofcthulhu.htm]The Call of Cthulhu[/URL] by H. P. Lovecraft [SIZE=1](scroll down)[/SIZE]
[URL=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_the_House_of_Usher]The Fall of the House of Usher[/URL] by Edgar Allan Poe
[URL=http://www.ariyam.com/docs/lit/wf_rose.html]A Rose for Emily[/URL] by William Faulkner
[URL=http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Bret_Harte/The_Outcasts_Of_Poker_Flat/The_Outcasts_Of_Poker_Flat_p1.html]The Outcasts of Poker Flat[/URL] by Bret Harte
[URL=http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/g/gogol/nikolai/g61cl/]The Cloak[/URL] by Nikolai Gogol
[URL=http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/engl/lawson/acadia03/texts/HillsLikeWE.html]Hills Like White Elephants[/URL] by Ernest Hemingway
[URL=http://www.freeweb.hu/tchl/salinger/eskimos.html]Just Before the War with the Eskimos[/URL] by J.D. Salinger
[URL=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Devil%27s_Foot]The Adventure of the Devil's Foot[/URL] by Arthur Conan Doyle [SIZE=1](A Sherlock Holmes short)[/SIZE]

I'll do it if we're reading stories by Chekhov and the like. I can stomach some new stuff, like Lori Moore and Miranda July, but I'd rather shove a piece of splintered balsa wood up my bum than read something by the likes of John Updike

Im most definitely down for this. I was just thinking about this the other day but Alex has done a great job of it. Im in.

I keep hearing this from friends, which is why I've haven't yet bothered to pick up an Updike book. And yet, he seems to be highly regarded by many others. What is it about him you dislike so much? (I'm genuinely curious as to your opinion; you seem to have absurdly good taste).

Also, this Short Story Club idea definitely sounds cool.

Also, just to throw it out there, the short stories in Irvine Welsh's [B]The Acid House[/B] are great fun.

[QUOTE=Riddlegimp;1126711]Nice thread, Corellion.

I'd like to make a suggestion too. I once had a chat with our old Cult friend Luddy Dunn, who sadly doesn't come round these parts any longer. Anyway, she recommended the following:

Ursula K. Le Guin's [URL=http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnweb/rprnts.omelas.pdf][B]The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas[/B][/URL].

It's got some interesting stuff going on to do with POV, intrusion and the like. It won the Hugo Award back in the 70s. Plus, the central idea is very powerful.[/QUOTE]

Thanks.

That looks great. Personally I didn't want to go into advising collections of shorts for fear it'd turn out to be another book club, [B]but[/B] I'd love at some time to dig into something from Alan Moore's [B]Voice of the Fire[/B], and Mark Richard's [B]The Ice at the Bottom of the World[/B]. They're both fantastic.

..

[QUOTE=glamhoth;1126708]I keep hearing this from friends, which is why I've haven't yet bothered to pick up an Updike book. And yet, he seems to be highly regarded by many others. What is it about him you dislike so much? (I'm genuinely curious as to your opinion; you seem to have absurdly good taste).[/QUOTE]

His novels are ok, but he's a novelist, not a good short story writer. He tries to write short stories like one would write a novel, and they fall flat. They're by no means awful, they're just not great. Go pick up the 2007 Special Fiction issue of The Atlantic Monthly to see what I'm talking about. I could go in depth and pick apart a few works, but unless I'm getting published or a grade for it, I'm pretty lazy when it comes to literary criticism.

Excellent idea. i'm totally in. You've linked to some great stories corellion. Those alone could keep this going for quite a while. Here are a couple more:

[URL=http://www.craigclevenger.com/work/fiction/thefade.php]The Fade[/URL] - Craig Clevenger

[URL=http://www.zyzzyva.org/fall01.soloway.htm]Courtney Cox's Asshole[/URL] - Jill Soloway

[QUOTE=marsjams13;1126815]
[URL=http://www.zyzzyva.org/fall01.soloway.htm]Courtney Cox's Asshole[/URL] - Jill Soloway[/QUOTE]

All of the marvelous stories on this thread and I begin with this one. No regrets. Today will be a long one, a light-hearted story to start the morning off.

[QUOTE=loveandhatex;1126661]Most of his short stories are no more than a few pages long - stuff like A Sound of Thunder and There Will Come Soft Rains - so he might be a perfect candidate for timely club discussion.[/QUOTE]

I love Bradbury (ever read "Frost and Fire"? one of his best, in my opinion). I got lucky this past summer and found 5 Bradbury anthologies for less than $10 on eBay.

You mentioned PKD, too....excellent suggestion. I've got two of his short story collections and most of his novels, and while I enjoy all of them, I'm [I]particularly[/I] fond of the short stories.

[URL=http://www.newyorker.com/fiction]Jackpot![/URL]

Excellent idea and thread, Cor. I'm with Shrimpn on this one; I'm so stoked about the thread leading up to the thread leading up to the discussion because of all the stories posted thus far. I think the short story form gets badly neglected among most readers. Plus, it should be easier to discuss shorts online than novels, since the level of detail involved in critiquing a novel is almost impossible to convey online (for me, at least). I'll be heading over to the poll thread...now.

Heres another that i've always liked:
[URL=http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/1952]The Yellow Wallpaper[/URL] - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Actually this is generally a good site to find stuff - [URL=http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page]Project Gutenberg[/URL]
[URL=http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2814]Dubliners[/URL] - James joyce
I'm fond of Araby