Do you read short stories?

[nikolai]

Do you read short stories? They've been in decline for some time as novels sell much better. This is particular the case in fantasy when they used to be standard format, which post-Tolkien switched to the multivolume series. If you do read short stories, which genres?

 

[Wombat]

About every month or so I haul down at least half a dozen short stories -- October is always my heavy month that way, in that I read about 6+ Poe, 6+ Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury's collection October Country.

I am also one of those terribly weird people who actually prefers Stephen King as a short story writer...

 

[shilsen]

About every month or so I haul down at least half a dozen short stories -- October is always my heavy month that way, in that I read about 6+ Poe, 6+ Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury's collection October Country.

I am also one of those terribly weird people who actually prefers Stephen King as a short story writer...

Join the club. I think King's short stories are far superior to his novels, which I generally find slow and turgid.

As for the original question - no, I generally do not read short stories, but that's mainly due to circumstances. I'm doing my Ph.D. in English and that requires so much reading and grading (I teach too) that I don't read much for entertainment any more. That being said, I just picked up the collected Solomon Kane stories by Howard, so I will be reading soem short stories this week. Woohoo!

 

[Greylock]

I voted "Just about all I read", but that is strictly in regards to fiction. I prefer history if I'm going to invest time in a long book, but if you can catch me reading fiction, it's of the shorter kind.

Amazing stories, Asimov/Clarke type stuff, Poe, or generally standard fiction, such as King's Indian by John Gardner, or even Mark Twin. I think it's tighter and better thought out/written/poetic when constrained by the 'short fiction' parameters.

 

[Zulithe]

I enjoy short stories, especially if published in a collection (like how Stephen King and many other authors do it)

Sometimes a relatively short, well-structured story is refreshing amongst all these epic novel series which go on for 3, 6, 9 books or more, wouldn't you agree?

 

[Nellisir]

About half. Sci-fi and fantasy; I usually prefer the sf shorts to the fantasy; the themed fantasy shorts seem to have alot of not-so-great stuff, and the "years best" fantasy shorts collections usually has a very high percentage of the modern/postmodern/something subgenre, where the fantastic elements aren't so much fantastic as slightly weird, not to mention slightly depressing.

I'm a sucker for a good, classic hard sf short story, or a similar fantasy short story.

Nell.

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

I'd say about 40% of the time. One of my great loves outside the fantasy/SF genres is horror. And because of the type of horror I prefer (Victorian/Edwardian-era writers), I'm relegated mainly to short stories. After all, not too many horror novels were written in those days... outside of Bram Stoker.

And no, I don't really count At the Mountains of Madness or Charles Dexter Ward as novels.

 

[demiurge1138]

I read a lot of short stories, especially Lovecraft and pastiches in his honor. But Lieber, Poe, Bierce, Arthur Conan Doyle and a bunch of other authors occasionally cross my path.

Demiurge out.

 

[Jamdin]

Most of what I read are short stories and I prefer them over novels. I enjoy reading magazines such as Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realm of Fantasy and Amazing. I too enjoy Stephen King more as a short story writer. I was saddened when I bought the October issue of Dragon today and found that no short story was included

 

[PaulKemp]

I love short stories, both fantasy and sci-fi. One of the best I've read in recent years was "The Spade of Reason," by James Cowan. Big ideas shown through the lens of a little story.