Do you read short stories?

[drothgery]

Well, I've read a few novellas this year, and like them, but I only read them because Bujold likes novellas, so there were a few in the omnibus collections of Vorkosigan stories I was going through earlier this year.

 

[diaglo]

i don't read them all the time or exclusively. but i do read them.

besides how can i get ready for a Halloween one-shot sans Edgar Allan Poe

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'd say it's about a 60% novel, 40% short story for me. Anthologies are often the way I go and Chaosium, despite their terrible RPG printing schdule, has some great books.

 

[Ibram]

I enjoy a good short story collection as much as I do a good novel.
I love my Soloman Kane and Conan compilations

 

[Merlion]

I read a goodly number of short stories. Lovecraft is one of my favorite authors, and he of course was pretty much exclusively a short ficition writer.

Also, horror is one of my favorite genres, and a lot of the best horror ficition is in the short form.

Ray Bradbury is another big favorite of mine, and also primarily a short story author. Several of his "novels" are actually short story collections, and even the ones that arent are extremely short novels (Farenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes for instance).

Lately I've been having trouble commiting to getting started on anything long, especially by a previously unknown author, so my short story ratio is probably up even higher.

 

[haiiro]

I quite like short stories (voted for "some of the time").

H.P. Lovecraft is one of my favorite authors, and nearly all of his fiction consists of short stories ("Pickman's Model," "The Whisperer in Darkness" and "The Colour out of Space" are three of my favorites).

Bruce Sterling has written some great volumes of scifi short stories, and William Gibson's got a solid book of them as well (the title's escaping me right now). I can't think of too many other scifi short stories that I've read, though.

One of my favorite stories overall is a short one by Ambrose Bierce, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."

In short: like 'em, read 'em, enjoy the differences between short stories and longer works, and genre doesn't matter if the author is good.

 

[Scribe Ineti]

I read a lot of short stories. F&SF, Asimov's, Analog, Amazing Stories!, Realms, scifiction.com, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and several other annual anthologies. When I don't have the energy or time to commit to a novel or series of novels, short stories help scratch the reading itch.

And I like writing 'em too. Short and sweet.

 

[Captain Howdy]

Myself, and anyone else who likes the horror genre, will probably read mostly short stories. H.P. Lovecraft is my favorite author, he did almost all short stories. Steven King's short stories are also really good, same with the older writers like Poe. Stories are always scariest when they are short... No time to breathe, I guess.

 

[Krug]

SF, Fantasy and horror. I also pick up the Best American Short Stories collection every year. Great read.

 

[your father is]

Here are two great shorts, both by the wonderful Ray Vukcevich:

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Boy at Strange Horizons

The Wages of Syntax at SciFiction