What are must read short stories?

[BookTenTiger]

I'm a big fan of short stories as a medium, both in reading and writing them. I buy The Best American Short Stories and the O'Henry Prize collection every year. There's an annual Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology too, though I haven't checked it out.

Most of my favorite short story writers are not in the genre of science fiction or fantasy, though some are adjacent. If you're interested in reading more short fiction, I would recommend any collection by:

Alice Munro, possibly one of the greatest short story writers of the 20th century. Her collection 'Open Secrets' has many of my favorite stories.

Tobias Wolff, just an awesome, skilled storyteller. I'd recommend 'In the Garden of the North American Martyrs.'

George Saunders, a modern satirist whose stories often dip into sci fi concepts. My favorite of his short story books is 'Tenth of December.'

I grew up reading Ray Bradbury, and it really is hard to beat 'The Martian Chronicles' or 'The Illustrated Man.'

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Um, Actually...

I believe Terminator was more closely inspired by Harlan Ellison's "Soldier of Tomorrow" and, to a lesser extent, "Demon with a Glass Hand".

To be more accurate, I should have written “an” instead of “the”. But it was actually an early interview about the first Terminator movie that put “Second Variety” on my radar.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Most of my favorite short story writers are not in the genre of science fiction or fantasy, though some are adjacent.

One of my favorite short stories in any genre is O. Henry’s “Ransom of Red Chief”. Tangent: that short story clearly influenced the writing of the horror movie, The Cottage.