What are must read short stories?

[R_J_K75]

Just about anything from P.K. Dick. I also enjoyed Hemingway short stories alot.

Philip K Dick is great. Think he may have been the one to postulate the Matrix

 

[R_J_K75]

The Cask of Amontillado

 

[the Jester]

Stephen King's Survivor Type. It's about a surgeon who survives a plane crash and ends up on a deserted island and has to survive. And it's bone-chilling.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

So many to choose from...

How about Oscar Wilde? The Selfish Giant and The Happy Prince are incredible.

 

[J.Quondam]

"Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler, and other stories in her anthology of that same name.

 

[Ryujin]

There are two SciFi short stories, that immediately come to mind:

Read this and imagine what kind of movie we would have gotten, if it was true to the source, rather than a vehicle for Keanu Reeves. In fact all of the stories in the anthology "Burning Chrome" are well worth reading.

"Johnny Mnemonic" by William Gibson

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Gibson_JohnnyMnemonic.pdf

Imagine if faster than light travel was very easy, but we had just somehow missed the trick.

"The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove

https://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf

 

[payn]

PKD’s “Second Variety” was the inspiration for the Terminator franchise and the movie Screamers.

Also, his short "We can remember it for you wholesale" was the basis of Total Recall. (Though the movie takes a bit of a departure but a damn good one!)

I also wonder if his short story "I hope I arrive soon" was an influence on things like Inception?

 

[Deset Gled]

PKD’s “Second Variety” was the inspiration for the Terminator franchise and the movie Screamers.

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".

 

[payn]

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".

Did you slide your glasses up your nose with your pointer finger when you typed that?

 

[Richards]

I'd throw Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tales in the mix. And O. Henry pretty much mastered the short story with a twist.

For an interesting blending of Sherlock Holmes and the Cthulhu Mythos, try Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald." And I always liked his "Other People," which takes place in Hell as a demon torments a damned soul while reviewing the events of his life.

Johnathan