Skip to content

Tag Archives: short stories

Eventually the Mountains Rang With It

He could not make up his mind what he thought about it, and wished he had some friend who would tell him what to think. Actually it seemed to him wholly unsatisfactory, and yet very lovely, the only really beautiful picture in the world. What he would have liked at that moment would have been [...]

The Emerald Foliot

Miles stopped beneath the overhang at the entrance to the tube station. He leaned against the wall, out of the wind, and a short distance from the throngs hurrying home from work. “Nobody knows because nobody knows, Robbie. You know, and I know, and the person who told me knows. And I guess if he—or [...]

We are of two different kinds…

“I am one of those who like to stay late at the café,” the older waiter said. “With all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night.” — Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

If Lions Could Speak and Other Stories

This volume collects an assortment of Paul Park’s early short stories, written between 1983 and 2002. Park is primarily a novelist, and an excellent one, and his short fiction affects me as well as his work in longer forms. The Tourist is the first Park story I read. I found it online before I went [...]

Frost and Fire

In my resolve to read more mainstream canon, I had forgotten how great a writer Roger Zelazny is. This must never happen again. He writes a beautiful blend of science and fantasy, and sometimes plays them off each other, which appeals to me very much since I’m fascinated by that balance between measurable knowledge and [...]

Let Us Quickly Hasten to the Gate of Ivory

Thomas M. Disch committed suicide a few days ago, and I watched all the writer and artist bloggers to whom I subscribe mourn his passing. I hadn’t read anything by Disch until today and, honestly, hadn’t heard of him either. He was a poet, a short story and novel writer, and critic; he won several [...]