Short Days

Back in the 1950s at the dawn of science fiction, writers were turning out wildly imaginative stories for the pulp magazines. Robert Silverberg, writing as David Osborne, estimates he wrote over a million words in one year. Here are three more exciting stories from those heady days from the pioneers of science fiction: "Aliens from Space" by David Osborne, "The Man with Three Eyes" by E. L. Arch, and "Conquest of Earth" by Manly.

From Egypt to a Russian village to the mountains of Eastern Europe and back, one of the old-fashioned gentlemen of Russian literature, Nikolai Leskov, takes his listeners on a journey of spirit, mind, and imagination.

Listening to great writing is a pleasure unto itself. Sometimes the opening paragraph of a work, or even the first sentence, makes it obvious that you are in the hands of a master, and once venturing a few furtive steps onto the path of prose, no matter what forest it enters, valley it descends, or mountain it scales, you will walk the entire distance.

This collection of short fiction from Elizabeth Harrower features a number of previously unpublished works and 'Alice', which was published for the first time in The New Yorker in 2015. Internationally acclaimed for her five brilliant novels, Elizabeth Harrower is also the author of a small body of short fiction. A Few Days in the Country & Other Stories brings together for the first time her stories published in Australian journals in the 1960s and 1970s along with those from her archives.

From the twice CWA Dagger shortlisted author of The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas come 12 never-before-published stories to transport you to the macabre world of inexplicable phenomena. With returning characters from the Essex Witch Museum series and a weirdly wonderful tale for each day of Christmas, these spooky stories are the perfect companion for long, dark winter nights.

Bons dias reúne crônicas narrativas do escritor Machado de Assis, considerado um dos autores mais importantes da literatura brasileira. Os textos, publicados entre 1888 e 1889, carregam um tom irônico e realista de uma época do Brasil em que a monarquia e a escravidão chegavam ao fim. As crônicas apresentam diversos personagens, entre eles, o próprio autor, que usa um pseudônimo de “Boas Noites”. Esta obra de Machado de Assis trata de variados assuntos no campo politico, cultural e social e aborda temas como os neologismos, a medicina popular e o espiritismo.

The night writers in Cousineau's vesperal collection range from saints, poets, and shamans to astronomers and naturalists, and tells of ancient tales and shining passages from the most brilliant (albeit insomniac) writers of today. These poetic ponderances sing of the falling darkness, revel in dream-time, convey the ache of melancholy, conspire against sleeplessness, vanquish loneliness, contemplate the night sky, rhapsodize on love, and languorously greet the first rays of dawn.

A Colombian writer is witness to a murder that will mark him forever. A woman sits alone in her house, waiting for her husband to return, while he lies in another woman's bed 20 kilometers away. Through blood-soaked betrayal, a love affair, murder, and long-meditated revenge, Vasquez achieves an extraordinary unity of emotion, morality, and landscape with these fragmented lives.

Forged in the hot sun and sand of the Arizona desert, Chinook Shannon is as tough as they come. But Chinook is far from home—in the north country of Montana—and facing a challenge as big as the territory itself. Following his grandfather’s suspicious death, he’s come to Montana to claim his inheritance—the family’s cattle ranch. But the territory’s crawling with bandits and bankers, and they all want a piece of Chinook’s land.

This one-of-a-kind treasury brings together the talents of nearly two dozen best-selling middle-grade authors - including Shannon Hale, Brandon Mull, Ally Condie, and Jennifer A. Nielsen - who have created original short stories and modern-day fairy tales based on the lives and dreams of children they have met who all have two things in common: They have very big hopes and dreams, and they are all cancer patients.

Taking a trip is like a having a love affair: You arrive at your destination liberated from the mundane details of ordinary life, free to shuck off your inhibitions and awaken to the landscape of the senses. In Foreign Affairs, writers from around the globe explore the romance of travel in 21 explicit stories set in evocative locales, including Rome, Brussels, Tokyo, St. Lucia, Vietnam, and Santorini. Contributors include Opal Palmer Adisa, Lisabet Sarai, and Linda Jaivin (author of the best seller Eat Me).

Life as a ski instructor is usually chilled. Especially on a powder day. However, when your client is the wife of a dissident Russian oligarch, someone Moscow wants eliminated given everything he’s been saying about the Kremlin elite, suddenly the temperature risks becoming red hot. Deadly dangerous - if not downright lethal. In particular when the ski instructor is Ben Lewis.

SHORT STORY: A sister in the far future, when we no longer burn things for fuel, finds a forbidden thing that would make the perfect gift. The Day We Stopped Burning is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection. If you enjoyed the optimistic climate solutions in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future or the cozy cooperative future in Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot series, you will enjoy Halfway to Better.

Obsessed is not about obsession for a new purse or a new car. Instead, these stories sizzle with the kind of obsession that is fueled by our deepest desires, the ones that hold couples together, the ones that haunt us and don't let go. Whether just-blooming passions, rekindled sparks, or reinvented relationships, these lovers put the object of their obsession first.

Ghost stories from the golden age. Six great writers weave their spell in creepy, insidious style.

Detective Dwayne Fisher never got over his divorce two years ago. Despite throwing himself into work and a steady supply of booze, he just can't seem to let go. But a little girl is missing in Philadelphia. Amanda Hawkins. A 12-year-old video blogger. Police fear the worst. As the detective's search leads him to an old house in PA farmland to interview a suspect, he discovers that he has more in common with the kidnapper than he thought....

Private investigator Jade O'Reilly thought her worst Christmas dilemma involved finding the perfect gift for her significant other. That was before she agreed to help Agnes Sturgis, the crankiest old biddy in all of Sweetwater, NC. Every day, for the 12 days leading up to Christmas, Agnes wakes up to a yard filled with Christmas decorations. But in Agnes's opinion, "they're not decorations; they're property damage!"

The year is 1989 in Los Angeles, and Miles Jameson is about to graduate from high school. The last big party of high school is approaching, along with the end of a turbulent decade, and Miles has only a vague desire to “work with his hands” (his girlfriend points out that this is a bit trite). Marked with the disaffection and apathy that filled a particular era, and that has always marked adolescence, author John Duncan Talbird gives us a rollicking and bacchanalian look at the challenge of making something of yourself, even when it seems there is little to work with.

You wake up one morning with the weight of the world on your shoulders. You just lost your job, your girlfriend dumped you and you're about to be evicted from your apartment. Is it worth even going on anymore? Maybe not, but before you pull that trigger why not give a call to the folks at the suicide hotline. Maybe they can help. How good are these people at their job? Someone's gonna die no matter what. And there ain't a thing you can do about it.

An artist takes us through his day, from his own particular perspective. A short story from Guys Read: Other Worlds, edited by Jon Scieszka.