Hey, I'm sorry to say this, but the ghoul story seemed to be very, VERY inspired (too much inspired) by the manga Tokyo Ghoul, to the point that it seriously reads like fanfiction of that IP. Maybe you'd like the manga, albeit there are less to no lesbians on it, at least from what I've read. This means the short story still does something new, but I feel that many authors use anime/manga stories that people who aren't into those things find extremely original until they watch/read it. I believe this is a bit disingenuous of the author, to not put it out there where the ideas for worlds, characters, and dynamics came from. What do you think about this?
"She the girl, you the devil, and I the Saint" truly shook me to my core. The religious symbolism? One in three, this desecrated trinity? This impossible, plural, infinite loneliness? The six deaths of the saint changed my LIFE and it did so in *thirty pages*.
@@ReadswithRachel now I'm curious to see you react to the other short stories because they're...nowhere near as good 💀 (except What the Dead Know which I thoroughly enjoyed!)
Tamsin Muir is legitimately such a talented writer! All her stuff is so fucking weird, but so compelling. She writes characters really well and manages complicated plots without totally losing me. I swear, nobody else could pull off the stories she tells because the skill required to execute the way she does is mind-blowing.
Not for highschool but for college I read the yellow wallpaper and it still sits with me over 5 years later. It really taps into the horror of being a woman at the time when you have literally any mental illness and how isolating and traumatizing it can be. Strong trigger warnings on it but it's a famous short story for a reason
I've always thought of short stories as being similar to long form jokes. There's the set-up, and then the punchline. If a short story doesn't have a satisfying ending, it's not a good short story.
This is just freaking adorable! I missed out on pride & no longer have a running vehicle, for some reason this little exchange just brings me so much joy!
My favorite short story is probably Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." I love how much character information he crammed into every single sentence just with his word choices.
My all time favorite short story is “I have no mouth and I must scream.” It’s not for everyone, but it’s a terrifying look at what the author thought world war 3 would do to humanity. Terrifying villain too.
The title is a spoiler, but it still hits by the time it comes back around in the last line. Harlan Ellison was kind of an asshole but dang could he WRITE
by far, my favorite short story is harlan ellison's I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. it's incredibly dark, laden with themes i absolutely would not bring up with someone i know i can't have a civil conversation with, and probably my favorite science fiction story of all time for the way it showcases the twin human desires of progression and self-destruction.
I remember I watched the videos where Rachel was drinking monster and beggin them for a sponsorship and now she's such a natural plugging skillshare.... good for you girl! 😘
I stopped right after hearing the very summary of the short story of "The six deaths of a saint", because it sounded up my ally and I wanted to read it first. And, I'm glad I did. It went quick. The use of second perspective, was...really hits.
Professionally, story length is determined by word count, not page count, because formatting can really change the page count of something. So, my understanding of story categorizations goes like this: TwitterFic/Microfiction: 140/280 characters Drabble: exactly 100 words (term came from fanfic communities, has changed over time) Microfiction: up to 500 words Flash Fiction: 500-1500 words Short Story: 1k-6k (usually the hard cutoff for lit mags) Long Short Story: 6k-10k Novelette: 10k-20k Novella: 20k-45k Novel: 45k-120k Epic Novel: 120k+ These are variable, obviously, and people argue about the word ranges all the time, but this is generally what I've seen floating around.
I felt bad for not liking Children of Blood and Bone, which definitely should have been a hit for me. I think it’s because while Adeyemi has awesome writing skill technically, her storytelling is woefully one-dimensional.
This was over 10 years ago, but I read Karen Russell's "Vampires in the Lemon Grove" book of short stories about supernatural beings and it has obviously left an impression on me. Octavia Butler's "Speech Sounds" was a much more recent one and that was really great!
tamsym muir undercover SLAYED me....'in this world you have to learn how to be hungry'......the pure wlw loneliness of it all...........the lesbicious longing..........
My fave short story collection (which I did read in school, but loved) is the Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. It's Feminist Gothic retellings of fairytales and it's so good, some are only a few pages and some are much longer. I also love Lydia Davis for Flash Fiction and some short stories
Annie Prolux has several volumes of short stories (including Brokeback Mountain) and she has this really fascinating knack of making you understand what is going on and then spinning you around and saying sike! But in a fun way. Also most of the stories interconnect through the characters, which has hilarious implications occasionally
Amazing to hear from a fellow reader that doesn’t really have an affinity for short stories. They’ve been my favorite fictional form since back when I was voraciously reading Sherlock Holmes collections as a kid. If you’re interested in short stories at all and/or horror I personally highly recommend Stephen King’s “The Jaunt” which is a story I feel is one of his best & stands alongside Harlan Ellison’s short story “I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream” as the best existential horror stories & horror stories generally of all time.
Alix E. Harrow is one of my new favorite authors. The Ten Thousand Doors of January and The Starling House are just phenomenal. Tamsyn Muir owns my soul at this point.
Idk if it's your thing, but I've recently been getting into short stories by Neil Gaiman, a lot of which are also suited for kids. I liked Cinnamon, and Blueberry Girl was very adorable with beautiful art.
I loved hearing about these, they sound great. But it always makes me sad when you call yourself stupid. You come up with such cool ideas of how to make a book better and I hope you will speak to yourself with kindness! You are such a light.
Not done with the video yet, but I find it very interesting how definitions differ in every country. In Germany no one is really on one page what a novella is, but even though it shouldn’t be too long, length can differ and it’s the content that is more important. There should be only one thing happening, singularity and contrast within the theme are what is important. I know, not what the video is about, but maybe there are other definitions out there?
The definitions actually don’t change from country to country. It’s more that while these aren’t technically novellas, but they’re classified as such often because they’re published outside of a magazine. Novella has a pretty clear literary definition that’s held universally in order for literary contests to like… function.
@@bluewilliams4911 how did magazines get into this? Rachel defined them in the video by length. I said, that in Germany length isn’t what defines a novella, it’s the content. So there is a different definition, at least in the USA and Germany.
My favorite short story collection is What We Fed to the Manticore, all stories from the perspectives of animals as they face climate change, natural disasters, and the consequences of human actions.
I've read a couple thousand short stories, which makes remembering individual ones difficult... but here we go. -"The Pool" and "The Apple Tree" by Daphne du Maurier -Lost Luggage" by Mick Herron -The Magic Shop" by H.G. Wells -More Deadly Than The Male (23 short stories by women 95% bangers) -Edgar Allen Poe mastered short stories almost all are good -The Ash Tree by M.R. James (there is also a middlehrade retelling called The Night Gardener I rec) "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (cheating with lengthbut it's ma fav)
Oh, I thought I was prepared for Undercover 😮 I was NOT. That review made my stomach turn lmao. I love this type of horror for that very reason (one of the reasons Suspiria and Hostel are some of my favorite horror flicks). The subject of disemboweling someone always gets to me. I love a Ghoul story though. ❤
My favorite short stories are in The Ladies of Grace Adieu collection by Susanna Clarke, who is also my favorite writer. Her approach to the fantastic is so enchanting; I've never read anyone who writes about fairies and magic quite like she does. I would highly, highly recommend🖋
I remember two short stories that I read in elementary school (probably about 30 years ago now) that have stuck with me. "How Now Purple Cow" by Bill Pronzini, and another sci-fi horror story that I remember vividly but can't recall the name of for the life of me. Both of them gave me chills and kept me awake at night.
I just came back after reading 'The six deaths of the saint' and I'm in awe!!!! I was listening to the audiobook at the subway and almost bawled my eyes out at the last sentence!!!! IT'S SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!
My favorite short stories are things have gotten worse since we last spoke by Eric larocca And I also really like Carmen Maria machado's short story collection her body and other parties!
My favourite short story is The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman. I'm a sucker for a fairy tale retelling and any Sleeping Beauty retelling that uses a drop spindle instead of a spinning wheel gets bonus points
I'm usually not a fan of 2nd person, but the six deaths of the saint was SO EFFECTIVE. I felt it all over again when you read the beginning of the story!
I can't recommend "The October Country" enough. It's a collection of some of the best short stories Ray Bradbury ever wrote. It's scary and beautiful and interesting and intense. Masterpiece.
If it helps with 6 Deaths, I initially read it in the best of american science fiction and fantasy collection for 2023. It's in paperback with the story and it has a forward by R.F. Kuang!
“Your Shadow Half Remains” was a novella I really liked. Also “Weird Fishes” was my absolute favorite book I read for AAPI month and it’s a pretty short book (127 pages) 🖊️
Well, it's technically a novella but "Sisters of the Vast Black" by Lina Rather was a great ride. I never thought I'd vibe with a story that can be summarized as "nuns in space", but here we are.
Shirley Jackson (the lottery) is a strong story writer, but at this point, even before you tuck into her novels & novellas, check out her non fiction about raising kids. Keep in mind the norm when she wrote these books - it’s an exceptionally hilarious & intimate sub genre of her work, she delves into some of the dark psychology of family life, but in a fun way and other than some titles containing microaggressions (life among the savages is one of her books, obviously that’s gross to say), I don’t recall much needing a CW or that will be hurtful to anyone other than really organized people lol. She’s got a delightful personality, a terrifying mind, and craft for days..,
The Egg by Andy Weir will forever be one of my favorite short stories. Brilliant use of 2nd person perspective, simple yet evocative prose, and a plot twist that makes me cry like a baby every single time. And it's got such a hopeful message for a story that begins with, "You were on your way home when you died," LOL.
6:16 ommggg silver in the wood is so good and the sequel is just as good!! It’s only a duology so if you ever do want another short story you should read the sequel
That last story has convinced me to get a kindle. It sounds so good! 🖊 I really enjoyed Bliss Montage by Ling Ma. It's a short story collection in which most of the stories are linked in one way or another, time is messed with in interesting ways (imo), and the last story in particular sucker punched me. Definitely recommend looking up trigger warnings though!
I also read the "Into Shadows" collection and I totally agree that "The Garden" is terrible, the worst start to one of these Amazon Original collections so far. I do think listening to it does the most for the poetry and it still doesn't come off as deep. And "The Six Deaths of the Saint" was the best. I'm a sucker for 2nd person too. It was my intro to Alix E Harrow and I def want to learn more from her now. I didn't love Undercover as much as you did, but I still enjoyed it. I think I was just a bit slow and needed a little more world building to make it gel.
5:13 I was in an anthology of short stories that were all sequels to fairy tales and in order to get them all to work together, I had to take my short story on grief and friendship and turn it into a short story about grief, friendship, dark magic, and possession! Every other story was an adventure and I changed my genre. No regrets in the end, but I think about that when you say “who had to write a synopsis for 7 stories?!”
Ooh for short story recommendations I have two- “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood and “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman” by Harlan Ellison. (Technically I did read Happy Endings in high school but it’s stuck with me since, lol) Repent, Harlequin is not NEARLY as dark as I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream, which i’ve seen a couple other people recommend, so if you’re looking for a bit of a lighter introduction to Ellison that’s the route I would go!
Socorro Belo Horizonte! kkkkkkkkk Sim precisei comentar em PT-BR ♥ Amo o quanto você parece animada sobre o Brasil e ainda mais saber que sua amiga é de BH, surtei
I read Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir a couple of months ago, and wow. It was dark, it was weird, it was unexpected - all of the relatively contemporary slang and references, but also the gore, and the ending (!). But what really hooked me is that it was totally and completely unique (IMO). I haven't read anything like it before, and it was a refreshing change to all of the regular Fantasy books I have read throughout my life. I get that there is a lot of Sci Fi in there as well, but it also stands out from other Sci Fi books I've read. The thing that makes it even better, is that Tamsyn is a Kiwi author, and it is amazing to know that such a novel came from my little neck of the woods. I'm glad to hear that you enjoy her writing.
I'm definitely going to have to re-read "The Six Deaths of the Saint." I was really tired when I read it and recognized that I was completely lacking in the brain activity to process and appreciate it properly.
I don't read much short sci-fi/fantasy, but Claire Keegan is my favorite for short literary fiction. Highly recommend her work if you're looking for a giant emotional gutpunch in an itty bitty package.
The Lover by Silvia Moreno Garcia, Bloody Summer by Carmen Maria Machado and then Six Death of the Saint and Undercover were m’y faves of the Amazon stories i got to read !
The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi is one of my favorite short stories that I've read. Very folkloric, with a fable-like quality. You might like it!
The ghoul short story is fascinating, but I can't help but picture a monster hunter waiting for them in the woods. Like Dean Winchester once said, "The only good monster is a dead one."
I read this collection recently and I 110% agree with your assessments! I got chills while you were recounting The Six Deaths because it hit so hard, and yes, Undercover was a 5-star banger.
That is such a powerful line-up of fantasy authors from various decades!! Tamsyn Muir and Garth Nix are 2 of my fav authors. Even if you didn't like The Garden I am really interested to read this collection and the stories by Alix E. Harrow and Muir you talked about here sound soooo good and exactly my taste. A short story collection I listened to (audiobook) recently and found really cool, intriguing, and powerful was "I'd Really Prefer Not to Be Here with You, and Other Stories" by Julianna Baggott, which is a collection of kind of Black Mirror-like dark speculative fiction that is at heart about uncovering the human psyche. Some of the stories brought tears to my eyes. My favourites: Backwards (!!), How They Got In, The Drawings, Portals, The Knockoffs. CW as a whole for violence, child abuse/death, domestic abuse, death of a parent.
I took a horror writing class in uni so some of my favorite short stories are horror. My two recs here: In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker. Cosmic horror and body horror, if you're very squeamish maybe stay away but regular amount of squeamish people should be fine. It Only Comes Out at Night by Dennis Etchison. By the time i finished this, i felt all the hairs on my body prick up like i was being watched. AWFUL and perfect
Best short story/novella writer: Margaret Atwood!!! Every time you think you know her, peel a layer back! I am so excited for Gen Z to rediscover ALL her work! Her short stories pack a tremendous punch! Mostly I’ve read her earlier short works, like from grad school (& then I got to study with her protege & former babysitter Baharti mukherjee eeeek!) - it’s contemporary feminist realism at its finest. I’ve actually learned a lot of Canadian history from her early work. And don’t miss the Journals of Susanna Moodie, it’s poetry but also very prose like, about homesteader history. I mistakenly thought she retired a decade ago & don’t follow the book world anymore so I have to catch up!
my favourite short stories are in a collection by bora Chung which blew up a few years ago- cursed bunny (translated by Anton hurr)! I also really like Why There are No Noyontara Flowers in the Agargaon Colony by shahidul zahir, a bangladeshi author for how they explore the underlying conflict of a regime change in everyday lives. its also really cool how you can see the author refine their signature style of stream of consciousness through different stories.
It's more of a novella, but Untethered Skies by Fonda Lee was so unique and good??! Did not expect this when I picked it up, but it's got roc trainers? Chimeras?? Complicated feelings about family? A+
The Six Deaths of the Saint was my introduction to Alix E Harrow last year and I loved it, as well as undercover. I just read The Once and Future Witches by Harrow and it was so good! I sobbed
So I have an obsession with short stories after taking a class in college. Really good short stories are absurdly difficult to write - you have such little time to characterize your protagonist, build a world, build theme...but the best ones do so and I think do so more effectively than a lot of novels because of the conciseness. If you want a great podcast to listen to - I highly recommend "Levar Burton Reads", where he reads a different short story every week in all kinds of genres. He's featured some of my favorite short stories including "Chivalry" by Neil Gaiman and "What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky". I think my favorite of all time is another Neil Gaiman story - "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains" - but I'm also a big fan of "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" from Ursula LeGuin.
On Amazon there's a collection called Trespass (or possibly wildlife?). I haven't finished all of the stories, but I liked all of them that I've read so far
The Lover by Silvia Moreno Garcia is one of my new faves! I know you said you wanted to read that one soon and honestly I couldn’t recommend it enough based on your response to these short stories!
Actually paused the video to read Undercover (great choice) so this comment is a bit late, BUT what really helped me get into short stories was by listening to short story podcasts. I Just started with recommended/best of year lists, or by searching for episodes featuring authors i already liked and found new podcasts through that & then through those podcasts, new authors! I like Levar Burton Reads, Pseudopod, Lightspeed, Uncanny Magazine, Nightlight... Probably a lot of stuff I'm forgetting.
I still love The City Born Great by NK Jemisin!! She ended up turning it into The City We Became if you want to see it expanded into a full-length novel
🖋🖋 I don't normally read fiction (just don't have the mental energy for it, except sci-fi short stories), so I passively listen to creators like you to get my fix on (often very bad) novels. But oh boy. I've never skipped any part of your videos till now since "Bah, I'll never get around to reading any of these" or "These motifs and themes don't spark my interest" or "Lol this **does** sound like a dumpster fire"... till you got rolling with Undercover. I *need* that in my face *now*: no more spoilers! I am absolutely going to read it and Six Deaths, ASAP. Probably before I finish the other three books I've started but kinda... oops... But still! Reading, good!
The short story that's had the biggest impact on me is Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut. IIRC, it's a whopping three pages, and somehow he managed to get across a vivid setting in that amount of time. As a writer who struggles to be succinct, my mind was blown. Though not quite as amazing in terms of shortness, EPICAC is another good one he wrote. Kurt Vonnegut is two for two for me in that regard; I should look at his other short stories, haha. I also recall liking An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (by Ambrose Bierce), The Things They Carried (by Tim O'Brien), and just about any Edgar Allen Poe short story, with special mention to The Tell-Tale Heart. One other I'll note because it stood out so much to me is A Real Doll by AM Homes. That one is... a thing. I don't know if I'd say I ENJOYED it, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but it was memorable, that's for sure. 🖋 (Forgot to put that in, lol.)
The best short story collection I’ve read recently was Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, which includes what might be my favorite short story, Reunion. I also still have a soft spot for JD Salinger’s Nine Stories.
I think you'd like thornhedge by Ursula Vernon! It's a novella retelling sleeping beauty... Almost. It's like if the legend was told by unreliable narrators and this is what really happened. It's hard to explain but it's so good!
I wishlisted these titles but didn't pick them up due my underwhelming short story experience so far. I DNFd "Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke" by Eric LaRocca and the "Out There Screaming" anthology by Jordan Peele. Your review of The Garden was a great example of how I often feel, that it's more of a situation vs a story! Happy to see that Six Deaths & Undercover are good reads (dodged the spoilers and added them to my kindle 😂) and also looking forward to Her Body and other Parties. Thank you for the review and reccs! 🖋 🖋
Those last two sound amazing! Love short stories. It’s such a different medium to the novel, and so enjoyable to see a truly masterful short. Authors can play with narrative voice and style with far more freedom than in longer form storytelling and I particularly love highly stylised ones (The Six Deaths of the Saint sounds right in my wheelhouse there!). My personal favourite of all time is Roger Zelazny’s Now For a Breath I Tarry, and I have a very soft spot for Cordwainer Smith (Paul Linebarger). As much as I love The Dead Lady of Clown Town, I think my favourite is Golden the Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh!. (For anyone unfamiliar, the author grew up in China and incorporated the tone of traditional Chinese storytelling into his work. But he was born in 1913, so there are definitely a few things in his writing that are problematic to modern readers. Surprisingly fewer than you might expect for the time, though.) Damn! Now I’m thinking about that time period and wanting to recommend Guy Boothby’s The Duchess of Wiltshire’s Diamonds. It’s from 1897 yet reads far more modern. The more modern tone isn’t obvious if you read it in context in his collection A Prince of Swindlers, but it’s quite glaring if you come across it in a period anthology. 🖊️
Ooh, Stories Of Your Life is an incredible short story anthology! Mind bending sci fi. One of the stories is the one the movie Arrival was based on, but the story is better imo, and the entire anthology is full of truly unique and fascinating ideas, it really stuck in my mind
My fave short story is the Christmas Miracle by Rebecca Curtis, tw for references to pdf-ilia and animal death. It's SOgood though, it's a dark comedy.
idk what translations would be like since i read them in spanish (og language) but i really recommend Mariana Enríquez's short stories! they're kinda mysterious and eerie and I haven't read many of them but the ones i have are sooo good
The first 500 people to use my link will get a 1-month free trial of Skillshare! skl.sh/readswithrachel06241
Hey, I'm sorry to say this, but the ghoul story seemed to be very, VERY inspired (too much inspired) by the manga Tokyo Ghoul, to the point that it seriously reads like fanfiction of that IP. Maybe you'd like the manga, albeit there are less to no lesbians on it, at least from what I've read. This means the short story still does something new, but I feel that many authors use anime/manga stories that people who aren't into those things find extremely original until they watch/read it. I believe this is a bit disingenuous of the author, to not put it out there where the ideas for worlds, characters, and dynamics came from. What do you think about this?
"She the girl, you the devil, and I the Saint" truly shook me to my core. The religious symbolism? One in three, this desecrated trinity? This impossible, plural, infinite loneliness? The six deaths of the saint changed my LIFE and it did so in *thirty pages*.
Right?!?
@@ReadswithRachel now I'm curious to see you react to the other short stories because they're...nowhere near as good 💀 (except What the Dead Know which I thoroughly enjoyed!)
Tamsin Muir is legitimately such a talented writer! All her stuff is so fucking weird, but so compelling. She writes characters really well and manages complicated plots without totally losing me. I swear, nobody else could pull off the stories she tells because the skill required to execute the way she does is mind-blowing.
She’s from beyond this universe. Her mind is a gift!!!
the locked tomb series is easily one of my favorite book series’ right now, i can’t wait for alecto the ninth
Not for highschool but for college I read the yellow wallpaper and it still sits with me over 5 years later. It really taps into the horror of being a woman at the time when you have literally any mental illness and how isolating and traumatizing it can be. Strong trigger warnings on it but it's a famous short story for a reason
Such a good short story! I had to read it for an English class I took in college and it HAUNTED me!
@@10puppyluv YESSS!!! oh my god. also read this for a college class and it’s stuck with me. i love that one
I listened to The Hexagons is Bestagons guy to a reading of it. It’s starts so slow and unsumming
I've always thought of short stories as being similar to long form jokes. There's the set-up, and then the punchline. If a short story doesn't have a satisfying ending, it's not a good short story.
Also I’m not trying to hate on any time travellers, but how is there a 2 hour old comment, when the video is only up for 22 min?
Patrons get early access to videos!
Patreon members are canonically time travelers from various places in time that only time travel to watch rwr videos early
@@ReadswithRachelah ok, thank you for covering for me the time travellers, don’t wanna expose nobody
I would never reveal the time travellers secrets like that
This is just freaking adorable! I missed out on pride & no longer have a running vehicle, for some reason this little exchange just brings me so much joy!
My favorite short story is probably Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." I love how much character information he crammed into every single sentence just with his word choices.
OMG!! i haven’t seen someone else mention this one before, i love it!!!
The good thing about bad short stories is that they don't waste as much of your time/life as a 500+ doorstop
My all time favorite short story is “I have no mouth and I must scream.” It’s not for everyone, but it’s a terrifying look at what the author thought world war 3 would do to humanity. Terrifying villain too.
The title is a spoiler, but it still hits by the time it comes back around in the last line. Harlan Ellison was kind of an asshole but dang could he WRITE
I want AM
LOVE this story so so much
by far, my favorite short story is harlan ellison's I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. it's incredibly dark, laden with themes i absolutely would not bring up with someone i know i can't have a civil conversation with, and probably my favorite science fiction story of all time for the way it showcases the twin human desires of progression and self-destruction.
I remember I watched the videos where Rachel was drinking monster and beggin them for a sponsorship and now she's such a natural plugging skillshare.... good for you girl! 😘
I stopped right after hearing the very summary of the short story of "The six deaths of a saint", because it sounded up my ally and I wanted to read it first. And, I'm glad I did. It went quick. The use of second perspective, was...really hits.
Professionally, story length is determined by word count, not page count, because formatting can really change the page count of something. So, my understanding of story categorizations goes like this:
TwitterFic/Microfiction: 140/280 characters
Drabble: exactly 100 words (term came from fanfic communities, has changed over time)
Microfiction: up to 500 words
Flash Fiction: 500-1500 words
Short Story: 1k-6k (usually the hard cutoff for lit mags)
Long Short Story: 6k-10k
Novelette: 10k-20k
Novella: 20k-45k
Novel: 45k-120k
Epic Novel: 120k+
These are variable, obviously, and people argue about the word ranges all the time, but this is generally what I've seen floating around.
I got SO HYPED when i saw Tamsyn's name on the cover! I knew she was gonna deliver!
I felt bad for not liking Children of Blood and Bone, which definitely should have been a hit for me. I think it’s because while Adeyemi has awesome writing skill technically, her storytelling is woefully one-dimensional.
This was over 10 years ago, but I read Karen Russell's "Vampires in the Lemon Grove" book of short stories about supernatural beings and it has obviously left an impression on me. Octavia Butler's "Speech Sounds" was a much more recent one and that was really great!
I love Vampires in the Lemon Grove! It’s also stuck with me.
I LOVE Speech Sounds
tamsym muir undercover SLAYED me....'in this world you have to learn how to be hungry'......the pure wlw loneliness of it all...........the lesbicious longing..........
I've wanted this collection so bad. I want a paperbackkkkk anthology
WHY ISNT IT IN PRINT 😩😩😩
My fave short story collection (which I did read in school, but loved) is the Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. It's Feminist Gothic retellings of fairytales and it's so good, some are only a few pages and some are much longer. I also love Lydia Davis for Flash Fiction and some short stories
My fave short stories are The Machine Stops by E M Forster, and The Dead Past by Issac Asimov.
Annie Prolux has several volumes of short stories (including Brokeback Mountain) and she has this really fascinating knack of making you understand what is going on and then spinning you around and saying sike! But in a fun way. Also most of the stories interconnect through the characters, which has hilarious implications occasionally
The Lottery actually got me into short stories 😅😂
Short story suggest: "Emergency Skin" by N.K. Jemisin
Read it a few years ago and I still can't forget it.
Amazing to hear from a fellow reader that doesn’t really have an affinity for short stories. They’ve been my favorite fictional form since back when I was voraciously reading Sherlock Holmes collections as a kid. If you’re interested in short stories at all and/or horror I personally highly recommend Stephen King’s “The Jaunt” which is a story I feel is one of his best & stands alongside Harlan Ellison’s short story “I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream” as the best existential horror stories & horror stories generally of all time.
Undercover really was a mind trip, I loved it!
Alix E. Harrow is one of my new favorite authors. The Ten Thousand Doors of January and The Starling House are just phenomenal.
Tamsyn Muir owns my soul at this point.
Idk if it's your thing, but I've recently been getting into short stories by Neil Gaiman, a lot of which are also suited for kids. I liked Cinnamon, and Blueberry Girl was very adorable with beautiful art.
I'll check it out!
Neil Gaiman's short story collections are DIVINE! I haven't done a reread in like 7 or 8 years for most of them but they STILL stick with me!
I loved hearing about these, they sound great. But it always makes me sad when you call yourself stupid. You come up with such cool ideas of how to make a book better and I hope you will speak to yourself with kindness! You are such a light.
Not done with the video yet, but I find it very interesting how definitions differ in every country. In Germany no one is really on one page what a novella is, but even though it shouldn’t be too long, length can differ and it’s the content that is more important. There should be only one thing happening, singularity and contrast within the theme are what is important.
I know, not what the video is about, but maybe there are other definitions out there?
The definitions actually don’t change from country to country. It’s more that while these aren’t technically novellas, but they’re classified as such often because they’re published outside of a magazine. Novella has a pretty clear literary definition that’s held universally in order for literary contests to like… function.
@@bluewilliams4911 how did magazines get into this?
Rachel defined them in the video by length. I said, that in Germany length isn’t what defines a novella, it’s the content. So there is a different definition, at least in the USA and Germany.
My favorite short story collection is What We Fed to the Manticore, all stories from the perspectives of animals as they face climate change, natural disasters, and the consequences of human actions.
I've read a couple thousand short stories, which makes remembering individual ones difficult... but here we go.
-"The Pool" and "The Apple Tree" by Daphne du Maurier
-Lost Luggage" by Mick Herron
-The Magic Shop" by H.G. Wells
-More Deadly Than The Male (23 short stories by women 95% bangers)
-Edgar Allen Poe mastered short stories almost all are good
-The Ash Tree by M.R. James (there is also a middlehrade retelling called The Night Gardener I rec)
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (cheating with lengthbut it's ma fav)
I didn't know gardens existed damn
Oh, I thought I was prepared for Undercover 😮 I was NOT. That review made my stomach turn lmao. I love this type of horror for that very reason (one of the reasons Suspiria and Hostel are some of my favorite horror flicks). The subject of disemboweling someone always gets to me. I love a Ghoul story though. ❤
I am absolutely FILTH for second person so Harrow's is going immediately on my TBR
My favorite short stories are in The Ladies of Grace Adieu collection by Susanna Clarke, who is also my favorite writer. Her approach to the fantastic is so enchanting; I've never read anyone who writes about fairies and magic quite like she does. I would highly, highly recommend🖋
Omg. I onlydownloaded The Garden because it's free with Prime/the cover but never got to read it now I'm glad I didn't 😂
My favorite short story is "Nazis Don't Go To Valhalla" by Margaret Killjoy.
I remember two short stories that I read in elementary school (probably about 30 years ago now) that have stuck with me. "How Now Purple Cow" by Bill Pronzini, and another sci-fi horror story that I remember vividly but can't recall the name of for the life of me. Both of them gave me chills and kept me awake at night.
2:44 I love you using these classes to inform the reviews. And I want to take that class so I can get better at my short stories.
I just came back after reading 'The six deaths of the saint' and I'm in awe!!!! I was listening to the audiobook at the subway and almost bawled my eyes out at the last sentence!!!! IT'S SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!
YAAAAAY I AM SO HAPPY
My favorite short stories are things have gotten worse since we last spoke by Eric larocca And I also really like Carmen Maria machado's short story collection her body and other parties!
My favourite short story is The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman. I'm a sucker for a fairy tale retelling and any Sleeping Beauty retelling that uses a drop spindle instead of a spinning wheel gets bonus points
Yes! I’m here for the Tomi Adeyemi critiques. So MANY reviews tend to idolize her and as a Nigerian, it bores me
I read the six deaths on a family trip and i was losing my shit in the back of the car the same way... it's soooo lifechanging
I'm usually not a fan of 2nd person, but the six deaths of the saint was SO EFFECTIVE. I felt it all over again when you read the beginning of the story!
I can't recommend "The October Country" enough. It's a collection of some of the best short stories Ray Bradbury ever wrote. It's scary and beautiful and interesting and intense. Masterpiece.
My reaction during Undercover was "wtf is going on...wtf is going ooooonnnnn??" And I loved it 😂😂 your reaction to everything makes it even better ❤
If it helps with 6 Deaths, I initially read it in the best of american science fiction and fantasy collection for 2023. It's in paperback with the story and it has a forward by R.F. Kuang!
“Your Shadow Half Remains” was a novella I really liked. Also “Weird Fishes” was my absolute favorite book I read for AAPI month and it’s a pretty short book (127 pages) 🖊️
Added these to my TBR! My favourites short stories are "Stories of your Life and others" by Ted Chiang - such a masterpiece!
🖊 "If you want to finish your manuscript, what are you waiting for?"
Why do you keep calling me out in these videos 🤣🤣
Well, it's technically a novella but "Sisters of the Vast Black" by Lina Rather was a great ride. I never thought I'd vibe with a story that can be summarized as "nuns in space", but here we are.
Shirley Jackson (the lottery) is a strong story writer, but at this point, even before you tuck into her novels & novellas, check out her non fiction about raising kids. Keep in mind the norm when she wrote these books - it’s an exceptionally hilarious & intimate sub genre of her work, she delves into some of the dark psychology of family life, but in a fun way and other than some titles containing microaggressions (life among the savages is one of her books, obviously that’s gross to say), I don’t recall much needing a CW or that will be hurtful to anyone other than really organized people lol. She’s got a delightful personality, a terrifying mind, and craft for days..,
The Egg by Andy Weir will forever be one of my favorite short stories. Brilliant use of 2nd person perspective, simple yet evocative prose, and a plot twist that makes me cry like a baby every single time. And it's got such a hopeful message for a story that begins with, "You were on your way home when you died," LOL.
6:16 ommggg silver in the wood is so good and the sequel is just as good!! It’s only a duology so if you ever do want another short story you should read the sequel
as a brazillian I loooove how much you like brasil! love your videos :)
Obrigada!
That last story has convinced me to get a kindle. It sounds so good! 🖊
I really enjoyed Bliss Montage by Ling Ma. It's a short story collection in which most of the stories are linked in one way or another, time is messed with in interesting ways (imo), and the last story in particular sucker punched me. Definitely recommend looking up trigger warnings though!
Hannah Lee Kidder has two short story collections, I've only read one (Little Birds), but I think they're stories you might enjoy.
I also read the "Into Shadows" collection and I totally agree that "The Garden" is terrible, the worst start to one of these Amazon Original collections so far. I do think listening to it does the most for the poetry and it still doesn't come off as deep.
And "The Six Deaths of the Saint" was the best. I'm a sucker for 2nd person too. It was my intro to Alix E Harrow and I def want to learn more from her now.
I didn't love Undercover as much as you did, but I still enjoyed it. I think I was just a bit slow and needed a little more world building to make it gel.
It was a tie for me between Six Deaths and Undercover. But they alternate regularly as I think back on them
@@TiffReadsBooks Yeah for me it's Six Deaths or What the Dead Know but I'm a sucker for a 1920s spiritualist movement story.
@@jessicadoneganreads what the dead know was so good too!
5:13 I was in an anthology of short stories that were all sequels to fairy tales and in order to get them all to work together, I had to take my short story on grief and friendship and turn it into a short story about grief, friendship, dark magic, and possession! Every other story was an adventure and I changed my genre. No regrets in the end, but I think about that when you say “who had to write a synopsis for 7 stories?!”
Ooh for short story recommendations I have two- “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood and “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman” by Harlan Ellison. (Technically I did read Happy Endings in high school but it’s stuck with me since, lol) Repent, Harlequin is not NEARLY as dark as I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream, which i’ve seen a couple other people recommend, so if you’re looking for a bit of a lighter introduction to Ellison that’s the route I would go!
I really loved Jennifer Egan's "Sacred Heart", and not only because I had to write an essay on it xD
Socorro Belo Horizonte! kkkkkkkkk Sim precisei comentar em PT-BR ♥ Amo o quanto você parece animada sobre o Brasil e ainda mais saber que sua amiga é de BH, surtei
I read Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir a couple of months ago, and wow. It was dark, it was weird, it was unexpected - all of the relatively contemporary slang and references, but also the gore, and the ending (!). But what really hooked me is that it was totally and completely unique (IMO). I haven't read anything like it before, and it was a refreshing change to all of the regular Fantasy books I have read throughout my life. I get that there is a lot of Sci Fi in there as well, but it also stands out from other Sci Fi books I've read.
The thing that makes it even better, is that Tamsyn is a Kiwi author, and it is amazing to know that such a novel came from my little neck of the woods.
I'm glad to hear that you enjoy her writing.
I'm definitely going to have to re-read "The Six Deaths of the Saint." I was really tired when I read it and recognized that I was completely lacking in the brain activity to process and appreciate it properly.
I don't read much short sci-fi/fantasy, but Claire Keegan is my favorite for short literary fiction. Highly recommend her work if you're looking for a giant emotional gutpunch in an itty bitty package.
The Lover by Silvia Moreno Garcia, Bloody Summer by Carmen Maria Machado and then Six Death of the Saint and Undercover were m’y faves of the Amazon stories i got to read !
The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi is one of my favorite short stories that I've read. Very folkloric, with a fable-like quality. You might like it!
The ghoul short story is fascinating, but I can't help but picture a monster hunter waiting for them in the woods.
Like Dean Winchester once said, "The only good monster is a dead one."
I read this collection recently and I 110% agree with your assessments! I got chills while you were recounting The Six Deaths because it hit so hard, and yes, Undercover was a 5-star banger.
as a huge Joan of Arc fanatic... yes i will read that second short story you talked about! thank you!
That is such a powerful line-up of fantasy authors from various decades!! Tamsyn Muir and Garth Nix are 2 of my fav authors. Even if you didn't like The Garden I am really interested to read this collection and the stories by Alix E. Harrow and Muir you talked about here sound soooo good and exactly my taste.
A short story collection I listened to (audiobook) recently and found really cool, intriguing, and powerful was "I'd Really Prefer Not to Be Here with You, and Other Stories" by Julianna Baggott, which is a collection of kind of Black Mirror-like dark speculative fiction that is at heart about uncovering the human psyche. Some of the stories brought tears to my eyes. My favourites: Backwards (!!), How They Got In, The Drawings, Portals, The Knockoffs. CW as a whole for violence, child abuse/death, domestic abuse, death of a parent.
read "the six deaths of the saint" because of this review and dear god I cannot thank you enough. it was so good.
Six deaths was the first thing I read by Alix Harrow and I adored it. I've been obsessed with them!
I took a horror writing class in uni so some of my favorite short stories are horror. My two recs here:
In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker. Cosmic horror and body horror, if you're very squeamish maybe stay away but regular amount of squeamish people should be fine.
It Only Comes Out at Night by Dennis Etchison. By the time i finished this, i felt all the hairs on my body prick up like i was being watched. AWFUL and perfect
Best short story/novella writer: Margaret Atwood!!! Every time you think you know her, peel a layer back! I am so excited for Gen Z to rediscover ALL her work! Her short stories pack a tremendous punch! Mostly I’ve read her earlier short works, like from grad school (& then I got to study with her protege & former babysitter Baharti mukherjee eeeek!) - it’s contemporary feminist realism at its finest. I’ve actually learned a lot of Canadian history from her early work. And don’t miss the Journals of Susanna Moodie, it’s poetry but also very prose like, about homesteader history. I mistakenly thought she retired a decade ago & don’t follow the book world anymore so I have to catch up!
my favourite short stories are in a collection by bora Chung which blew up a few years ago- cursed bunny (translated by Anton hurr)! I also really like Why There are No Noyontara Flowers in the Agargaon Colony by shahidul zahir, a bangladeshi author for how they explore the underlying conflict of a regime change in everyday lives. its also really cool how you can see the author refine their signature style of stream of consciousness through different stories.
watching you squeal over books you like makes me so happy :D
It's more of a novella, but Untethered Skies by Fonda Lee was so unique and good??! Did not expect this when I picked it up, but it's got roc trainers? Chimeras?? Complicated feelings about family? A+
The Six Deaths of the Saint was my introduction to Alix E Harrow last year and I loved it, as well as undercover. I just read The Once and Future Witches by Harrow and it was so good! I sobbed
Paper menagerie by Ken Liu is one of my absolute favourite short stories 😊
So I have an obsession with short stories after taking a class in college. Really good short stories are absurdly difficult to write - you have such little time to characterize your protagonist, build a world, build theme...but the best ones do so and I think do so more effectively than a lot of novels because of the conciseness. If you want a great podcast to listen to - I highly recommend "Levar Burton Reads", where he reads a different short story every week in all kinds of genres. He's featured some of my favorite short stories including "Chivalry" by Neil Gaiman and "What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky". I think my favorite of all time is another Neil Gaiman story - "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains" - but I'm also a big fan of "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" from Ursula LeGuin.
On Amazon there's a collection called Trespass (or possibly wildlife?). I haven't finished all of the stories, but I liked all of them that I've read so far
The Lover by Silvia Moreno Garcia is one of my new faves! I know you said you wanted to read that one soon and honestly I couldn’t recommend it enough based on your response to these short stories!
listening to this as i'm getting over my migraine! 🖊🖋
Actually paused the video to read Undercover (great choice) so this comment is a bit late, BUT what really helped me get into short stories was by listening to short story podcasts.
I Just started with recommended/best of year lists, or by searching for episodes featuring authors i already liked and found new podcasts through that & then through those podcasts, new authors!
I like Levar Burton Reads, Pseudopod, Lightspeed, Uncanny Magazine, Nightlight... Probably a lot of stuff I'm forgetting.
I still love The City Born Great by NK Jemisin!! She ended up turning it into The City We Became if you want to see it expanded into a full-length novel
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I don't normally read fiction (just don't have the mental energy for it, except sci-fi short stories), so I passively listen to creators like you to get my fix on (often very bad) novels.
But oh boy. I've never skipped any part of your videos till now since "Bah, I'll never get around to reading any of these" or "These motifs and themes don't spark my interest" or "Lol this **does** sound like a dumpster fire"... till you got rolling with Undercover. I *need* that in my face *now*: no more spoilers!
I am absolutely going to read it and Six Deaths, ASAP. Probably before I finish the other three books I've started but kinda... oops... But still! Reading, good!
Just listened the very first part of the Undercover review and then had to go to find it because that premise sounds irresistible! 🖋
OMFG I read Undercover and it is freaking amazing! Thank you so much for raising awareness of this incredible story, I'm so glad I read it.
Yayyyy!!! 🎉❤
The short story that's had the biggest impact on me is Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut. IIRC, it's a whopping three pages, and somehow he managed to get across a vivid setting in that amount of time. As a writer who struggles to be succinct, my mind was blown.
Though not quite as amazing in terms of shortness, EPICAC is another good one he wrote. Kurt Vonnegut is two for two for me in that regard; I should look at his other short stories, haha.
I also recall liking An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (by Ambrose Bierce), The Things They Carried (by Tim O'Brien), and just about any Edgar Allen Poe short story, with special mention to The Tell-Tale Heart.
One other I'll note because it stood out so much to me is A Real Doll by AM Homes. That one is... a thing. I don't know if I'd say I ENJOYED it, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to everyone, but it was memorable, that's for sure.
🖋 (Forgot to put that in, lol.)
The best short story collection I’ve read recently was Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, which includes what might be my favorite short story, Reunion.
I also still have a soft spot for JD Salinger’s Nine Stories.
Tamsyn Muir is a goddamn genius.
I think you'd like thornhedge by Ursula Vernon! It's a novella retelling sleeping beauty... Almost. It's like if the legend was told by unreliable narrators and this is what really happened. It's hard to explain but it's so good!
I'm holding off watching (listening tbh) until I go to the gym! Your videos are the best gym buddy 💪
I appreciate that!
I wishlisted these titles but didn't pick them up due my underwhelming short story experience so far. I DNFd "Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke" by Eric LaRocca and the "Out There Screaming" anthology by Jordan Peele. Your review of The Garden was a great example of how I often feel, that it's more of a situation vs a story!
Happy to see that Six Deaths & Undercover are good reads (dodged the spoilers and added them to my kindle 😂) and also looking forward to Her Body and other Parties. Thank you for the review and reccs!
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Those last two sound amazing! Love short stories. It’s such a different medium to the novel, and so enjoyable to see a truly masterful short. Authors can play with narrative voice and style with far more freedom than in longer form storytelling and I particularly love highly stylised ones (The Six Deaths of the Saint sounds right in my wheelhouse there!).
My personal favourite of all time is Roger Zelazny’s Now For a Breath I Tarry, and I have a very soft spot for Cordwainer Smith (Paul Linebarger). As much as I love The Dead Lady of Clown Town, I think my favourite is Golden the Ship Was - Oh! Oh! Oh!. (For anyone unfamiliar, the author grew up in China and incorporated the tone of traditional Chinese storytelling into his work. But he was born in 1913, so there are definitely a few things in his writing that are problematic to modern readers. Surprisingly fewer than you might expect for the time, though.)
Damn! Now I’m thinking about that time period and wanting to recommend Guy Boothby’s The Duchess of Wiltshire’s Diamonds. It’s from 1897 yet reads far more modern. The more modern tone isn’t obvious if you read it in context in his collection A Prince of Swindlers, but it’s quite glaring if you come across it in a period anthology.
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🖌️ now i really wanna write a short story collection
Ooh, Stories Of Your Life is an incredible short story anthology! Mind bending sci fi. One of the stories is the one the movie Arrival was based on, but the story is better imo, and the entire anthology is full of truly unique and fascinating ideas, it really stuck in my mind
My fave short story is the Christmas Miracle by Rebecca Curtis, tw for references to pdf-ilia and animal death. It's SOgood though, it's a dark comedy.
idk what translations would be like since i read them in spanish (og language) but i really recommend Mariana Enríquez's short stories! they're kinda mysterious and eerie and I haven't read many of them but the ones i have are sooo good