Isaac Asimov |
In the United States fiction is classified depending on the length of
the work, with four subsequent stages:
- Novel, any work that has more than 40,000 words.
- Novella, a work between 17,500 and 40,000 words.
- Novelette, between 7,500 and 17,500 words.
- Short Story, less than 7,500 words.
Naturally, the limits are not strict, and in practice they depend on
who classifies each book. In Spanish, however, we have fewer categories:
- Novel.
- Short novel, which applies to works of intermediate length.
- Story, with few characters and a simple plot.
As I gave in
another post the list of my favorite novels in the science fiction genre, here
I’ll consider just the last three categories. As I had too many, I applied them
the following restriction:
From each author, I have chosen
a maximum of two works.
This is the list, containing 25 stories,
in alphabetic order of author names:
Author
|
Story
|
Date
|
Poul Anderson
|
Sister planet
|
1959
|
Turning point
|
1963
|
|
Isaac Asimov
|
Nightfall
|
1941
|
The singing bell
|
1955
|
|
Raymond E. Banks
|
The short ones
|
1955
|
Ray Bradbury
|
The man
|
1949
|
The fire balloons
|
1951
|
|
Arthur C. Clarke
|
The ultimate
melody
|
1957
|
Dial F for
Frankenstein
|
1965
|
|
Анатолий Днепров
Anatoly Dneprov
|
Крабы идут по
острову
Crabs on the island
|
1958
|
Иван Ефремов
Ivan Yefremov
|
Stellar ships
|
1944
|
Tom Godwin
|
The cold
equations
|
1954
|
Robert A. Heinlein
|
The menace
from Earth
|
1957
|
Zenna Henderson
|
Pottage
|
1955
|
The aliens
|
1959
|
|
Walter M.Miller Jr.
|
Dark benediction
|
1951
|
A canticle for Leibowitz
|
1955
|
|
Fred Saberhagen
|
Without a thought
|
1963
|
James Schmitz
|
Balanced ecology
|
1965
|
Robert Sheckley
|
Human man’s burden
|
1956
|
The minimum man
|
1958
|
|
Cordwainer Smith
|
Scanners live in vain
|
1950
|
The game of rat and dragon
|
1956
|
|
Theodore Sturgeon
|
Thunder and roses
|
1947
|
A.E. van Vogt
|
Black destroyer
|
1939
|
Ray Bradbury |
Eight of these stories belong to the subgenre of the first contact with
aliens; four to the exploration of the solar system; four to interstellar
exploration; three to artificial intelligence; two are apocalyptic; and four belong
to other topics.
The stories by Poul Anderson I like most are those that pose important
moral dilemmas. This happens especially in what for me is his favorite novel, Orbit unlimited, which is made up of four
brief stories, but as I quoted the whole book in my previous post, I have
excluded those stories from this one. In their place I have selected two other similar
stories.
Of some authors, like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, I had more than
two works to choose from, but since my decision was irrevocable, I had to select
just two. In Clarke’s case, I decided to choose those I have cited most often,
among other sites in
this blog. One of them, The ultimate melody,
belongs to the collection titled Tales from the White Heart, incredible stories told by a scientist at drinkers meetings in an
English pub, somewhat in the style of Mr. Mulliner stories by P.G. Wodehouse. I
have mentioned this story in the first novel of my series The Sleuths
of the Spanish Transition, entitled Quetzalcoatl’s
Zahir.
The story by Raymond Banks, The short
ones was one of the influences that led me to write my science
fiction novel Jacob’s Ladder.
The fire balloons, by Ray Bradbury, is a little known story belonging to the cycle of the
Martian Chronicles, but is difficult to find in the editions with this title.
Perhaps it is precisely because of the reason why I like it, as it is one of
Bradbury's Martian tales with more religious connotations.
Walter M. Miller Jr. |
A canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr., is the original short story, later expanded
to become a complete novel, one of my favorite long novels. As Miller’s
second story I chose Dark Benediction,
to which I have dedicated a post in
this blog.
It can be seen that all the stories on my list, without exception,
belong to what has been called the Golden Age of Science-Fiction
(1939-1965). In fact, one of those stories, by van Vogt, is often cited as the opening
of the golden age, although others have given that honor to Who goes there? by John W. Campbell Jr., which
was adapted to the movies in the famous 1951 film The Thing from another world.
Of course, everyone has their own lists and they rarely coincide. As a
comparison, here
is one based on popular voting. Of these 100 stories, just five are on my
list. Of my 18 authors one half are on that list, but several of them with different
stories.
The same post in Spanish
Thematic Thread on Literature and Cinema: Previous Next
Manuel Alfonseca
Happy Christmas
Happy Christmas
While I enjoy many of the new science fiction writers of today - I also find that many of my favorites also come from the "Golden Age" of Science Fiction ( possible due to the fact that I myself hail from near that time and read those same novels ).
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