# The short attention span thread!



## raccemup (Feb 19, 2009)

I love a good short book!  They are wonderful for those of us with limited time and/or attention spans.  So, what are some good short stories or novels you have read lately?  I'll start:

1) Animal Farm - George Orwell:  OMG!  I read this in the 6th grade and just reread it this week.  Absolutely awesome, profound, and prophetic.  I highly recommend re-reading this as an adult.  I especially enjoyed the insertion of "SugarCandy Mountain."

2)  Love me, Still - Maya Banks:  This isn't my usual "cup of tea" as I guess it would be classified as a romance.  However, I really connected with the main character and it was very emotionally touching.  Great little story!

3)  Anthem - Ayn Rand:  Great short "dystopian" novel about the scary future world of a "collectivist" society.  Very thought provoking and meaningful without being overly political.  

4) 2BR02B - Kurt Vonnegut:  What can you say?  It's Vonnegut!  My first intro to this very interesting author.  A little morbid and not too sci-fi so I loved this story.  It's set is in a not-so-the-future world of an overpopulated society.  BTW, the zero is pronounced "naught".  

5) UR - Stephen King:  Not King's best work by a long shot but it was entertaining enough just because it was neat that it was about a Kindle.  

6) The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka: It was OK, I just didn't really enjoy it all that much but yeah... The guy turns into a bug. What else can you say?


----------



## WalterK (Mar 2, 2009)

I like to read short fiction for several reasons...

1) Just before bed, I can get in and out of the story without staying up too late.  
2) It serves as a good introduction to new authors.
3) Experiencing a talented author setting up a world view in a short span of words can be very enjoyable.

I try to read most of the Fantasy and SF anthologies each year - especially Year's Best SF by David Hartwell and Years's Best Science Fiction by Gardner Dozois.  I have to mention two stories by Alastair Reynolds from Best SF 23 and Best SF 24.

Zima Blue - A rumination on the nature of Artificial Intelligence about a famous robotic artist that attempts to recapture its' past.

Nightingale - Atmospheric adventure tale involving a mission aboard an AI controlled hospital ship where things have gone extremely wrong.  Reynolds creates a palpable sense of impending horror in this work.

Also from Dogs of War (a military SF anthology edited by David Drake) - Straw by Gene Wolfe - a terrific, succinct story about mercenaries that has that sense of 'otherness' that informs so much of Wolfe's work.

- Walter.


----------



## robin.goodfellow (Nov 17, 2008)

> 6) The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka: It was OK, I just didn't really enjoy it all that much but yeah... The guy turns into a bug. What else can you say?


If you're a college student, turns out you can take three pages to say he turns into a bug. (My brother owns an off-campus bookstore, the girls who work for him are all in college, one of them asked me to review her essay. But I digress.)


----------



## Guest (Mar 11, 2009)

When it comes to short novels, my favo--


Look!  A bunny!


----------



## John Steinbeck (Feb 15, 2009)

One of my favorite short stories is:

The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)


----------



## ZomZom (Feb 17, 2009)

I recently enjoyed Stories of your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. You can read one of the enclosed stories, Understand, online.


----------



## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

Recently read short stories:

Henry Kuttner's _Robots Have No Tails_, a volume of 5 or 6 stories about a scientist names Gallegher who can't invent anything unless he is drunk, then he can't remember what the thing he invented does when he sobers up. Two favorites from the volume are _The Proud Robot_, a story of Gallegher sobering up only to find he has built a narcissistic robot who won't do as he's told. Gallegher can't remember why he built the thing. The other favorite is the time when Gallegher regains consciousness and finds that rabbits from Mars have appeared with plans to take over Earth (they keep going around the house loudly proclaiming "The world will be ours!", and asking for milk, IIRC).

I've also been re-reading some Sherlock Holmes stories, always a good read.

Also on the list would have to be some of James Schmidt's _Hub_ stories about Trigger Argee and Telzy Amberdon.

Mike


----------



## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

Of Mice and Men (Kindle Edition) looks like it may be Topaz format so I'm not linking it to a cover image here. The details on the Amazon page show it as 112 pages rather than the file size in bytes so...

What bunny?


----------



## Guest (Mar 11, 2009)

OK, back to the original topic: short novels. Here are some of my faves:
Animal Farm
Logan's Run
Lord of the Flies
The _Hitchhiker's Guide_ books
Carrie

The Demolished Man
The Stars my Destination
(both by the great Alfred Bester)


----------



## Guest (Mar 11, 2009)

Jeff said:


> What bunny?


----------



## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

Oh. That rabbit.


----------



## geoffthomas (Feb 27, 2009)

Short Novels....
Well one of my favs is Ralph 124C41+ by Hugo Gernsback.
Written in the early 1900's - it foretells some science we still don't have.


----------



## Gables Girl (Oct 28, 2008)

Jeff said:


> Oh. That rabbit.


The rabbit of Caerbannog, quick the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!


----------



## Britt (Feb 8, 2009)

Just finished Arabian Nights... not a short book but the stories within it are short


----------



## ginaf20697 (Jan 31, 2009)

I have a short attention span so I end up reading more than one thing at once. Plus I surf the internet while I'm doing it. I really need some drugs.


----------



## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

Jeff said:


> Oh. That rabbit.


 haha, funny gif.


----------



## kevindorsey (Mar 4, 2009)

That bunny has me cracking up, LMAO.


----------



## Sweety18 (Feb 14, 2009)

Jeff said:


> Oh. That rabbit.


That's pretty cool, what movie is that from?


----------



## Guest (Mar 12, 2009)

Sweety18 said:


> That's pretty cool, what movie is that from?


Seriously?

It's THE classic scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.


----------



## Sweety18 (Feb 14, 2009)

Bacardi Jim said:


> Seriously?
> 
> It's THE classic scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.


Yes, seriously. I've never seen that movie, I might have heard about it though


----------



## Guest (Mar 12, 2009)

Sweety18 said:


> Yes, seriously. I've never seen that movie, I might have heard about it though


See my edit.


----------



## robin.goodfellow (Nov 17, 2008)

Sweety18 said:


> Yes, seriously. I've never seen that movie, I might have heard about it though


No kidding? Do you live in America? Or even England? I thought there was some sort of law that said you had to see Holy Grail when you were seventeen, or you couldn't become an adult. And if there's not a law that says that, perhaps there should be.

I like the short stories of Mark Twain, myself. Including the one about the frog, which is a little like a rabbit, but wartier.


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Tempted to ask Betsy to lock this thread as it's getting entirely too long for the short attention span folks it's directed at.  

Okay, maybe not.  

Ann


----------



## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

LOL!

No way, I'm enjoying it too much!

Betsy


----------



## Gables Girl (Oct 28, 2008)

We are using short words in short sentences. Doesn't that count?


----------



## kevindorsey (Mar 4, 2009)

Gables Girl said:


> We are using short words in short sentences. Doesn't that count?


That counts!


----------



## MichelleR (Feb 21, 2009)

raccemup said:


> 6) The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka: It was OK, I just didn't really enjoy it all that much but yeah... The guy turns into a bug. What else can you say?


Joe Hill has a short story in 20th Century Ghosts that is both an homage to Metamorphosis and fifties sci-fi flicks. I sorta liked it, and since I'm not inclined to like stories involving people becoming giant bugs, that approached a recommendation.

The stories are available for individual DL, and the story in question is:


I would also recommend, well, the whole book, but a story called Pop Art:


Pop Art is a story with a premise that sounds silly -- boy makes friends with an inflatable boy -- and is absolutely memorable and touching! Huge recommendation!

Joe Hill makes me wonder about nature vs. nurture -- he is the son of Stephen and Tabitha King, but he was also the product of a home that had story time. And this is too much typing for a thread on short attention spans!


----------

