Questions tagged [short-stories]
For about a fictional work too small to be called a [novel] or [novella] - usually less than 10-20 thousand words and no chapters. Use to either identify the media on a [story-identification] question or disambiguate works where the tag covers the short story and its form in other media.. If you are looking for a particular anthology of short stories, use the [anthology-book] tag instead.
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Short story about Christmas retail season running the entire year [duplicate]
Every year, when the retail stores start putting out Christmas displays earlier and earlier, I think back to this story. This year, I want to track it down.
It was in a paperback short story ...
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Short story, possibly titled "Walk to the New Moon", about a time-travelling Neanderthal girl
A Neanderthal girl is separated from her tribe in a field hunting cattle. She returns to her tribe at full moon or new moon traveling through time.
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Illuminati with prediction machine that only works when the prediction won't be used
I remember a story where the Illuminati made a machine that could predict the future. However, there was a snag: the machine only worked when the user did not intend to use the information. Therefore, ...
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Horror Short Story from Dramatic Reading YouTube Channel
About a year ago, my wife and I were on a road trip and listened to a bunch of "Dramatic Readings" of various horror stories. Some were novelettes, like "The Dunwich Horror", some ...
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Short story about a programmer fired by mistake who can't be rehired
I am looking for the name of a short story about a man (a programmer, I think) who has worked for decades at the same job at a computer terminal and comes in after a particularly long weekend to find ...
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Story where inert, indestructible alien devices appear all across Earth
One day, billions of hovering, featureless alien objects appear out of thin air in a grid pattern across the Earth's surface. Initially, they cause car and plane crashes, but they do nothing for ...
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Story about an online influencer whose image is taken over by her owner corporation after her death
I read this story online, probably in one of the bigger SF magazine sites, within the last year.
The story is told from the perspective of the celebrity's personal assistant, who also was in love with ...
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Science fiction short story about a man who was a god of rain
Trying to find a likely classic era (Clarke/Asimov/Bradbury time) science fiction short story. It had to do with a traveling man (salesman?) who was always, always traveling in some sort of ...
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Archaeologist on alien planet encounters an alien that tells him the ruins are from a previous human culture [duplicate]
I thought I had asked this question before but it's not in my history.
I'm trying to identify a short story, possibly from the 70s or 80s.
A team of archaeologists is exploring ruins on an alien ...
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Short story where man is sent to the past but he ends up thriving there and the government sends an agent to put him further back [duplicate]
The story is about a man who has a thriving business and a lovely wife. He receives a visitor to whom he decides to tell a supposedly made up tale of what is his actual life.
He was a criminal who got ...
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Looking for short horror story about two kids and a spell book
I’ve been looking around for a collection of short stories that contained one in particular. A brother and sister discover a book of magic in their grandparents’ basement. The girl begins using the ...
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An eternal being outsmarted by a lone man just deceased
I recall having listened to an audio version of a short story where we assist the duel of wits between an eternal being and a person who just passed away. Maybe it was on YouTube (very far in my ...
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Short story in which computers make everything for humans, but refuse to make a model train kit
Computers make everything for humans. Guy gets a model train set made. Next, the guy wants a train kit and the computers refuse, because he would be creating something.
Short story found in a late 70'...
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'Scavenger' reading dead alien's mind. Turns out it's a small girl
A short science fiction story I'm looking for: a 'scavenger' (or was he called 'vulture'?) is a policeman who reads the mind of the dying. He's a bit of a pariah. He's called to a crashed spaceship, ...
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SF short story about a future in which jobs are assigned by DNA
This short story is about a person riding in a limo, speaking about all the things he enjoys daily and specifically about the wood grain of the limo. You learn that your job is assigned by DNA and ...
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Horror story compilation, including a story about a child who looked out his window at night and saw a creature that had eyes like car headlights
I am trying to find a story compilation from the late '70s or early '80s.
The only story I can remember is about a child who looked out his window at night and saw a creature in the (bog , forest, ...
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Old sci-fi story in which fleeing aliens merge with spiders on Earth in the prehistoric era
Looking for name/author of short story I read maybe in the 1970s where aliens are fleeing their collapsing civilization.
With the last of their strength, they arrive on Earth a long time ago, when ...
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Short Story about alien civilization that destroys other civilizations by giving them a machine that will answer virtually any question
trying to find a story, likely from the 1940's about two astronauts from Earth who land on a planet where an alien machine will answer any question that doesn't have to do with its own destruction.
...
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Short story about teaching a brontosaurus to fly
Read in the UK many (possibly the late 1960s) years ago - I didn't read many magazines so most likely in an anthology.
There's an alien planet inhabited by these dinosaurs who very closely resemble ...
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Short story - advertiser using mind control dart device
I read Jerry Oltion's "Scents of Compulsion" about advertisers using scents to cause compulsive behavior related to whatever the smeller happens to be thinking of (usually but not always the ...
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Short story where seemingly benevolent AI suppresses any rebellion through manipulating economy? [duplicate]
I'm looking for a short story where an AI (or a group of AIs) effectively ruled the world. They were originally designed to serve some kind of economic / trading need, and everyone seemed to think ...
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Short story where unknown aliens fight a proxy war by seeding a world with weapons [duplicate]
I read the story back in the 90s, but it is probably older.
It is told from the point of view of a group of human xenobiologists in a "blind"/camp/lab studying the (apelike?) animals on an ...
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I seek a SF short story where the husband created a time machine which could only go back to one place & time but the wife was delighted
I seek a SF short story where the husband created a time machine which could only go back to one place & time but the wife was delighted, for she could go back to a real butcher shop with ...
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Please identify an Asimov short story with miniature typewriter
I recall an Asimov short story from the 1950s or before, in which a reporter character hides a mini-typewriter in a pocket, so he can surreptitiously type notes during an interview. It's a great ...
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Looking for story about robots replacing actors
Robots had taken over stage acting; stages had power connections that the robots would brush against during the play to recharge their batteries. In small towns they couldn't afford to have all robots,...
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Old short SF story in which people are sent to live in secret within societies on other planets, in order to maintain good interplanetary relations [duplicate]
At least 30 years ago, I read a short SF story about friendship between different planets.
In order to maintain good relationships between planets, it was the rule that one person from a planet would ...
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Short story about mundane life at the end of the universe
I'm looking for a short story about the end of the world, perhaps even the end of the universe. The story follows the mundane nighttime routine of, if I recall correctly, a couple. They put the kids ...
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What is the short story about your soul being trapped in an alien creature
I read this short story as the first story in an anthology but can't recall anything about the name or author.
Premise is narrator is called to a mountain observatory at night / in the rain where ...
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Looking for title of a short story about astronauts helmets being covered in moondust
I am trying to recall a short story from around 40 or so years ago.
It involves two astronauts walking on the surface of the Moon and they are effectively blinded when their helmets become covered in ...
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Short story from maybe 20-30 years ago about astronauts trapped in a ship by a guardian robot
As far as I remember, a couple of astronauts were visiting (repairing?) a satellite or some sort of space ship. There was a security system to deter intruders, maybe a robot, but it went haywire and ...
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Short story centered around a woman who lost her telepathic abilities, but can now help other telepaths survive
Sorry, that title is terrible but this is hard story to sum up. I read this short story sometime in the 80s, likely out of my dad’s extensive library of SF. What I can remember:
I believe the setting ...
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Stanislaw Lem short story about robot listening to dying crew members communicate in Morse code
In the story there is a robot with a positronic brain damaged by having to listen to crew members tapping Morse code messages to each other as they die in a crashed space ship. What is the name of ...
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Short story in which the president is chosen by a computer among the ones that do not seek power
It's not Franchise but I am out of luck trying to figure out the name of the story.
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Science fiction short story where a spaceship crew develops some kind of powers, through isolation and necessity [duplicate]
Trying to remember the name of this story I read at least a decade ago. A spaceship is sent out to find a new world. But actually its secret purpose is for the crew to, in necessity and solitude, ...
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Short story: a robot nods but doesn't speak
In a tutorial, one of the hardest jobs is coaxing students into actually speaking. Recently a random memory has started coming into my mind when I'm supervising them. A robot is being interviewed, and ...
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1970s short story about lone explorer on spaceship learning dark secret about his mission
I think I read this one in a early 1970s era "Best of" anthology. It's about a man who was sent from earth on a spaceship, without any companion but the ship's computer. As he approaches ...
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Alien bird people fight as gladiators
This was a short story I read in an anthology here in the UK, but it was about fifty years ago so I don't recall any of the other stories or book details.
A future Earth dominates a large section of ...
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Short story about a once inhabited planet and some kind of compliance-drug
I read this sci-fi short story in a book I found in a waiting room. It was more than 10 years ago and I can't remember if I even got to finish the whole story.
It starts with a spaceship with a small ...
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Short story in which Hitler is a jovial professor, having been accepted at an art or architectural school
I was told about a short story in which people are being given a tour of a campus in Germany by a jovial professor, who isn't named until the end. The historical twist is that Hitler (born 1889) was ...
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Short Story about a woman who loses her ring to a cleaning robot
The story I read was a sci-fi story when it was written, but now it would be considered normal everyday life, because we DO have cleaning robots. So, this would date it. Probably first written in ...
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Science fiction short story, possibly titled "Hop for Pop," about life ending at age 30
The story was printed in an anthology paper magazine, maybe Asimov's Science Fiction (similar to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine short stories). It would have been printed some time between 1976 and ...
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Short story about a soldier's reaction to finding out his sergeant is a robot
I'm trying to find a classic science fiction story, maybe 70s era. There is a soldier going through boot camp under a very harsh and demanding sergeant. Later in the story the soldier discovers the ...
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Short story about the best time to travel back to for each season, summer [duplicate]
I read this short story in the 70's I think. It was about time travel tourists that would go back in time to the best event of that season. I recall Charlemagne's crowning as Holy Roman Emperor at ...
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90s SF short story - conspiracy suppressing cold fusion
The story I'm thinking of is from the mid90s to early 2000s, featuring a group that suppresses dangerous technology. One character from that organization reminisces about the trouble they had ...
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Short story where truckers are secretly using illegal fusion packs instead of burning diesel
I thought this was by Vinge, based on the similarity of the Bender fusion pack in his story "Bookworm, Run!" but I've read through all his short stories and it wasn't there. I probably read ...
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Short story in which two biologists are caught by a subterranean predator then rescued by an alien
I read this in an anthology borrowed from my local library in (I think) the 1990s. The library doesn't keep records going back that far so I cannot find it that way.
In the story a husband and wife ...
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Story on a website in a journal entry/case study format, written in the perspective of a scientist observing an alien creature
The website has many different "cases". This one is about a creature or alien that a group of scientists are observing. It's written in the perspective of one single scientist that is ...
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627
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Short story about a man sacrificing himself to fix a solar sail
I'm trying to remember the name of a story I've read- I can't remember if it was a book or a short story, but I suspect the latter. The part I'm remembering is set on a space ship powered by a solar ...
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Short story about the last man on a colony planet who dies and is resurrected by aliens, then upgrades himself to understand physics
I'm looking for a short sci-fi story. The last man alive on a colony planet eventually dies outside in the vacuum. Many years later, aliens made of crystal find him and are able to bring back to life.
...
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Short story about two human space travelers who learn to transform into energy beings
I believe that I read this short story as part of a science fiction anthology many years ago now. I think it is from the 30's -50's era, however I cannot be sure.
It starts with two human travelers in ...
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