[Read Sci Fi Short Stories Online
Gildo Santiago
Centered around themed writing prompts, these short stories range across all forms, genres, and topics of interest. Simply filter by the genre that appeals you most, and discover thousands of stories from promising new writers around the world.
Every day it seems the world is speeding up, especially as college students. There is always more homework, more tests, more games, more classes, more, more, more. It is hard to slow down and decompress when time will not slow down with you. With so few hours in the day, it is difficult to find time to do things you enjoy that are separate from schoolwork. I, myself, love to read. But in my first two years of college, I struggled to find time to sit down to read recreationally. Novels took too much time and dedication. So, I settled for an ever-growing TBR list and bought every pretty book I could afford.
There are many aspects of reading that I enjoy, but there are a few specific ways reading helps me decompress from the stress of life. Reading forces me to slow down. By sitting down, turning off my phone, and reading a physical copy of a book I am allowing my mind a moment of silence and intentional concentration that is not expected of me by work or school. I also find great satisfaction in finishing a story. Even when I love a story and never want it to end, there is something incredibly gratifying about reading a book cover to cover. Often, I will find myself reading through the night just to find that sense of completion. Finally, books allow me to escape for just a little while.
One: they are short. This seems obvious, but a large reason why they can appeal to anyone is because of their length. College students are busy, but so are career professionals, parents, and everyone else in the world. Even short novels tend to be over one hundred pages of content. While one could equate a chapter to a short story, it does not have the same sense of satisfaction that comes with finishing a story. A short story allows you to sit down and read a story start to finish, aiding in the sense of satisfaction and success that makes finishing a story so rewarding.
While short stories are short, they are not lacking in content. Short stories can be a part of any genre and even their length can vary greatly. Micro and flash fictions (subcategories of a short story) can range from a single word to a few hundred. Traditional short stories range from 1,000 to 10,000 words (or 3 to 20 pages). The scope of short stories can vary greatly as well. I have read short stories that take place over years, and I have also read short stories that take place in a single hour. While they cannot hold as much content as a novel, that does not mean that the purpose, entertainment, or writing style of short stories cannot be as beautiful as a bestselling novel. The length of a short story is its main virtue when it comes to making time for reading.
Not only does this allow you to explore authors, but it can also allow you to explore different genres, writing conventions, cultures, even shorter translated works. Short stories give you the freedom to explore without feeling like there is a large time or mental commitment. Short story collections tend to be priced similarly to novels of the same binding. The Best American Short Stories Anthology adds an edition each year. It is released in paperback and usually retails for around $16.95. This collection is filled with dozens of stories and for the price of a single novel you could spend months exploring different authors and genres that hold claim to the best stories of the year, like taking the tester of the weird new sauce at the grocery store instead of buying a whole bottle of said weird new sauce. Whether you look for free stories online, or buy collections and anthologies, it is much easier to explore genres and authors while reading shorter material.
Three: there is a beauty in brevity. A lot of skill goes into creating a good short story and it is a skill that should be appreciated more. Short stories are rarely longer than 10,000 words. This means that the author needs to create characters, setting, conflict, and plot convincingly in under 30 pages. This may seem like a lot of space, but for prose authors this constraint is often felt.
Most authors want to touch their readers, to move them emotionally, or engage them in a dynamic story. Novels have a lot more space to capture the attention of their audience, but short stories do not have that luxury. After reading a good novel, it is easy to go back and decide which parts took too much time or maybe even whole chapters that did not need to exist. But after finishing a good short story, it is hard to find even a word out of place.
I feel that short stories are a vastly underappreciated art form. Whether it is a collection from one author or any anthology of many, there is so much to love and discover in them. Reading is a great way to decompress and take care of yourself outside of school. It allows the mind to be active without forcing the activity. Reading can take time, but if everyone read more short stories, then that time commitment would seem less daunting and reading would more easily fit into your day.
One afternoon I was sitting outside the Cafe de la Paix, watching the splendour and shabbiness of Parisian life, and wondering over my vermouth at the strange panorama of pride and poverty that was passing before me, when I heard some one call my name. I turned round, and saw Lord Murchison. We had not met since we had been at college together, nearly ten years before, so I was delighted to come across him again, and we shook hands warmly. At Oxford we had been great friends. I had liked him immensely, he was so handsome, so high-spirited, and so honourable. We used to say of him that he would be the best of fellows, if he did not always speak the truth, but I think we really admired him all the more for his frankness. I found him a good deal changed. He looked anxious and puzzled, and seemed to be in doubt about something. I felt it could not be modern scepticism, for Murchison was the stoutest of Tories, and believed in the Pentateuch as firmly as he believed in the House of Peers; so I concluded that it was a woman, and asked him if he was married yet.
'Let us go for a drive,' he answered, 'it is too crowded here. No, not a yellow carriage, any other colour - there, that dark-green one will do;' and in a few moments we were trotting down the boulevard in the direction of the Madeleine.
He took from his pocket a little silver-clasped morocco case, and handed it to me. I opened it. Inside there was the photograph of a woman. She was tall and slight, and strangely picturesque with her large vague eyes and loosened hair. She looked like a clairvoyante, and was wrapped in rich furs.
I examined it carefully. It seemed to me the face of some one who had a secret, but whether that secret was good or evil I could not say. Its beauty was a beauty moulded out of many mysteries - the beauty, in face, which is psychological, not plastic - and the faint smile that just played across the lips was far too subtle to be really sweet.
When the waiter brought us our coffee and cigarettes I reminded Gerald of his promise. He rose from his seat, walked two or three times up and down the room, and, sinking into an armchair, told me the following story: -
'One evening,' he said, 'I was walking down Bond Street about five o'clock. There was a terrific crush of carriages, and the traffic was almost stopped. Close to the pavement was standing a little yellow brougham, which, for some reason or other, attracted my attention. As I passed by there looked out from it the face I showed you this afternoon. I fascinated me immediately. All that night I kept thinking of it, and all the next day. I wandered up and down that wretched Row, peering into every carriage, and waiting for the yellow brougham; but I could not find ma belle inconnue, and at last I began to think she was merely a dream. About a week afterwards I was dining with Madame de Rastail. Dinner was for eight o'clock; but at half-past eight we were still waiting in the drawing-room. Finally the servant threw open the door, and announced Lady Alroy. It was the woman I had been looking for. She came in very slowly, looking like a moon-beam in grey lace, and, to my intense delight, I was asked to take her in to dinner. After we had sat down I remarked quite innocently, "I think I caught sight of you in Bond Street some time ago, Lady Alroy." She grew very pale, and said to me in a low voice, "Pray do not talk so loud; you may be overheard." I felt miserable at having made such a bad beginning, and plunged recklessly into the subject of French plays. She spoke very little, always in the same low musical voice, and seemed as if she was afraid of some one listening. I fell passionately, stupidly in love, and the indefinable atmosphere of mystery that surrounded her excited my most ardent curiosity. When she was going away, which she did very soon after dinner, I asked her if I might call and see her. She hesitated for a moment, glanced round to see if any one was near us, and then said, "Yes; to-morrow at a quarter to five." I begged Madame de Rastail to tell me about her; but all that I could learn was that she was a window with a beautiful house in Park Lane, and as some scientific bore began a dissertation of widows, as exemplifying the survival of the matrimonially fittest, I left and went home.
'The next day I arrived at Park Lane punctual to the moment, but was told by the butler that Lady Alroy had just gone out. I went down to the club quite unhappy and very much puzzled, and after long consideration wrote her a letter, asking if I might be allowed to try my chance some other afternoon. I had no answer for several days, but at last I got a little note saying she would be at home on Sunday at four, and with this extraordinary postscript: "Please do not write to me here again; I will explain when I see you." On Sunday she received me, and was perfectly charming; but when I was going away she begged of me, if I ever had occasion to write to her again, to address my letter to "Mrs. Knox, care of Whittaker's Library, Green Street." "There are reasons," she said, " why I cannot receive letters in my own house."
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