100 ‘Shots of Short’ Reading Challenge
This is an ongoing challenge that involves reading 100 short stories in whatever order or time frame you want to do them in. A fairly safe challenge to go for, I thought! Plus I got The Years Best Fantasy and Horror for Christmas and to really do it justice I wanted to review the stories individually instead of all as one lump. Reviewing it all together like that is hardly fair considering how many different editors and authors contributed to the book. They should each be judged on their own merits, I think. This doesn’t get me all the way to 100, but it gets me nearly half way there, and I have an older Years Best Fantasy and Horror that I bet will make up the difference.
Here is my list of the 100 ‘shots of short’ that I have chosen:
- The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics by Daniel Abraham
- Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
- Holiday by M. Rickert
- Hum Drum by Gary McMahon
- Splitfoot by Paul Walther
- The House of Mechanical Pain by Chaz Brenchley
- The Last Worders by Karen Joy Fowler
- The Monsters of Heaven by Nathan Ballingrud
- The Fiddler of Bayou Teche by Delia Sherman
- Mr. Poo-Poo by Reggie Oliver
- Winter’s Wife by Elizabeth Hand
- The Tenth Muse by William Browning Spencer
- The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford
- The Swing by Don Tumasonis
- The Forest by Laird Barron
- Fragrant Goddess by Paul Park
- Up the Fire Road by Eileen Gunn
- The Gray Boy’s Work by M. T. Anderson
- The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate by Ted Chiang
- Valentine, July Heat Wave by Joyce Carol Oates
- A Thing Forbidden by Donald Mead
- A Reversal of Fortune by Holly Black
- Rats by Veronica Schanoes
- A Perfect and Unmappable Grace by Jack M. Haringa
- The Boulder by Lucy Kemnitzer
- The Hill by Tanith Lee
- The Ape Man by Alexander MacBride
- The Hide by Liz Williams
- England and Nowhere by Tim Nickels
- Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again by Garth Nix
- Toother by Terry Dowling
- Closet Dreams by Lisa Tuttle
- The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change by Kij Johnson