two "proposed" anthologies: WE ARE IN THE VASTNESS and WE ARE VASTER THAN WE MIGHT WISH, ed. by TM: Short Story Wednesday

I'm in a Facebook group hosted by D. F. Lewis, called Hyper-Imaginative Literature, where Des is seeking at getting at the kind of fiction (as I understand him to mean) that tends to shake up perceptions, at least to some extent...the other week, members had been offering potential 12-entry anthologies of some of the relevant fiction...I was sleepy but not successfully winding into sleep, so I decided to play along, but hadn't noted fully the dozens rule, and Des wondered if I would pare my 18-entry item down (it echoed the Robert Arthur-edited Alfred Hitchcock Presents: volumes even down to including a novel, in that first batch only Kate Wilhelm's Death Qualified, which is my favorite of her most qualifying novels, though most of hers would qualify). So, I did two dozens, instead, with a Calvino novel-of-sorts in multiple Tarot-driven vignettes among the added, instead. (Since I was sleepy still, I was lazy enough to add my two better relevant very short stories, or at least the choice of one of the two.)

I gave the two "volumes" titles, as well. I shall gather links to the stories and books that are online, in the next little while (now provided).

We Are in the Vastness

A. A. Attanasio: "Sherlock Holmes and Basho" (first in Beastmarks, Zeising 1985) (not online)

Jorge Luis Borges: "The Other Death" (preferably the translation by Borges and Norman Thomas di Giovanni, if available)

Joseph Payne Brennan: "Levitation"

Grania Davis: "David's Friend, the Hole"

Ellen Gilchrist: "The Green Tent"

Damon Knight: "You're Another"

Fritz Leiber: "Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee"

David Redd: "Morning" (not the story, but a page offering his collected stories volume)

Kit Reed: "Winter"

Joanna Russ: "My Boat"

Margaret St. Clair: "The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles" (originally published as by "Idris Seabright")

Kate Wilhelm: DEATH QUALIFIED

As the subtitle suggests (and it's notably been dropped from the two US paperback reprints' covers I've seen so far, the first's cover below), this is not simply a lawyer-procedural novel, but digs a bit more into further realms than that...the subsequent, also good or better, Holloway novels stuck to more specifically legal-procedural concerns.

We Are Vaster Than We Might Wish

Alfred Bester: "5,271,009"

Robert Bloch: "The Final Performance"

Italo Calvino: THE CASTLE OF CROSSED DESTINIES (translation by William White) preview only

Avram Davidson: "The Lord of Central Park"

Edward D. Hoch: "The Oblong Room"

Joe Gores: "The Second Coming"

Barry N. Malzberg: "Prowl"

Todd Mason: "Bedtime" (alternately, "Bonobos") [at the initial hour of TOC composition, I was nodding more than Homer--these would be rather unlucky 13th entries!] (?amusingly, neither is online, as far as I can see, at the moment.)

Rachel Pollack: "Burning Sky"

"Saki": "The Reticence of Lady Anne"

Lisa Tuttle: "Sangre"

Evelyn Waugh: "The Man Who Liked Dickens" (similarly, Joan Aiken: "Marmalade Wine") [there's at least one other Very Similar story of similar vintage at the edge of memory]

For more of today's short stories, please see Patti Abbott's blog.