Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Challenge: Favorite Poems, Short Stories, or Novellas

This is part of the weekly Blogging Challenge over at Long and Short Reviews. If you'd like to participate, you can find the prompts here. They also put up a post every Wednesday where you go and link your response -- and see everyone else's. Check out their homepage to find it.

The challenge for this week is "Favorite Poems, Short Stories, or Novellas".

I would be absolutely remiss if I did not start with the Murderbot novellas (and now one novel), but beyond that I'm... actually kind of at a loss. I don't read a lot of novellas. I also don't read a lot of poetry. (I feel like I should, but I didn't get much introduction to it until I got to college, and I just never really picked it up.)

So that leaves us looking at short stories, and I can name a few of those:

Doctor Diablo Goes Through the Motions, by Saladin Ahmed. A disgruntled supervillain ponders the nature of villainy. (The rest of the collection is entirely worthwhile too, but that's the one that stuck out to me.)

Wikihistory, by Desmond Warzel. A look at the message boards for the International Association of Time Travelers.

Stephen King's short stories were formative for me (I read a lot of horror when I was around 12-14), as were Roger Zelazny's. (Unfortunately, Zelazny died before e-books really took off, so his works can be kind of expensive. They're starting to show up as ebooks, though, finally. Some of them, anyway.)

And those are the ones that stick in my head, though I'm sure I'm forgetting some others. What are yours?

21 comments:

  1. Those Murderbot Diaries look really interesting - I'll have to add them to my reading list. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. I absolutely adored them, and I hope you do too.

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  2. Stephen King's short stories were formative for me as well. I'll see if I can find any of Roger Zelazny's stuff. It sounds great.

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    1. They're fun. He was a writer who wasn't afraid to be silly, or to play with serious themes.

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  3. Murderbot Diaries sound good. Going to have to check them out. Enjoyed your post. Thanks for sharing. Here's mine. https://www.tenastetler.com/favorite-poems-short-stories-or-novellas-lsrs-wednesdays-blog-challenge/

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  4. It's been awhile since I've read Zelazny, need to go back and read some more. https://pmprescott.blogspot.com/2020/06/wc-061020.html

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    1. It's been a while since I've read back through them too.

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  5. I loved All Systems Red! Thanks to Tor, I now have all but the newest so I ought to get on that soon.

    My list

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  6. Oh, HAHAHAHA, just read WikiHistory. LOVED. Will hit the others shortly. Thank you so much. I needed that.

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    1. Oh, good. It's nice to think that I brightened someone's day!

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  7. Okay... I just clicked on Wikihistory and I'm crying over here. I freaking love that!!!

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  8. I believe you just added Wikihistory to a lot of TBRs. The beauty of these challenges is having our horizons broadened.

    I shared a favorite poem. https://thereikicafe.com/2020/06/10/favorite-poem-wednesday-weekly-blogging-challenge/

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  9. There are some King books that are a little too far for me, but I do love his work.

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    1. Yeah, and a couple that I just never got into. I mean, it happens.

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  10. King has been influential for me also, Michael.His storytelling is amazing, whether it's in long or short form. I was completely blown away by his stories when he wrote as Richard Bachman. They were amazing.

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    1. They really were. There's a reason he seems to be a popular choice for this prompt!

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