Featured Stories

Usher II

Usher II: Short story by Ray BradburyFirst published in 1950 as Carnival of Madness, this story by Ray Bradbury is also included in his anthologies The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man. A wealthy book-lover, angry about destruction of his extensive library because of fantasy and horror story censorship on Earth, builds a look-alike version of Edgar Allan Poe’s House of Usher on Mars. He invites prominent book-banners to a party at the house, where they meet different Poe-inspired ends. Themes include censorship vs. personal freedom, the importance of speculative fiction, the danger of excess political correctness, zealotry (in this case, taking a protest too far!)

Continue ReadingUsher II

Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain: Short story by Annie ProulxAnnie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain is an unsettling story about how a sexual encounter between two male ranch-hands, Jack and Ennis, develops into a twenty-year love affair. The relationship develops over short, intimate camping trips, sometimes years apart. Jack wants more but Ennis’s marriage, social pressures of the day (1960’s), and anti-gay upbringing prevent him from “coming out”. It is not until Jack dies, possibly in a gay hate crime, that Ennis understands the intensity of their feelings for one another. Themes: desire, love, repressed sexuality, masculinity, homophobia, shame, acceptance (if you can’t fix it, you’ve got to stand it).

Continue ReadingBrokeback Mountain

Four Summers

Four Summers: Short story by Joyce Carol OatesThis story from Joyce Carol Oates charts the coming of age of a woman through four stages of life: infancy, childhood, adolescence and early womanhood. Her emotional development and the lives of those around her are portrayed through experiences over four summers at the same lakeside bar. Growing up in a working class environment in which hard drinking and angry outbursts are the norm, she is increasingly disillusioned by what she sees. At nineteen, she finds herself married, pregnant and facing a life of the same. Themes include marriage, family and the role of social class in determining one’s future.

Continue ReadingFour Summers

The Outcasts of Poker Flat

The Outcasts of Poker Flat: Short story by Bret HarteBret Harte’s “outcasts” are four “improper persons” (a gambler, a prostitute, a brothel madam, and a drunkard and suspected thief) banished by a vigilante group from a Californian Gold Rush town. When they camp for the night on the way to the next settlement, the drunkard steals their horses. The other three and a young couple journeying the other way find themselves “snowed in” in a secluded mountain cabin. With food and firewood running low, we see another side of the remaining outcasts. Themes: appearances; immorality vs. innocence; goodness; sacrifice; the power of nature; luck, fate and human agency.

Continue ReadingThe Outcasts of Poker Flat

Dead End

Dead End: Short story by Rudolfo AnayaThe protagonist of this coming of age story by Rudolfo Anaya faces a difficult decision: to honor a promise made to her dying mother, or risk ending a budding romance with the most sought after boy in school. Whichever choice she makes is likely to lead to a “dead end” of sorts. She comes close to a decision while ‘making out’ with the boy in his car. Fortunately, a childhood memory and plaintive sob from a passing bag lady help clear her mind. Themes: determination, family responsibility, dreams (a better future vs. ‘fitting in’ with the gang), sexuality, life choices

Continue ReadingDead End

The Adventure of the Dancing Men

The Adventure of the Dancing Men: Short story by Arthur Conan DoyleIn this mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle, an English squire from a highly respected family asks Sherlock Holmes for help. His new bride has been receiving messages written in a strange code that appear to terrify her. The woman, an American, refuses to discuss her past, and a condition of her marrying him was that he must promise never to ask about it. Holmes takes on the case and easily cracks the code, but doesn’t move quickly enough to prevent a murder. Themes include honor, shame, secretiveness, fear, unrequited love, obsession, crime and justice.

Continue ReadingThe Adventure of the Dancing Men

The Pearl of Love

The Pearl of Love: Short story by H. G. WellsIn this story by H. G. Wells an Indian prince, devastated by the death of his young wife, has her body entombed in a sarcophagus and begins to build a magnificent shrine around it that he names the Pearl of Love. Over the years he makes the memorial grander and grander, until one day he tires of it. He not only disassembles the shrine, but also has the sarcophagus removed because it blocks his view of the lord of mountains. Themes include love, loss, grief, art and artistry, the nature of beauty, time and healing.

Continue ReadingThe Pearl of Love

The Dead Past

The Dead Past: Short story by Isaac AsimovIn this story by Isaac Asimov a young physicist, indignant at apparent government suppression of research in a fringe area of science, secretly builds a home “chronoscope” that can look back in time up to one hundred and fifty years. Too late, the government learns of this and tries to censor his work, pointing out the potential for his machine to destroy an important aspect of life everyone takes for granted. Themes include scientific curiosity and freedom, government disinformation and control (in this case for the greater good), privacy, guilt.

Continue ReadingThe Dead Past