wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP (07/19/85)
I strongly agree with the recommendation for Lafferty's *Nine Hundred Grandmothers*. "Land of Great Horses" and the title story are very good. Lafferty likes to play with reality, but they are generally spiritual realities rather than P.K.D.'s drug-induced alternate realities. On the dark side, Ray Bradbury's *Long After Midnight* collection has a very good title story, as well as my favorite Halloween story, "The October Game." One of my favorite writers of short stories is a little harder to find, though. John Collier wrote more horror and dark fantasy than science fiction, but he always wrote it well. "Evening Primrose," "Bottle Party," "The Touch of Nutmeg Makes It," "The Lady on the Gray," and "Thus I Refute Beelzy" are good things to start with. Most of his short stories are in two collections, *The Best of John Collier* and *Fancies and Goodnights*. James Tiptree, Jr. writes good hard SF short stories. Frederic Brown wrote a lot of bizarre stories. Try the collection *Paradox Lost*. An excellent time travel story is "Vintage Season" by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore. Find a copy of *The Best of Henry Kuttner*. I don't remember if it has "Vintage Season," but it should have "Mimsy Were the Borogoves," "Nothing But Gingerbread Left," and a Gallagher story or two. Both Brown and Kuttner write good comedy. Another hilarious story is Larry Niven's "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex," probably in *All the Myriad Ways*. For the random story, any volume of Terry Carr's *The Best Science Fiction of the Year* will always have something good. "When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all." Roger Zelazny, *Doorways in the Sand* Wombat ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!wombat