The Last Question by Isaac Asimov And The Restaurant at the Start of the Universe by kleinbl00 Not necessarily in that order.
A great story Brian, extremely funny."They're made out of meat."
flagamuffin, I'd say that's one hell of an opening line. Would you agree? It's not often that the first sentence is the title.
This is out of place, but - my wife's favourite first line (not from a short story though), is from "Earthly Powers" by Anthony Burgess :
It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.
You may not have seen the thread tng was referencing. I have seen that line before, but not read that book. I think that's a problem with iconic first lines: they get spread around and everyone knows his name's Ishmael but they don't know a damn thing about the rest of the book, or they jump to conclusions about it.
If you like sci-fi, Asimov has loads of a good ones. Besides the Last Question, which has already been linked here, I also like "The Machine That Won the War", "The Fun They Had", "Profession", and "The Last Answer".
My favorite short short story was from a collection of sci-fi short stories. It was the shortest in the whole book, only half a page. I'd love to know the name and author. Can anyone help? A paraphrase follows: -- He blew out the match and a genie materialized from the stream of smoke coming from the end of the match. "And what is your third wish?" the genie asked. "Third wish? What do you mean? I haven't had any other wishes." "Your second wish was to make everything exactly like it was before you made the first wish," the genie explained. The man didn't think that was very fair, but was pleased to have a wish regardless. "I wish that I were irresistible to women," he said. "Funny," the genie said as he disappeared. "That was also your first wish."
If you took advanced English in high school or intro lit/short story in college you've probably read this already, but in the off chance you haven't, read A&P it's brilliant. Same goes with The Yellow Wallpaper a classic. A brilliant classic. For something that wouldn't be covered in those classes here's the Library of Babel by Borges. Read everything published by David Foster Wallace in magazines like The New Yorker.
In terms of short reads I have to piggyback your Vonnegut suggestion with his essential essay collection titled "A Man Without a Country." It's well known but if you haven't read it, as a Vonnegut fan you must. Also I'm not aficionado of the "classics" but you should at one point in your life thumb through some Hemingway. Also not a surprising or discreet suggestion but i think they're both essential collections.
I'm not much of a Vonnegut fan, actually. I tried Slaughterhouse Five, but I couldn't get into it. I don't know why. I really wanted to like it, I just didn't. I like Harrison Bergeron due to the dystopian it is. That's also why I liked The Veldt. Not really a dystopia, but Veldt Spoilers kids so spoiled that they killed their parents? A bit dystopian if you ask me. I also loved 1984 and Little Brother. If you look at some of my stories, namely A man thinks he is the last human on earth, and finds out he's not and The world after pollution, it has been deemed as toxic and one man wants out, they are both dystopians. I don't know why I like dystopian societies so much, I just find them so interesting. If you have any dystopian books, I would love to hear about them. I'm sure there are plenty I haven't read yet.
Slaughterhouse was my least favorite, I recommend giving Vonnegut another try if you ever have the urge. Maybe his satire and style of writing isn't your taste, he doesn't exactly pander to the widest audience. I'll absolutely read your stories and get back to you when I have the chance, but with a few exceptions like 1984, I'm actually not one for sci-fi and the dystopian genre. I guess we gotta venture into each other's playing fields then!
I think Slaughterhouse Five is great, but I am very glad it was not my introduction to Vonnegut. Instead I was introduced with Player Piano I would suggest that or "Cats Cradle" if you give Vonnegut a second try.
Harrison Bergeron has been posted in the past. It's an interesting read but it's definitely anything but subtle. I recall mk asking if all Vonnegut was so "heavy handed?" mk- did you end up reading Slaughter House Five?
Excellent list, thank you all. I'll put this in my "save" file. No short story collection would be complete without mentioning a few of the great Russian writers. The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories is excellent. I meant to read just one and ended up reading the whole book. Title story available on line in pdf. If you have a modern sensibility and enjoy the terse short sentences of Vonnegut, you might not make it through the first paragraph of the Russians. I'm glad I did though. After seeing a powerful movie called The Namesake, I had to read Gogol's short story, "The Overcoat." To complete my triumverate of Russian short stories, read "The Lady with the Dog" by Chekhov.
Well since everyone is stealing my Asimov thunder I was ready to post I guess I'll dig a little deeper: I got a book of great collections of short stories from the used book store a little while back. It's called Time Probe and from various authors and focuses on different sciences. It has Arthur C Clarke's name in a large font on the cover so I suppose this means he had something to do with it. "And He Built a Crooked House" by Robert A. Heinlein wherein we follow an architect who builds a 4 dimensional house based on a tesseract after a night of drinking. And He Built a Crooked House And another from the book: "The Potters of Firsk" by Jack Vance (Sorry I can't find a link to the actual text). I like this because it's a comfortable sci-fi story. What I mean is, without being mean, that its a bit cliche. But I love it for that. There is just that whole idea from earlier scifi where aliens were either too dumb for us or too smart for us.
By far my favorite short story is Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. It's not as short as what some people consider "short" - it's more like a novella - but it reads incredibly fast (one sitting). If you love "They're Made of Meat" then you'll love this. Also, from that post, Wow - how times have changed. I miss my Aussie lover. :/ I still have the Kindle though...and a lighter that has literally traveled the world...and a aussie bill that has seen it's share of drugs around the world.Since my Aussie love got me a Kindle Fire ( :DDDDD )
An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce. An amazing short story and a great Twilight Zone episode.
A Small, Good Thing by Raymond Carver. Warning, it is harsh and it sticks with you.
My favorite "short" story of all time is The Mysterious Stranger, by Mark Twain. It was actually never finished; he died before it was compiled into a single, final version. But three different manuscripts remain that you can sort of piece together to understand some of the ideas Twain was trying to convey. If you do choose to read it, avoid the bowlderized version that was edited and released by Albert Paine in 1916. He ripped the ending from one of the manuscripts and stuck it to another, while taking out some important content and adding a character to make the story less controversial (it is very critical of religion/the Catholic church). The only place I've ever found all three original manuscripts together is in this book, sadly. The 1916 version can be found online for free, but it really doesn't do justice to the original stories.
onehunna's Vumit: https://hubski.com/pub?id=95727