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  Top 10 Short Stories The - Barry...

  Barry Pain

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  Most people will shrug at the name of ‘Barry Pain’, if you are one of them you are in for a treat.  Pain was a brilliant storyteller who took on difficult issues and situations and handled each with aplomb and a knowing way that only true talent can. 
   
  01 - The Top 10 - Barry Pain - An Introduction 
  02 - The Diary of a God by Barry Pain 
  03 - The Act of Heroism by Barry Pain 
  04 - The Case of Vincent Pyrwhit by Barry Pain 
  05 - The Green Light by Barry Pain 
  06 - The Magnet by Barry Pain 
  07 - The End of a Show by Barry Pain 
  08 - A Complete Recovery by Barry Pain 
  09 - The Extermination by Barry Pain 
  10 - Murder, from The Memoirs of Constantine Dix by Barry Pain 
  11 - Post Mortem by Barry Pain

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  Alexander Kuprin - A Short Story...

  Alexander Kuprin

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  Alexander Kuprin was born in Narovchat, Penza in Russia on 7th September 1870. 
   
  At 3 his Father died and he and mother moved to Moscow. By 10 he was enrolled at the Second Moscow Military High School and there his interest in literature began. The Alexander Military Academy followed and two years later he was a sub-lieutenant and posted to an Infantry Regiment for a further four years. 
   
  Despite his duties he was a now a keen writer and published his first short story at this time. His military duties also garnered him experiences for his breakthrough work ‘The Duel’.  Leaving the military he left for Kiev to work for local newspapers.  He continued to publish both stories and novels and by 1901 he was in St Petersburg becoming part of a group that included Chekhov, Ivan Bunin, Maxim Gorky and Leonid Andreyev.  
   
  In the years that followed further controversial works and acclaim followed.  His comments on the regime meant he was also put under secret police surveillance.   
   
  As World War I erupted, Kuprin opened a military hospital but was then given command of an infantry company in Finland. He was soon discharged on grounds of ill health.  
   
  The October Revolution saw him praise Lenin, but he warned that the Bolsheviks threatened Russian culture and might cause further widespread suffering to the peasants.  As Civil War raged he took his family to Helsinki and then on to Paris. 
   
  Exile saw his talents decline further and his succumbing to alcoholism. He became lonely and withdrawn. The family's poverty increased his malaise.   
   
  In May 1937, the Kuprin’s returned to Moscow.  He now saw his work published but wrote almost nothing new.  In 1938 his health rapidly deteriorated.  Already suffering from a kidney problems and sclerosis, he had now developed cancer of the oesophagus.  
   
  Alexander Kuprin died on 25th August 1938. 
   
  1 - Alexander Kuprin - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - A Slav Soul by Alexander Kuprin 
  3 - Cain by Alexander Kuprin  
  4 - An Evening Guest by Alexander Kuprin 
  5 - Demir Kaya by Alexander Kuprin 
  6 - A Legend by Alexander Kuprin 
  7 - Anathema by Alexander Kuprin 
  8 - The Garden of the Holy Virgin by Alexander Kuprin 
  9 - The Outrage by Alexander Kuprin 
  10 - The Park of Kings by Alexander Kuprin

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  The Hammer of God - A Father...

  G. K. Chesterton

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  Will Father Brown discover who killed the well-to-do ne’er-do-well? It appears as though he was stricken with the hammer of God. Is that a thing?  
  G.K. Chesterton is most notable for his creation of Father Brown. This unlooked for, and often unwelcome, detective is actually not a detective. But rather, an individual self-trained to think as criminals think, for he has heard so many of their confessions. He knows how their minds work, and can piece together many things that others cannot.  
  This story is from the first collection of Father Brown Stories, The Innocence of Father Brown. 

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  Two Tales From Alfred C Martino...

  Alfred C. Martino

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  "Two Tales From Alfred C. Martino" includes two short stories from opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. The first, Requiem For An Athlete, is a somber look at the unfulfilled expectations of a once-great athlete. Grad School Daydreams, on the other hand, is a whimsical tale, set at a Southern California university, of a grad school student who daydreams and pines for a beautifully exotic woman sitting next to him in class.

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  The Classic Collection of Philip...

  Philip K. Dick

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  Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982), often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. His fiction explored varied philosophical and social questions such as the nature of reality, perception, human nature, and identity, and commonly featured characters struggling against elements such as alternate realities, illusory environments, monopolistic corporations, drug abuse, authoritarian governments, and altered states of consciousness.  
   Born in Chicago, Dick moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his family at a young age. He began publishing science fiction stories in 1952, at age 23. He found little commercial success until his alternative history novel The Man in the High Castle (1962) earned him acclaim, including a Hugo Award for Best Novel, when he was 33.[6] He followed with science fiction novels such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) and Ubik (1969). His 1974 novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. 
     
   The Crystal Crypt 
   The Eyes Have It 
   Beyond the Door 
   Beyond Lies the Wub 
   The Defenders 
   The Gun 
   Tony and the Beetles 
   The Hanging Stranger 
   Adjustment Team 
   Of Withered Apples 
   Survey Team 
   The Crawlers 
   Meddler 
   Souvenir 
   Human Is

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  Two Tales From Lord Dunsany -...

  Lord Dunsany

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  Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, (July 24, 1878 - October 25, 1957), commonly known as Lord Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist who published more than 90 books during his lifetime, as well as hundreds of short stories, plays, and essays. He gained a name in the 1910s as a great writer in the English-speaking world. The following recording includes the short stories "The Sword of Welleran" and "Carcassone."

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