AngieW in Texas Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 She has already read every short story by Isaac Asimov that she could get her hands on (and that's an awful lot because we have two shelves of his books) and nearly every short story by H. Beam Piper. She has read most of The Collected Short Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. She's read one collection of short stories by Anne MacCaffrey, Get Off the Unicorn. She's looking for more science fiction short stories. She hates it when she runs across foul language in the stories (and that happens more and more often when she reads stories written after the 60s). She was reading through books of Hugo and Nebula winners, but kept running into foul language and didn't want to read anymore. Even though they didn't all have it, she didn't want to touch the book again once she ran into a story in the book that had it. I don't have time to pre-read everything for her. We have a lot of science fiction in the house, but my dh and have always gone more for novels than short stories and she has the opposite preference. We have several short story collections by Bradbury, but she didn't like any of his stories. Any suggestions of particular collections of short stories or authors who generally write clean short stories? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dangermom Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 Try Connie Willis, but you might pre-read; I can't remember if there's any language. She has a great one of SF Christmas stories! Why only short stories? Unexpected Magic by Diana Wynne Jones has some SF and some fantasy. DWJ is my very favorite author, so I recommend her! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenneinCA Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 Has she read Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr?? Orson Scott Card has some short stories that are good too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 Nightfall is one of my favorite Sci Fi short stories, it's a classic and clean. Orson Scott Card has a few short stories, since he is a Mormon, they are all clean. Generally, the best science fiction of the year collection is clean, although I haven't read them lately, up to the 80's or 90's I remember them being fine, most libraries have several of these anthologies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aunty Social Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 Has she read any H.G. Wells? I didn't see him listed, and his stories are fantastic. I don't think they're novel length....but they might be a little longer than short story length. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 More Tales of Pirx the Pilot If she likes that, Pirx the Pilot and Star Diaries. All by Lem. Not well known in this country, very well known in the rest of the reading world. Not one foul world or mush scene. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KristenS Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 I would hesitate to call Orson Scott Card clean. Maybe his short stories are, but his novels are anything but. I had to stop reading his stuff. Roger Elwood edited several anothologies of SF stories for children. She may find some good stories in those. Also, Robert Silverberg wrote some children's SF. (I know you're not looking specifically for children's SF, but that's one way to weed out the clean vs. not clean, at least.) Poul Anderson had a few good shorts that I found in an anthology. Also Bruce Coville has several anthologies, some of SF and some of Fantasy and some of scary stories. They're from all sorts of sources. Some are G-rated and a few are beyond that, but mostly okay. Some were specifically for kids and some were adult stories that he thought good enough that kids should read. And he always throws a few of his own in, as well. Editing to add a few more: I think Jane Yolen edited these anthologies, but they are Spaceships & Spells, and Dragons & Dreams. Those are good. And anything by Jean Karl is good (and pretty much anything stamped by her as an editor as well ... her imprint is a good mark that a book is worth reading). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostSurprise Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 Ray Bradbury has a lot of short stories and I can't think of any swearing in his either. I haven't read his most recent work. Start with The Martian Chronicles or The Illustrated Man. Cordwainer Smith is excellent and has many stories. Lem is good. The youth novels and early stories (not his later more adult stuff) of Robert Heinlein. If they're from the '50s they're generally okay. My husband reads Isaac Asimov Presents The Golden Years of Science Fiction. Anything before the 1960s does not usually contain swearing. If she likes any of those stories she can branch out to the work of the individual author. There are a lot of interesting stories there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieW in Texas Posted January 22, 2010 Author Share Posted January 22, 2010 She prefers science fiction short stories over science fiction novels. I've always liked novels better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieW in Texas Posted January 22, 2010 Author Share Posted January 22, 2010 I found a copy of the 2nd series of Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Age of Science Fiction for just $0.88 on amazon, so I bought that for her. If she could find some more authors she liked, it would help. Does anybody get current copies of Fantasy&SciFi magazine? Are those stories clean? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenneinCA Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 Fantasy and SciFi was NOT clean when I looked at it several years ago. I don't know if it has changed since then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veritaserum Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 I love Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and I think he's pretty clean. You'd probably want to pre-read. I think he's hilarious. Some of Orson Scott Card is clean. Ender's Game is a must for any sci-fi fan. H. G. Wells is also excellent. I know she's looking for short stories, but we enjoyed reading the Tripod series by John Christopher. It was a great read. My 7yo even enjoyed it (I read them aloud). I know I've seen anthologies of short stories in the Sci-Fi section in adult fiction at our local library. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs Mungo Posted January 22, 2010 Share Posted January 22, 2010 There are some great suggestions already, but has she tried Marion Zimmer-Bradley's sci-fi short stories? She has quite a few short stories from the Darkover series and they are pretty clean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieW in Texas Posted February 6, 2010 Author Share Posted February 6, 2010 Thanks for the suggestion of Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction. I found a copy of the 2nd series for about $8ppd on amazon and it arrived a few days ago. My dd loves it. These are the kinds of stories she prefers. They are completely clean. She also really likes that they have aliens on Mars and other things that we know today aren't true. She's going to finish reading the whole thing and then decide whether to buy more of the books. They aren't all available at reasonable prices, but I'm sure she'll want to get all the books that are reasonably priced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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