Archive of Read Stories
| The
Story of Ming-Y by Lafcadio Hearn - 1850-1904 (4868 words) A young man meets a beautiful, noble-born widow who has a crush on him; the noblewoman’s servant girl helps the two of them orchestrate their trysts. But all is not what it seems. |
| LOKI
7281 by Roger Zelazny (2326 words) Computer gets into trouble when it starts changing its owner's stories without his permission. Audio 14 Minutes |
| Bigger
Fish by Sarah Pinsker (5005 words) Robots again but told humorously through the eyes of a Private Detective. |
| The
Direction of the Road – Ursula Le Guin (2650 words) Only an author as creative as Ursula Le Guin could conceive a story where the protagonist is a ‘murderous’ roadside oak tree. It's all a matter of perspective. |
| Answer
– Fredric Brown (254 words) One of the most concise SciFi horror stories. There are eerie similarities between the new supercomputer’s response to the first question asked of it in this story and the final sentence of Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question. Both stories were published in the mid-1950s and reflect concerns about the future influence of computers on society. |
| RAFI
BY Amal Singh (6110 words) Rogue Robots and trees. |
| The Blues I’m Playing by Langston Hughes (5,525 words) A wealthy, white, middle-aged widow finds purpose and intimacy through the patronization of young artists. Tensions emerge when the woman, who expects her protégés to behave in a manner consistent with her high social standing, takes on a black pianist for the first time. |
| The
Open Window - H.H. Munro (Saki) Saki's tale of the anxious Framton Nuttel's ill-fated encounter with the imaginative young Vera in the English countryside—is, ultimately, a satire of excessive decorum. |
| Magic and Other Honest Lies by Robert Buettner Good old-fashioned space opera stuff. Interesting to see how the trick is done and there are some clever bits within a well-worn theme. |
| Tobermory – H. H. Munro (aka Saki) Clovis attends a weekend house-party. Among the other guests is a visiting scientist who was invited in the hope that his cleverness would contribute to the general entertainment. All are amazed when the scientist teaches Tobermory, the family house-cat, to speak perfect English. |
| Toy Shop – Harry Harrison An Air Force scientist buys a trick rocket from a toy fair. A thin piece of string makes the rocket rise and fall, and he plans to entertain some other scientists with it at a poker party. At the party, the scientists discover that the trick only works in certain conditions. They are curious as to why, because it seems that the toy may break a basic law of physics. |
| The Kugelmass Episode – Woody Alllen This story includes elements of fantasy, science fiction and farce. Kugelmass, bored with his “oafish” wife, wants a lustful extra-marital affair with no commitments either way. His wish seemingly comes true when a failed magician offers him a chance to seduce any woman from world literature. |
| Key Item – Isaac Asimov In this Asimov story, Multivac has problems. It does not respond to commands, and isn’t following its built-in program to self-diagnose the cause. As the global economy depends on Mulitvac, this could result in panic across the world. |
| Chivalry – Neil Gaiman Mrs. Whitaker is a nice old lady with nice friends, who lives in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. She was also living a nice, peaceful life until one day her routine was interrupted by Sir Galahad, a handsome knight on a quest to find the Holy Grail. |
| The Star – Arthur C. Clarke A group of scientists travel to the edge of the galaxy to explore a nebula (cloud of interstellar gas) surrounding a collapsed star. To their surprise, within the nebula is a burnt out planet that survived the explosion. On the planet is a huge stone marker left by a highly advanced civilization that did not survive. |
| Voodoo
– Fredric Brown Exploring the use of black magic to solve a marriage problem. |
| The Empty House – Algernon Blackwood Algernon Blackwood’s most famous ghost story |
| ANCIENT ENGINES BY MICHAEL SWANWICK Robots and life. Audio 23 Minutes |
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Hermann the Irascible – H. H. Munro (aka Saki) H. H. Munro (aka Saki)’s story Hermann the Irascible is a classic example of the use of reverse psychology to achieve a desired result. The story first appeared in 1909 at the height of the suffrage movement in Britain. |
| Listen to The Aberdeen Horse-Boy by Robert Dodds |
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April in Paris – Ursula Le Guin |
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Filboid Studge – H. H. Munro (Saki) |
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The House, the Witch, and Sugarcane Stalks by Amanda Helms
The house wakes from its somnolence as the witch trudges up the path made of tarts. Through its rock-candy windows, the house scans her figure for any signs of hurt. |
| The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane The taming of America’s ‘Wild West’. The instrument of change is the railroad, which brings ‘Eastern’ ways to previously isolated communities like Yellow Sky. |
| The Ant and The Grasshopper – W. Somerset Maugham (Text only) A new take on an old fable. |
| Leaf by Niggle by J.R.R. Tolkien He was the sort of painter who can paint leaves better than trees. He used to spend a long time on a single leaf, trying to catch its shape, and its sheen... Audio 36 Minutes |
| Aunt Agatha Takes the Count by P.G. Wodehouse A humourous tale of fashion and skulduggery with the inimitable Jeeves in attendance. AUDIO 36 Minutes |
| The Verger by W. Somerset Maugham Text 18 Minutes |
| The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber AUDIO 15 Minutes |
| An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce AUDIO 30 Minutes |
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"The Veldt" by RAY BRADBURY • Classic Radio Play Read by Leonard Nimoy Audio 28 Minutes |
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The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges |
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The Three Strangers by Thomas Hardy AUDIO 27 Minutes |
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The Ransom of the Red Chief by O. Henry |
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The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte (1839-1902) |
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The Signal Man by Charles Dickens |
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Craphound by Cory Doctorow |
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The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benet |
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Rikki Tikki Tavi Rudyard Kipling |
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When the Yogurt Took Over by John Scalzi |
| THE McWILLIAMSES AND THE BURGLAR ALARM by Mark Twain |
| AI and the Trolley Problem by Pat Cadigan |