Short Stories

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• The Wagons (1959)     

  "Jimmy was nine, and Jim was twenty years older. They both liked to camp out all summer. They traveled in a Ford pickup with an extra drum of gas in the back. They slept on the ground in their rolls and lived on coffee and bacon and flapjacks. They fished in the holes under the cottonwoods and shot jackrabbits and prairie dogs. The father and son were very close on these trips. And they went to ground in the short grass and brush country as though they had lived there for hundreds of years. “Did they always go west — the wagons?” “Why no, Jimmy, they couldn't always go west. They went in all directions.”"  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Daniel Petersen (2014)   · Andrew Ferguson (2013)   · Atrox Fabulinus (2010)  
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• Adam Had Three Brothers (1960)     
    · Mulle Kybernetik (2003)  
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• Beautiful Dreamer (1960)     
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• Day of the Glacier (1960)     
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• Other Side of the Moon (1960)     
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• Try to Remember (1960)     
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• Saturday You Die (1960)     
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• The Ugly Sea (1960)     
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• Six Fingers of Time (1960)     

  "“In the street there was no motion, no real motion. A truck, first seeming at rest, moved very slowly. There was no gear in which it could move so slowly. And there was a taxi which crept along, but Charles Vincent had to look at it carefully for some time to be sure that it was in motion. Then he received a shock. He realized by the early morning light that the driver of it was dead. Dead with his eyes wide open! Slowly as it was going, and by whatever means it was moving, it should really be stopped. He walked over to it, opened the door, and pulled on the brake. Then he looked into the eyes of the dead man. Was he really dead? It was hard to be sure. He felt warm. But, even as Vincent looked, the eyes of the dead man had begun to close. And close they did and open again in a matter of about twenty seconds."  —R. A. Lafferty

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    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)  
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• Snuffles (1960)     

  "“I always said we'd find one of them that was fun,” remarked Brian. “There's been entirely too much solemnity in the universe. Did you never panic on thinking of the multiplicity of systems?” “Never,” said Georgina. “Not even when, having set down a fine probability for the totality of worlds, you realized suddenly that you had to raise it by a dozen powers yet?” “What's to panic?” “Not even when it comes over you, ‘This isn't a joke; this is serious; every one of them is serious’?” “ ‘Cosmic intimidation,’ Belloc called it. And it does tend to minimize a person.” “And did you never hope that out of all that prodigality of worlds, one at least should have been made for fun? One should have been made by a wild child or a mixed-up goblin just to put the rest of them in proper perspective, to deflate the pomposity of the cosmos.”"  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)  
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• Long Teeth (1960)     
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• Through Other Eyes (1960)     
    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)  
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• McGonigal's Worm (1960)     

  "When it happened, it happened unnoticed. Though it affected all chordata on Earth (with a possible exception to be noted in a moment) nobody knew of it, not even the Prince of all chordata, Man himself. How could he have known of it so soon? Though his lifeline had suddenly been cut, it was a long lifeline and death would still be far off. So it was not suspected for nearly twenty-four hours, not accepted even as a working theory for nearly three days, and not realized in its full implications for a week."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)  
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• All the People (1961)     
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• Aloys (1961)     
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• In the Garden (1961)     
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• The Polite People of Pudibundia (1961)     
    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)  
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• Rainbird (1961)     

  (1785 A.D.) "For he pioneered the dynamo, the steam automobile, the steel industry, ferro-concrete construction, the internal combustion engine, electric illumination and power, the wireless, the televox, the petroleum and petrochemical industries, monorail transportation, air travel, worldwide monitoring, fissionable power, space travel, group telepathy, political and economic balance; he built a retrogressor; and he made great advances towards corporal immortality and the apotheosis of mankind. It would seem unfair that all this is unknown of him."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Elton Gahr (2009)   · Andrew Ferguson (2013)  
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• The Weirdest World (1961)     

  "As I am now utterly without hope, lost to my mission and lost in the sight of my crew, I will record what petty thoughts I may have for what benefit they may give some other starfarer. Nine long days of bickering! But the decision is sure. The crew will maroon me. I have lost all control over them. Who would have believed that I would show such weakness when crossing the barrier? By all tests I should have been the strongest. But the final test was the event itself. I failed. I only hope that it is a pleasant and habitable planet where they put me down…"  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Daniel Petersen (2013)   · Mulle Kybernetik   
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• Dream (1962)     
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• Seven-Day Terror (1962)     

  "Is there anything you want to make disappear?” Clarence Willoughby asked his mother.
  “A sink full of dishes is all I can think of. How will you do it?”
  “I just built a disappearer. All you do is cut the other end out of a beer can. Then you take two pieces of red cardboard with peepholes in the middle and fit them in the ends. You look through the peepholes and blink. Whatever you look at will disappear.”
  “Oh.”
  “But I don't know if I can make them come back.”
  “We'd better try it on something else. Dishes cost money."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Trent Walters (2015)   · Andrew Ferguson (2013)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)  
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• Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas (1962)     

  "Manuel shouldn't have been employed as a census taker. He wasn't qualified. He couldn't read a map. He didn't know what a map was. And he only grinned when they told him that North was at the top. He knew better. But he did write a nice round hand — like a boy's hand. He did know Spanish, and enough English. For the sector that was assigned to him, he would not need a map. He knew it better than anyone else, certainly better than any mapmaker."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Read Online
    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)  
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• Mad Man (1964)     
    · Mike Scott (2002)  
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• Pig in a Pokey (1964)     
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• Name of the Snake (1964)     
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• The Man with the Speckled Eyes (1964)     
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• The Transcendent Tigers (1964)     

  "This was the birthday of Carnadine Thompson. She was seven years old. Thereby she left her childhood behind her, and came into the fullness of her powers. This was her own phrase, and her own idea of the importance of the milestone. There were others, mostly adult, who thought that she was a peculiarly backward little girl in some ways, though precocious in others. She received for her birthday four presents: a hollow, white rubber ball, a green plastic frog, a red cap and a little wire puzzle."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Read Online
    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)   · Mike Morrow (2005)  
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• What's the Name of That Town? (1964)     
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• In Our Block (1965)     

  "Art Slick and Jim Boomer went to the rundown building next door. It was smaller, about a six-foot cube, and the sign said Public Stenographer . The clatter of a typewriter was coming from it, but the noise stopped when they opened the door. A dark pretty girl was sitting in a chair before a small table. There was nothing else in the room, and no typewriter. “I thought I heard a typewriter in here,” Art said. “Oh that is me.” The girl smiled. “Sometimes I amuse myself make typewriter noises like a public stenographer is supposed to.”"  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1966 Nebula Nominee, Best Short Story
    · Trent Walters (2015)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2003)  
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• Guesting Time (1965)     

  "“We have few Scandinavian arrivals, and none of such appearance as this,” said Winston. “How many are there?” “Well, sir, when we first noticed them there were seven, and they hadn't been there a moment before.” “Seven? You're crazy. There are hundreds.” “Yes, sir. I'm crazy. A minute after there were seven, there were seventeen. But no more had come from anywhere. Then there were sixty. We separated them into groups of ten and watched them very closely. None crossed from one group to another, none came from anywhere else. But soon there were fifteen, then twenty-five, then thirty in each group."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Read Online
    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)  
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• Hog-Belly Honey (1965)     

  "I'm Joe Spade — about as intellectual a guy as you'll find all day. I invented Wotto and Voxo and a bunch of other stuff that nobody can get along without anymore. It's on account of I have so much stuff in my head that I sometimes go to a head-grifter. This day all of them I know is out of town when I call. Lots of times everybody I know is out of town when I call. I go to a new one. The glass in his door says he is a anapsychologist, which is a head-grifter in the popular speech. “I'm Joe Spade the man that got everything,” I tell him and slap him on the back in that hearty way of mine. There is a crunch sound and at first I think I have crack his rib. Then I see I have only broke his glasses so no harm done."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)  
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• The Pani Planet (1965)     
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• Slow Tuesday Night (1965)     

  "“It had been a slow Tuesday night. A few hundred new products had run their course on the markets. There had been a score of dramatic hits, three-minute and five-minute capsule dramas, and several of the six-minute long-play affairs. Night Street Nine—a solidly sordid offering—seemed to be in as the drama of the night unless there should be a late hit. Hundred-storied buildings had been erected, occupied, obsoleted, and demolished again to make room for more contemporary structures. Only the mediocre would use a building that had been left over from the Day-Flies or the Dawners, or even the Nyctalops of the night before. The city was rebuilt pretty completely at least three times during an eight-hour period.”"  —R. A. Lafferty

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     · 2010 Arthur B. Evans, The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction    · 1979 James Gunn, The Road To Science Fiction #3    · 1966 Nebula Nominee, Best Short Story
    · Trent Walters (2015)   · D.S. (2012)   · Peter Damien (2010)   · Gil Schmidt (2007)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2006)  
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• Nine Hundred Grandmothers (1966)     

  "They were down on the big asteroid Proavitus — a sphere that almost tinkled with the potential profit that might be shaken out of it. And the tough men of the Expedition knew their business. They signed big contracts on the native velvet-like bark scrolls and on their own parallel tapes. They impressed, inveigled and somewhat cowed the slight people of Proavitus. Here was a solid two-way market, enough to make them slaver. And there was a whole world of oddities that could lend themselves to the luxury trade."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Read Online
     · 1993 Ursula K. Le Guin & Brian Attebery, The Norton Book of Science Fiction
    · Trent Walters (2015)   · Andrew Ferguson (2011)   · Don D'Ammassa (2009)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)  
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• Among the Hairy Earthmen (1966)     

  "There is one period of our World History that has aspects so different from anything that went before and after that we can only gaze back on those several hundred years and ask: “Was that ourselves who behaved so?” Well, no, as a matter of fact, it wasn't. It was beings of another sort who visited us briefly and who acted so gloriously and abominably. This is the way it was:"  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1967 Nebula Made First Ballot, Best Short Story
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• Narrow Valley (1966)     

  "In the year 1893, land allotments in severalty were made to the remaining eight hundred and twenty-one Pawnee Indians. Each would receive one hundred and sixty acres of land and no more, and thereafter the Pawnees would be expected to pay taxes on their land, the same as the White-Eyes did. “Kitkehahke!” Clarence Big-Saddle cussed. “You can't kick a dog around proper on a hundred and sixty acres."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Read Online
     · 1998 Robert Silverberg, The Fantasy Hall of Fame    · 1992 Gardner Dozois, Modern Classics of Science Fiction
    · Trent Walters (2015)   · Kevin Cheek (2013)   · MPorcius (2013)   · Don D'Ammassa (2009)   · DRB (2006)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2004)   · Ron Ginzler (1999)   · Math Fiction   
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• Primary Education of the Camiroi (1966)     
    · Mulle Kybernetik (2006)  
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• Golden Trabant (1966)     
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• Camels and Dromedaries, Clem (1967)     
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• Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne (1967)     

  (778 A.D.) "And what a head he chose! It was a sea-serpent head, a dragon head, five feet long and copied from an old carnival float. Epikt had also given himself human speech of a sort, a blend of Irish and Jewish and Dutch comedian patter from ancient vaudeville. Epikt was a comic to his last para-DNA relay when he rested his huge, boggle-eyed, crested head on the table there and smoked the biggest stogies ever born."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Paul Kincaid (2014)   · Living the Geek (2014)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)  
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• The Ultimate Creature (1967)     

  "The old Galaxy maps (imitating early Earth maps, partly in humor and partly through intuition) pictured strong creatures in the far arms of the system — Serpents bigger than Spaceships, Ganymede-type Tigers, fish-tailed Maids, grand Dolphins, and Island-sized Androids. We think particularly of the wry masterpieces of Grobin. And at the end of the Far or Seventh arm of the Galaxy is shown the Ultimate Creature. The Ultimate Creature had the form of a Woman, and it bore three signs in Chaldee: The Sign of Treasure; the Sign of the Fish Mashur (the queerest fish of them all); and the Sign of Restitution or of Floating Justice."  —R. A. Lafferty

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• Ginny Wrapped in the Sun (1967)     

  "Hauser honks like a gander! That clattering laugh of Goldbeater! Snodden sniggers so loud that it echos! Cooper's boom is like barrels rolling downstairs, and your own — it'll shrivel me, Dismas. Imagine the weirdest cacophony ever — Oh no! I wasn't thinking of one so weird as that!” Musical screaming! Glorious gibbering with an undertone that could shatter rocks! Hooting of a resonance plainly too deep for so small an instrument! Yowling, hoodoo laughing, broken roaring, rhinoceros grunting! And the child came tumbling out of the tall rocks of Doolen's Mountain, leaping down the flanks of the hill as though she was a waterfall. And both the men laughed. “Your Ginny is the weirdest cacophony I can imagine, Dismas,” Dr. Minden said. “It scares me, and I love it. Your daughter is the most remarkable creature in the world."  —R. A. Lafferty

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• The Hole on the Corner (1967)     
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• Land of the Great Horses (1967)     
    · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)  
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• The Man Who Never Was (1967)     
    · Living the Geek (2014)  
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• Polity and Custom of the Camiroi (1967)     
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• This Grand Carcass (1968)     
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• How They Gave It Back (1968)     
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• Maybe Jones and the City (1968)     
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• McGruder's Marvels (1968)     
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• One at a Time (1968)     

  "John Sourwine is always interested in new things, or old things returned. So John went down to Barnaby's Barn to see the Odd One. There was no need to ask which one he was, though there were always strangers and traveling men and seamen unknown to John in the Barn. The Odd One stood out. He was a big, spare, tough fellow, and he said that his name was McSkee. He was eating and drinking with a chortling pleasure, and they all watched him in amazement. “It's his fourth plate of spaghetti,” Smokehouse confided to Sour John, “and that is the last of two dozen eggs...”"  —R. A. Lafferty

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• Cliffs That Laughed (1969)     

  "“Imagine about flute notes ascending,” said Galli. “I haven't my flute with me, but a story should begin so to set the mood. Imagine about ships coming out of the Arabian Ocean, and finally to Jilolo Island, and still more finally to the very island on which we now stand. Imagine about waves and trees that were the great-great-grandfathers of the waves and trees we now have.” It was about the year 1620, Galli is telling it, in the late afternoon of the high piracy. These Moluccas had already been the rich Spice Islands for three hundred years."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1994 Locus 22^nd, Best Short Story
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• Configuration of the North Shore (1969)     

  "“I have let my business go down,” Miller said. “My wife says that I have let her down. My sons say that I have turned into a sleepy stranger. Everybody agrees that I've lost all ambition and judgment. And yet I do have a stirring ambition. I am not able, however, to put it into words.” “We'll put it into words, Miller, either yours or mine,” Rousse said. “Slip up on it right now! Quickly, what is the stirring ambition?” “To visit the Northern Shore, and to make the visit stick.”"  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1997 Gardner Dozois, Modern Classics of Fantasy
  •  · geography · dreams · psychology
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• The All-At-Once Man (1970)     
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• The Cliff Climbers (1970)     
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• About a Secret Crocodile (1970)     

  "There is a secret society of seven men that controls the finances of the world. This is known to everyone but the details are not known. There are some who believe that it would be better if one of those seven men were a financier. There is a secret society of three men and four women that controls all the fashions of the world. The details of this are known to all who are in the fashion. And I am not."  —R. A. Lafferty

  •  · thinkingmachines · massmedia
    · Daniel Petersen (2014)   · Michael LaBossiere (2010)   · Michael Ashley (2007)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)   · David Langford (2002)   · SF Encyclopedia   
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• Frog on the Mountain (1970)     
    · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)  
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• Hands of the Man (1970)     
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• Interurban Queen (1970)     

  (1896 A.D.) "And I will tell you another thing, boy: There is no future for the automobile. We cannot let there be! Consider the man on horseback, and I have been a man on horseback for most of my life. Well, mostly he is a good man, but there is a change in him as soon as he mounts. Every man on horseback is an arrogant man, however gentle he may be on foot. I know this in myself and in others. He was necessary in his own time, and I believe that time is ending. There was always extreme danger from the man on horseback."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · K. Wolf (2014)   · Matan Farhi (2010)  
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• Entire and Perfect Chrysolite (1971)     

  "Should there be another reason, Shackleton? Well, there is; but we go about it awkwardly and without knowing what we're doing. The thing about humans which nobody apparently wishes to notice, is that we're a species which has never had an adult culture. We feel that lack more and more as we become truly adult in other ways. It grows tedious to stretch out a childhood forever. The easy enjoyments, the easy rationality, the easy governments and sciences, are really childish things. We master them while we are yet children, and we look beyond. But there isn't anything beyond the childishness, Shackleton. We must find a deeper view somehow. We are looking for that something deeper here."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1973 Damon Knight, The Golden Road    · 1971 Hugo Nominee, Best Short Story    · 1971 Nebula Nominee, Best Short Story
    · Daniel Petersen (2014)   · Tor.com (2011)   · tarbandu (2009)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2003)   · Uchronia    · NILF-Italy   
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• Continued on Next Rock (1970)     

  "The chimney rock is only a little older than mankind, only a little younger than grass. Its formation had been up-thrust and then eroded away again, all but such harder parts as itself and other chimneys and blocks. A party of five persons came to this place where the chimney rock had fallen against a still newer hill. The people of the party did not care about the deep lime­ stone below: they were not geologists. They did care about the newer hill ( it was man-made ) and they did care a little about the rock chimney; they were archeologists. Here was time heaped up, bulging out in casing and accumulation, and not in line sequence. And here also was striated and banded time, grown tall, and then shattered and broken."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1972 Ditmar Nominee,    · 1971 Hugo Nominee, Best Short Story    · 1971 Nebula Nominee, Best Short Story    · 1970 Locus 3^rd, Best Short Fiction
    · Gregory Feeley (2019)   · Joachim Boaz (2014)   · Don D'Ammassa (2009)   · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)   · Deborah J. Brannon (2004)   · Neil Gaiman (2002)   · R.A. Lafferty (1979)  
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• Been a Long, Long Time (1970)     
    · Mulle Kybernetik (2004)  
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• Old Foot Forgot (1970)     

  "“Dookh-Doctor, it is a sphairikos patient,” Lay Sister Moira P. T. de C. cried happily. “It is a genuine spherical alien patient. You've never had one before, not in good faith. I believe it is what you need to distract you from the—ah—happy news about yourself. It is good for a Dookh-Doctor to have a different patient sometimes.” “Thank you, lay sister. Let it, him, her, fourth case, fifth case or whatever come in. No, I've never had a sphairikos in good faith. I doubt if this one is, but I will enjoy the encounter.” The sphairikos rolled or pushed itself in. It was a big one, either a blubbery kid or a full-grown one. It rolled itself along by extruding and withdrawing pseudopods. And it came to rest grinning, a large translucent rubbery ball of fleeting colors."  —R. A. Lafferty

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• Ride a Tin Can (1970)     

  "Holly Harkel and myself, Vincent Vanhoosier, received funds and permission to record the lore of the Shelni through the intercession of that old correlator John Holmberg. This was unexpected. All lorists have counted John as their worst enemy. “After all, we have been at great expense to record the minutiae of pig grunts and the sound of earthworms,” Holmberg told me, “and we have records of squeakings of hundreds of species of orbital rodents. We have veritable libraries of the song and cackle of all birds and pseudo-ornins."  —R. A. Lafferty

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• All Pieces of a River Shore (1970)     

  "It had been a very long and ragged and incredibly interlocked and detailed river shore. Then a funny thing happened. It had been broken up, sliced up into pieces. Some of the pieces had been folded and compressed into bales. Some of them had been cut into still smaller pieces and used for ornaments and as Indian medicine. Rolled and baled pieces of the shore came to rest in barns and old warehouses, in attics, in caves. Some were buried in the ground. And yet the river itself still exists physically, as do its shores, and you may go and examine them. But the shore you will see along the river now is not quite the same as that old shore that was broken up and baled into bales and rolled onto rollers, not quite the same as the pieces you will find in attics and caves."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Don D'Ammassa (2009)  
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• Condillac's Statue, or Wrens in His Head (1970)     
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• Ishmael Into the Barrens (1971)     
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• Boomer Flats (1971)     

  "“In the tracks of our spiritual father Ivan Sanderson we may now have trailed a clutch of ABSMs to their lair,” the eminent scientist Arpad Arkabaranan was saying in his rattling voice. “And that lair may not be a mountain thicket or rain forest or swamp, but these scrimpy red clay flats. I would almost give my life for the success of this quest, but it seems that it should have a more magnificent setting.” “It looks like a wild goose chase,” the eminent scientist Willy McGilly commented. But no, Willy was not downgrading their quest. He was referring to the wild geese that rose about them from the edges of the flats with clatter and whistle and honk."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)  
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• Bubbles When They Burst (1971)     
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• Groaning Hinges of the World (1971)     

  "Eginhard wrote that the Hinges of the World are, the one of them in the Carnic Alps north of the Isarko and quite near High Glockner, and the other one in the Wangeroog in the Frisian islands off the Weser mouth and under the water of this shelf; and that these hinges are made of iron. It is the Germanies, the whole great country between these hinges that turns over, he wrote, after either a long generation or a short generation. The only indication of the turning over is a groaning of the World Hinges too brief to terrify. That which rises out of the Earth has the same appearance in mountains and rivers and towns and people as the land that it replaces."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1993 Seiun Winner, Foreign Short Fiction
    · Mulle Kybernetik (2005)   · Mike Scott (2002)  
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• Nor Limestone Islands (1971)     
  •  · geology
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• When All the Lands Pour Out Again (1971)     
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• Encased in Ancient Rind (1971)     
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• Sky (1971)     

  "The five underground levels had been parking places for motor vehicles when those were still common, but now these depths were turned into warrens and hovels. The Sky-Seller lurked and lived in the lowest and smallest and meanest of them all. He came out only at night. Daylight would have killed him: he knew that. He sold out of the darkest shadows of the night. He had only a few (though oddly select) clients, and nobody knew who his supplier was. He said that he had no supplier, that he gathered and made the stuff himself. Welkin Alauda, a full-bodied but light-moving girl (it was said that her bones were hollow and filled with air), came to the Sky-Seller just before first light, just when he had become highly nervous but had not yet bolted to his underground."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1972 Hugo Nominee, Best Short Story
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• Enfant Terrible (1971)     
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• The Man Underneath (1971)     
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• All But the Words (1971)     
  Scientists hard at work on a machine that will connect all forms of language have a breakthrough when they make contact with an eager-to-communicate extra-terrestrial.
      6/10 — Vincent Jeff Bayne, 2014
  •   · Comments
• World Abounding (1971)     

  "“We are on this mission because of one phrase, repeated by leaders of five different parties, and maintained in the face of vigorous courts martial,” Fairbridge Exendine, the singling leader, said with a sort of hooked wonder. “I have never been able to get that phrase out of my mind. ‘You'd never believe it’ was the phrase, and the men of the five parties, of the more than twenty parties in fact, would not elaborate on it much.”"  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1972 Locus 8^th, Best Short Fiction
    · Mulle Kybernetik (2006)  
  •   · Comments
• Once on Aranea (1972)     
  •   · Comments
• Dorg (1972)     
  •   · Comments
• Eurema's Dam (1972)     

  "He was about the last of them. What? The last of the great individualists? The last of the true creative geniuses of the century? The last of the sheer precursors? No. No. He was the last of the dolts. Kids were being born smarter all the time when he came along, and they would be so forever more. He was about the last dumb kid ever born."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1975 Seiun Winner, Best Foreign Short Story    · 2001 Orson Scott Card, The Best Science Fiction of the Century    · 1973 Hugo Winner, Best Short Story    · 1973 Locus 16^th, Best Short Fiction
    · Trent Walters (2015)   · Andrew Ferguson (2013)   · Daniel Petersen (2012)  
  •   · Comments
• Rang Dang Kaloof (1972)     
  •   · Comments
• A Special Condition in Summit City (1972)     
  •   · Comments
• And Walk Now Gently Through the Fire (1972)     

  "The Queer Fish claim that Gaea (Earth) is the most anciently peopled of the worlds and that they themselves are the most ancient people. But they set their own first appearance in quite late times, and they contradict the true ancientness of humans and proto-humans. The Queer Fish have been bloody and warlike in their times. They have been Oceanic as well as Sky-Faring, in some cases beyond ourselves in that phase. They have even been, in several peculiar contexts, creative."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Daniel Petersen (2009)  
  •   · Comments
• Barnaby's Clock (1973)     

  "“How old is saxophones?” “Born in the year 1840. The sire and inventor was Antoine Sax.” “How old is mice?” “Not old at all. About twenty-five million years old; almost the newest thing in animals. The first mouse, with no antecedents at all, popped out from behind a piece of baseboard quarter-round (in a cave, I suppose) just about that long ago.” “How old is Billy Dukes?”"  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1974 Locus 13^th, Best Short Fiction
  •   · Comments
• Animal Fair (1973)     
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• Ghost in the Corn Crib (1973)     
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• Days of Grass, Days of Straw (1973)     

  "Christopher Foxx was walking down a city street. No, it was a city road. It was really a city trail or path. He was walking in a fog, but the fog wasn't in the air or the ambient: it was in his head. Things were mighty odd here. There was just a little bit of something wrong about things. Oceans of grass for one instance. Should a large and busy city (and this was clearly that) have blue-green grass belly-high in its main street? "  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1974 Jupiter Awards Nominee, Best Short Story
    · Mulle Kybernetik (2004)  
  •   · Comments
• Four Sides of Infinity (1973)     
  •   · Comments
• The Two-Headed Lion of Cris Benedetti (1973)     
  •   · Comments
• The Ungodly Mice of Doctor Drakos (1973)     
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• Parthen (1973)     
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• Rogue Raft (1973)     
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• The Hellaceous Rocket of Harry O'Donovan (1973)     
  •   · Comments
• By the Seashore (1973)     
  •   · Comments
• Scorner's Seat (1973)     
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• Seven Story Dream (1973)     
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• In Outraged Stone (1973)     
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• Symposium (1973)     
  •   · Comments
• Mud Violet (1973)     

  "“Properly to carry out the next assignment for this class, it will be necessary that you die,” the instructor said. “Some of you may not want to do this. If you do not, I will have to demerit you as for any other neglected assignment. There are several straight-A students in this class, however, and I am sure that they will want to continue so. To them I say ‘Carry out this assignment.’”"  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1974 Locus 9^th, Best Short Fiction
  •   · Comments
• The World as Will and Wallpaper (1973)     
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• The Wooly World of Barnaby Sheen (1973)     
  •   · Comments
• The Man with the Aura (1974)     
  •   · Comments
• And Mad Undancing Bears (1974)     
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• Flaming Ducks and Giant Bread (1974)     
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• Mr. Hamadryad (1974)     
  •   · Comments
• Royal Licorice (1974)     

  "Black Red had been sixteen years at stud. This was after a strict colthood and eight years of competitive horse racing. Now he had become a very slow and undependable stud. He was one old horse. He gnawed a clump of prickly pear. He had been a stupid and rock-headed horse from his youth, and now that his eyes were shot he would eat anything. His owner chewed on a length of big bluestem grass and contemplated him. It was too bad to sell, for nine dollars for cat meat, a horse that had earned five million dollars. But what else could be done with the old animal? But Black Red smelled a brother horse, an old flyer like himself, and he raised his head."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1975 Locus 10^th, Best Short Fiction
  •   · Comments
• And Read the Flesh Between the Lines (1974)     
     · 1995 Seiun Nominee, Foreign Short Story
  •   · Comments
• And Name My Name (1974)     
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• Rivers of Damascus (1974)     
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• Endangered Species (1974)     
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• The Most Forgetable Story in the World (1974)     
  •   · Comments
• Or Little Ducks Each Day (1975)     
  •   · Comments
• Old Halloweens on the Guna Slopes (1975)     
  •   · Comments
• Heart Grow Fonder (1975)     

  "“Our new neighbor on the west is a creep,” Simon Radert said sourly, “and what this neighborhood doesn't need is another creep.”
  “No, you're the creep in residence,” said his sly wife Norah. “Can't stand the competition, can you? But Simon, he doesn't look like a creep to me. He sure doesn't creep around. He bounces around on his heels, and he's as open as a Dutch door in a Payne County wind. His name is Swag, and does he ever have a swagger! I wish you were like him. And that wife of his, Buxom Jean (that's really her name), wow, I wish I were like her. They sure seem to have a lot of fun at their house.”
  “Let's swap houses, then, if that's the way you want it.”"  —R. A. Lafferty

    · MPorcius (2015)  
  •   · Comments
• Great Day in the Morning (1975)     
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• For All Poor Folks at Picketwire (1975)     
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• The Skinny People of Leptophlebo Street (1975)     
  •   · Comments
• From the Thunder Colt's Mouth (1975)     
  •   · Comments
• Three Shadows of the Wolf (1975)     
  •   · Comments
• Assault on Fat Mountain (1976)     

  (1795 A.D.) "Did you know that the future of our great land of Appalachia once hung in the balance, that it once depended on the flip of a coin? This was in the year 1788 when the frontier State of Franklin, of which our Appalachia is the overgrown child, was threatered with extinction. The state had endured for four years. Then the traitor John Tipton tried to betray the state back into the hands of North Carolina. Had he succeeded, our own fat Appalachia might now be thin and starving."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Bruce Munro (2009)  
  •   · Comments
• Berryhill (1976)     
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• Cabrito (1976)     
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• Fog in My Throat (1976)     
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• Oh Tell Me Will It Freeze Tonight (1976)     
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• Funnyfingers (1976)     

  "“You are a little girl, Oread, a somewhat exasperating and precocious little girl.” “But I don't feel precocious. I feel like a rock-head. How can I be a little bit like papa and not anything like anyone else at all? What was the connection between myself and papa?” “There wasn't any at first, Oread, not like that. We were looking for a child since we could not have one of our own. I fell in love with you at first sight because you reminded me of Henry. And Henry fell in love with you at first sight because you reminded him of Henry."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 2003 Seiun Nominee, Best Translated Short Story
    · Kevin Cheek (2013)  
  •   · Comments
• The Hand with One Hundred Fingers (1976)     
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• Horns on Their Heads (1976)     
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• Puddle on the Floor (1976)     
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• Smoe and the Implicit Clay (1976)     
  •   · Comments
• Love Affair With Ten Thousand Springs (1976)     
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• Brain Fever Season (1977)     
  •   · Comments
• Oh, Those Trepidatious Eyes! (1977)     
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• Fall of Pebble-Stones (1977)     
  •   · Comments
• Thou Whited Wall (1977)     
  •   · Comments
• Bequest of Wings (1978)     
  •   · Comments
• Bright Flightways (1978)     
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• Bright Coins in Never-Ending Stream (1978)     
  •   · Comments
• The Man Who Walked Through Cracks (1978)     
  •   · Comments
• Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies (1978)     

  "Even today, the “invention” of television is usually ascribed to Paul Nipkow of Germany, and the year is given as 1884. Nipkow used the principle of the variation in the electrical conductivity of selenium when exposed to light, and he used scanning discs as mechanical effectors. What else was there for him to use before the development of the phototube and the current-amplifying electron tube? The resolution of Nipkow's television was very poor due to the “slow light” characteristics of selenium response and the lack of amplification. There were, however, several men in the United States who transmitted a sort of television before Nipkow did so in Germany."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1979 Locus 15^th, Best Short Fiction
    · Mulle Kybernetik (2004)  
  •   · Comments
• Quiz Ship Loose (1978)     
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• Splinters (1978)     
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• St. Poleander's Eve (1979)     
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• Almost Perfect (1980)     
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• Crocodile (1980)     
  •   · Comments
• The Forty-Seventh Island (1980)     
  •   · Comments
• The Funny Face Murders (1980)     
  •   · Comments
• Phoenic (1980)     
  •   · Comments
</li>
• And All the Skies Are Full of Fish (1980)     
  •   · Comments
• Lord Torpedo, Lord Gyroscope (1980)     
  •   · Comments
• The Only Tune That He Could Play (1980)     
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• Bank and Shoal of Time (1981)     
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• You Can't Go Back (1981)     

  "One evening in the Latter Days, Helen brought over some bones and rocks that belonged to her late husband John Palmer. She brought the Moon Whistle too. And she left those things with us. Helen had married again, and to a man who hadn't known John. And she left all those things with us. And she thought that she'd better get some of those funny old things out of her house. “The Moon Whistle will be no good without you to blow it, Helen,” Hector O'Day said."  —R. A. Lafferty

  •  · travelersyarns · memoir
    · Kevin Cheek (2013)  
  •   · Comments
• In Deepest Glass (1981)     
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• New People (1981)     
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• Thieving Bear Planet (1982)     
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• One-Eyed Mocking-Bird (1982)     

  "Tobias Lamb, though not well liked, was held in high esteem by the scientific community. There were many of us who hardly liked him because — well, it was because his tricks and illusions sometimes shattered us completely. “And besides,” Alwin Garvie said of him, “he's an unlikely man.” Ah well, admit it, we were afraid of him. He was a harsh mocker; and yet he had a pleasant strain (or it was meant to be pleasant) in him. He was a hard driver. If he didn't actually hold a whip in his hand when he was working on a project, there was always a whip in his voice. He was avid, even feverish, to drive a project to success; and yet he didn't seem at all hungry for personal glory. "  —R. A. Lafferty

  •   · Comments
• Make Sure the Eyes Are Big Enough (1982)     
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• Great Tom Fool or The Conundrum of the Calais Customhouse Coffers (1982)     

  "How hard it is to judge the second best. Who is the second-best scientist in the history of the world? First place goes to Isaac Newton, of course, but who is second best? There'll never be a solution; only endless quarreling over twenty-five candidates at least. And who is the second-best writer in the history of the world? First place goes to William Shakespeare, of course— Of course. It is odd that so little is known about Shakespeare and that so many people believe so passionately that Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare but that someone else wrote the plays and poems attributed to the man. But if you want the Great Shakespearean Controversy raised to new pitches of madness, read this mad story."  —R. A. Lafferty

  •   · Comments
• Golden Gate (1982)     

  "It was clear to Barnaby that Blackie was really a villain. Not everybody knew this. A melodrama villain is only black behind the lights. Off stage he should have a heart of gold. Whether of wrestling match, or afternoon serial, or evening drama or film, or on the little stage here at the Golden Gate Bar, the villain should be — when his role is finished — kind and courteous, thoughtful and big-hearted, a prince of a fellow."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1984 Locus 15^th, Best Short Fiction
    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)  
  •   · Comments
• Ifrit (1982)     
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• This Boding Itch (1982)     
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• Six Leagues From Lop (1982)     
  •   · Comments
• Marsilia V (1982)     
  •   · Comments
• Tongues of the Matagorda (1982)     
  •   · Comments
• Calamities of the Last Pauper (1982)     
  •   · Comments
• Square and Above Board (1982)     
  •   · Comments
• Unique Adventure Gone (1983)     
  •   · Comments
• Posterior Analytics (1983)     
  •   · Comments
• The Last Astronomer (1983)     
  •   · Comments
• Bird-Master (1983)     

  "‘There was a Cheyenne sub-chief named Whistling Elk. There was also an animal, or a ghost-animal, in the mythology of several tribes, the Cheyennes, the Sioux, the Osages, and the Comanches. There is something spooky about this Whistling Elk in the legends, for real elks do not whistle. The Whistling Elk is an apparition, a ghost, a messenger of death. He is also the one who gives the birds the signal to migrate. They would not know when to mill and fly away, and they would perish of the cold and hunger, if the Elk didn't give them the signal. The Whistling Elk is sometimes associated with the Bird-Master, who is variously known as the ‘shape-changer’ and the ‘cloud-shaper’."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Algis Budrys (1983)  
  •   · Comments
• The End of Outward (1983)     
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• Faith Sufficient (1983)     

  "The mouse and the handyman had a little game every day with the pecan, the mouse pushing it with all his physical strength, and the handyman pushing it with faith and telekinesis. But then the mouse would seem to double his strength, and they would play the game to a standstill. “Brother Mus, my employers are rather overdoing this thing,” Brother Gus the handyman said. “I wonder why they have become so extravagant in their manifestations. John Salt is likely to challenge them on the genuineness of them. He is riled by such arrogance. I may have to leave their employ as I left that of the extravagant persons at the laboratory. Oh certainly you will go with me wherever I go. You and I are one.” The mouse winked at Brother Gus and giggled, proving that he was a mouse of at least human intelligence."  —R. A. Lafferty

    · Algis Budrys (1983)  
  •   · Comments
• Haruspex (1983)     
  •   · Comments
• Jack Bang's Eyes (1983)     
  Humanity stands on the cusp of its next mutation. We observe as the absurd unfolds in a small diner along with a scientist and a chimp who knows a lot about probability.
      8/10 — Vincent Jeff Bayne, 2014
  •   · Comments
• The End of Outward (1983)     
  •   · Comments
• Pleasures and Palaces (1983)     
  •   · Comments
• Pine Castle (1983)     
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• Snake in his Bosom (1983)     
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• Heart of Stone, Dear (1983)     
  •   · Comments
• What Big Tears the Dinosaur's (1983)     
  •   · Comments
• In the Turpentine Trees (1983)     
  •   · Comments
• And You Did Not Wail (1983)     
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• Company in the Wings (1983)     
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• The Ninety-Ninth Cubicle (1984)     
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• I'll See It Done and Then I'll Die (1984)     
  •   · Comments
• The Doggone Highly Scientific Door (1984)     
  •   · Comments
• The Effigy Histories (1984)     
  •   · Comments
• Of Laughter and the Love of Friends (1984)     
  •   · Comments
• The Man Who Made Models (1984)     
  •   · Comments
• John Salt (1984)     
  •   · Comments
• Two For Four Ninety-Five (1984)     
  •   · Comments
• And Some in Velvet Gowns (1984)     
  •   · Comments
• Oh Whatta You Do When the Well Runs Dry? (1984)     
    · Kevin Cheek (2013)  
  •   · Comments
• Flaming Arrow (1985)     
  •   · Comments
• All Hollow Though You Be (1985)     
  •   · Comments
• Ewe Lamb (1985)     
  •   · Comments
• Magazine Section (1985)     
  •   · Comments
• Slippery (1985)     
  •   · Comments
• Along the San Pennatus Fault (1986)     
  •   · Comments
• Inventions Bright and New (1986)     
  •   · Comments
• Junkyard Thoughts (1986)     
  •   · Comments
• Something Rich and Strange (1986)     
  •   · Comments
• Gray Ghost: A Reminescence (1987)     
  •   · Comments
• The Story of Little Briar-Rose, A Scholarly Study (1988)     
  •   · Comments
• Task Force Fifty Eight and One Half (1988)     
    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)  
  •   · Comments
• Promontory Goats (1988)     
  •   · Comments
• Rain Mountain (1988)     
  •   · Comments
• Rainy Day in Halicarnassus (1988)     
  •   · Comments
• Le Hot Sport (1988)     
  •   · Comments
• The Man Who Lost His Magic (1989)     
  •   · Comments
• Episodes of the Argo (1990)     

  "He, whoever he was, stirred out of a fitful sleep into a frozen and apprehensive fear of falling. He supposed that he was a man of the human sort, as he usually was when he woke up in such a turmoil. His stirring had caused him to slip another notch and to dislodge something more of whatever was holding him up. And whatever had woke him up was the whistling of a frozen substance falling, through the frozen air, to a very great distance down. He felt insecure, and he realized that most of what he had been lying on had now vanished into space."  —R. A. Lafferty

     · 1993 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award Winner, Best Short Story
  •   · Comments
• The Casey Machine (1990)     
  •   · Comments
• Maleficent Morning (1990)     
  •   · Comments
• Apocryphal Passage of the Last Night of Count Finnegan On Galveston Island (1990)     
  •   · Comments
• Holy Woman (1990)     
    · Andrew Ferguson (2013)  
  •   · Comments
• Buckets Full of Brains (1991)     
  •   · Comments
• Hound Dog's Ear (1991)     
  •   · Comments
• Anamnesis (1992)     
  •   · Comments
• I Don't Care Who Keeps the Cows (1994)     
  •   · Comments
• Happening in Chosky Bottoms (1995)     
  •   · Comments
• Goldfish (1996)     
  •   · Comments
• The Emperor's Shoestrings (1997)     
  •   · Comments
• There'll Always Be Another Me (2003)     
  •   · Comments