"The Dead" by James Joyce published in Dubliners, Viking TPB, c.1967, story c.1914.

They made us read "Araby" for college prep, then I got the full dose during spring quarter 1968 at UC Berkeley. As I continued with Joyce, I found him more and more incomprehensible, culminating before I could even get to Molly's damn soliloquy in Ulysses. But "The Dead" put a new word into my consciousness: epiphany. I grudgingly identified with Gabriel's small, ego-bolstered worldview, and scared that my "own identity was fading out into a gray impalpable world" (p.223). The revelation was that it was my own pettiness--not the world's--and that led me to a cornerstone of my maturing philosophy, summed up later by Jackson Browne with "nothing survives, but the way we live our lives."

"The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka published originally in German by Kurt Wolff Verlag, c.1915.

How can you deny a story when its first sentence is: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." It is the ultimate fantasist's backflip of appearance-vs.-reality, made doubly uneasy with not even a nod as to why? If, in fact, "it is what it is" as my son Tol would say, it validates all fantasy literature with merit--and bestows upon it the possibility of revealing that hidden, capping arcana we're all searching for.

Especially for us Outsiders.

"The Voice in the Night" by William Hope Hodgson published in The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea, Vol. III, Night Shade Books, ISBN 189238941X, c.2005, story c.1907.

Most terrors, when experienced vicariously through books or film, are cluastraphobic: the darkened hallway in a haunted house, the point-of-view camera angle opening a door into nothingness, the jack-in-the-box horror when pulling off a coffin lid. But the creepiness of the ocean comes from just the opposite place and is best pondered by this author over a century ago. It is "the enormous silence of the sea, spreading out . . . every way into the everlasting, brooding night . . . as calm and quiet as some queer plain of death" ("The Stone Ship", p.279). It is so indifferent, so alien, so not interested in being a part of our world.

This is a story about a doomed couple who are slowly being horribly consumed by the sea, or something derivative of the sea. It is a cancerous and pathetic tale that is becoming all the more real as we age and see our friends get devoured by nonchalant and inscrutable forces. Pray we face it with the same strength as these characters do.

"The Graveyard Rats" by Henry Kuttner published in The Graveyard Reader, edited by Groff Conklin, Ballantine PBO, c.1958, story c.1936.

This, by no means, is the best Kuttner story out there. But, I picked it because it was the 1st story Kuttner ever published, and I wanted to stay consistent with Catherine his wife. Plus, this was one of my all-time virgin scare experiences.

In the triple-digit summers of Phoenix managed by swamp coolers, I would dig underground forts to play and stay comfortable in the cooler, desert earth. Imagine my 11-year old, creeped-out brain, housed in a miner's hat and propped up against a dirt wall, readin' about a gloomy gravedigger who ends up crawlin' in the below-ground passageways between graves chasin' jewelry on a dead guy being dragged by hungry and industrious rats--and something else. When that scorpion landed on my shoulder you can bet it felt just like the first scratchings of a subterranean zombie!

But besides the heavy-handed moral message against stealin' and greed, there was, for me I think, a deeper, thought-twisted haven in those self-made caves regarding the consolation of the womb in the primordial dirt.

Better Kuttner stories are to be found in The Best of Henry Kuttner (Nelson Doubleday BCE, intro by Bradbury, c.1975), like "Two-Headed Engine", "The Proud Robot", and "The Twonky".

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson published in The Lottery or, The Adventures of James Harris, Demon Lover, Lion Books, #14, c.1950, but story c.1948.

What homage to the short story would be complete without this selection? I know, you've already read it. In high school. But read it again. If this cover art is any indication, you might find a whole different story than the one you remember.

"Kaleidoscope" by Ray Bradbury published in The Illustrated Man, Doubleday, c.1951, but story 1949.

It is impossible to pick only one story as being the best of Ray Bradbury. It's even ridicilous to highlight one out of a favorite collection, let alone by genre or any other catorization. Only because I remember it the best after 50 years since reading, I picked this one about a disgruntled astronaut reminscing his worthless life as he tumbles toward earth and certain death. At the same time he wishes he could do only one "good thing for just himself to know about" (p.150), a boy in Illinois points up and says, "Look, Mom, look! A falling star!" His mom replies, "make a wish. Make a wish."

I also like "The Emissary" from Dark Carnival a lot.

I'd recommend The Stories by Ray Bradbury, published by Knopf in 1980. Ray's picked his favorite 100 stories from the beginning of his career forward--bookended loosely between Dark Carnival and Long After Midnight.

"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" by Gene Wolfe published in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, Pocket Books PBO, ISBN 067182824X, c.1980.

This is the most successful second-person narrative I've ever come across. It may be the only one I've ever read. They're pretty scarce. But this one, wow. It achieves the narrow focus of first-person, and simultaneously, the complete detachment of the teller, even from himself. It is a profound alienation--perfect for a story about trying to figure what's going on--yet retains a deep emotional involvement. The other two Island/Death stories kinda make a trilogy--Ziesing published The Wolfe Archipelago where Gene added a fourth--but the basis for linkage beyond the titles is puzzling. But all of Wolfe is somewhat disconcerting. He seems to be writing on a shelf above me, a pace ahead of my literary experience, and I've never decided if it is audacity or genius. Clarity is not his strong suit; that's okay 'cause it ain't mine, either. But I feel, well, cheated; as if he's making me do too much of the work. Maybe there's just not enough adjectives for me. But try "The Hero As Werwolf", "The Eyeflash Miracles" and "Seven American Nights" from this collection as well.

"Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament" by Clive Barker, published in Books of Blood, Vol II, c.1984 as anthologized by Stealth Press, ISBN 1588810402, c.2001.

This is eroticism of the bizarre personified. It links sex and death way past the French's petit mort and into a sort of obsessional pilgrimage leaving from the mundane for a phantasmagorical re-defining of oneself strictly through the magic of extreme carnal sensation. Lose yourself to Pan's pipes and wake up--if you do--far beyond erections and wetness. Don't read this story if you believe self-loathing is merely an affectation.