Short Stories
Here are two lists of short stories courtesy of Joël Champetier who compiled them during a debate on which decade was the better one for Quebec SF&F. He tells us:
“The list for the 80s is not by me; it is the result of a survey of critics and authors published in 1992 in Solaris 103, and collated by Guy Sirois. This list consists of 47 short stories. Why 47 and not a nice round number like 50? Simply because that is the number of stories mentioned by at least two of the people surveyed. Guy’s list was presented in order of the number of votes received, I have chosen to list the stories alphabetically by author. (I have summarized and condensed: one can look up Guy Sirois’ original article for details of the procedures used by him.”
I have read all these short stories and can only add my voice to those who claim the literary quality of these works is impressive. I consider the 80s to be one of the great decades for the Quebec SF short story.
Best short stories from January 1971 to December 1980
- “Canadian Dream”, Jean-Pierre April
- “Télétotalité”, Jean-Pierre April
- “Impressions de Thaï Deng”, Jean-Pierre April
- “Les Crabes de Vénus regardent le ciel”, Alain Bergeron
- “Bonne fête, Univers”, Alain Bergeron
- “La Division”, Bertrand Bergeron
- “Survie sur Mars”, Joël Champetier
- “Coeur de fer”, Joël Champetier
- “Le Vertige des prisons”, Roger Desroches
- “L’incident Chicago”, Jean Dion
- “L’intrus”, Jean Dion
- “Au dieu marteau”, Jean Dion
- “Les Voix dans la machine”, Jean Dion
- “Coineraine”, Agnès Guitard
- “Compost”, Agnès Guitard
- “Contre-courant”, Agnès Guitard
- “Hypercruise”, Michel Lamontagne
- “Geisha Blues”, Michel Martin
- “Vingt sommes”, Michel Martin
- “La Tortue sur le trottoir”, Michel Martin
- “Les Hommes-écailles”, Yves Meynard
- “Une princesse de Serendip”, Yves Meynard
- “La Petite Fille du silence”, Francine Pelletier
- “Instant”, Francine Pelletier
- “Les Hommes-snoopy meurent tous comme les chèvres du Bengale”, Jean Pettigrew
- “La Vallée des montgolfières”, Jean Pettigrew
- “La Marquise de Tchernobyl”, Claude-Michel Prévost
- “Akimento”, Claude-Michel Prévost
- “Aplatir le temps”, Marc Provencher
- “Devenir vivante”, Esther Rochon
- “Le Piège à souvenir”, Esther Rochon
- “Au fond des yeux”, Esther Rochon
- “Dans la forêt de vitrail”, Esther Rochon
- “La double jonction des ailes”, Esther Rochon
- “Boulevard des étoiles”, Daniel Sernine
- “Métal qui songe”, Daniel Sernine
- “La Tête de Walt Humphrey”, Daniel Sernine
- “Les Amis de monsieur Soon”, Daniel Sernine
- “Yadjine et la mort”, Daniel Sernine
- “Le train”, Marc Sévigny
- “Le Jeu des coquilles de nautilus”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
- “La carte du tendre”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
- “La machine lente du temps”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
- “La Maison au bord de la mer”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
- “Mané, Tékel, Pharès”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
- “Cogito”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
- “L’Oiseau de cendres”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
Let us now establish a list of the 47 best short stories 1) of science fiction b) published for the first time in the 90s. The following list is a lot less “scientific” than Guy’s since it is my own personal choice, I compiled it from memory, helping myself with my library.
Who can say that the second list is inferior to the first, from a literary of sfnal point of view? The first list comprises 19 authors, the second one 17 (there are several pen names in the lists). I think it a small enough difference to be negligible.
Guy Sirois ends his Solaris article with a list of 128 short stories that obtained at least one vote by one of the people surveyed. This does contain several stories from the 70s, but plenty of excellent short stories from the 80s are to be found there too and could have been part of the 47 mentioned above: several stories from René Beaulieu’s Légendes de Virnie, “Dire non” by Jean-François Somain, “Morte-saison” by Jean Dion, etc. All these texts are arguments for the supremacy of the 80s.
On the other hand, in my list for the 90s, I omitted several excellent texts on the edges of the genre. Stories like “La Merveilleuse machine de Johan Havel” by Meynard, “Mystères des pyramides” by Michel Lamontagne, “La Maison de l’anxitexte” by Éric Gauthier, or most of Jean-Jacques Pelletier’s collection L’Assassiné de l’intérieur. I have likely forgotten some names and did not necessarily read everything…
Best short stories from January 1981 to December 1990
- “La Cité de Niba”, Natasha Beaulieu
- “La Cité de Penlocke”, Natasha Beaulieu
- “Les Voyageurs de la nuit”, René Beaulieu
- “Pharmacopées”, Sylvie Bérard
- “La T-005”, Sylvie Bérard
- “Revoir Nymphéa”, Alain Bergeron
- “Les Jardins de l’infante”, Alain Bergeron
- “L’homme qui fouillait la lumière”, Alain Bergeron
- “Le Huitième Registre”, Alain Bergeron
- “Le Jeu après la mort”, Alain Bergeron
- “Rêves d’anges”, Alain Bergeron
- “{/thea} ou Le Jour venu”, Alain Bergeron
- “Dieu, un, zéro”, Joël Champetier
- “Luckenbach, les mathématiques et autres dangers de Montréal”, Joël Champetier
- “A’t”, Harold Côté
- “Le Projet”, Harold Côté
- “Le Dernier hôtel”, Harold Côté
- “Base de négociation”, Jean Dion
- “Rêves de chiffre”, Jean Dion
- “Dégénérer”, Karl Kleinberg
- “Jusqu’au dernier”, Michel Lamontagne
- “Ralentir l’ennemi”, Michel Lamontagne
- “Un temps pour mourir”, Michel Martin
- “Le Pierrot diffracté”, Laurent McAllister
- “En sol brûlant”, Laurent McAllister
- “Equinoxe”, Yves Meynard
- “La Rose du désert”, Yves Meynard
- “Les Mots du tabac”, Yves Meynard
- “Chasseur et proie”, Yves Meynard
- “Soldats de sucre”, Yves Meynard
- “Le Vol du bourdon”, Yves Meynard
- “Brasiers volés”, Yves Meynard
- “Cloche vaine”, Francine Pelletier
- “L’Ourlandine”, Annick Perrot-Bishop
- “Adieu aux armes pour une fourmi-soldat”, Claude-Michel Prévost
- “À la recherche de monsieur Goodtheim”, Daniel Sernine
- “Hôtel Carnivalia”, Daniel Sernine
- “Rêve de métal”, Daniel Sernine
- “Report 323 : A Quebecois infiltration attempt”, Jean-Louis Trudel
- “Tirés d’une même chair”, Jean-Louis Trudel
- “Un papillon à Mashak”, Jean-Louis Trudel
- “Les Ponts du temps”, Jean-Louis Trudel
- “Scorpion dans le cercle du temps”, Jean-Louis Trudel
- “Passions étouffés sous la pierre cendreuse”, Jean-Louis Trudel
- “Chanson pour une sirène”, Elisabeth Vonarburg et Yves Meynard
- “…suspend ton vol”, Elisabeth Vonarburg
- “Le Musée de l’impermanence”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
- “Les Dents du dragon”, Élisabeth Vonarburg