Recommended Reading

Recommended Reading

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

  1. “Canadian Dream”, Jean-Pierre April
  2. “Télétotalité”, Jean-Pierre April
  3. “Impressions de Thaï Deng”, Jean-Pierre April
  4. “Les Crabes de Vénus regardent le ciel”, Alain Bergeron
  5. “Bonne fête, Univers”, Alain Bergeron
  6. “La Division”, Bertrand Bergeron
  7. “Survie sur Mars”, Joël Champetier
  8. “Coeur de fer”, Joël Champetier
  9. “Le Vertige des prisons”, Roger Desroches
  10. “L’incident Chicago”, Jean Dion
  11. “L’intrus”, Jean Dion
  12. “Au dieu marteau”, Jean Dion
  13. “Les Voix dans la machine”, Jean Dion
  14. “Coineraine”, Agnès Guitard
  15. “Compost”, Agnès Guitard
  16. “Contre-courant”, Agnès Guitard
  17. “Hypercruise”, Michel Lamontagne
  18. “Geisha Blues”, Michel Martin
  19. “Vingt sommes”, Michel Martin
  20. “La Tortue sur le trottoir”, Michel Martin
  21. “Les Hommes-écailles”, Yves Meynard
  22. “Une princesse de Serendip”, Yves Meynard
  23. “La Petite Fille du silence”, Francine Pelletier
  24. “Instant”, Francine Pelletier
  25. “Les Hommes-snoopy meurent tous comme les chèvres du Bengale”, Jean Pettigrew
  26. “La Vallée des montgolfières”, Jean Pettigrew
  27. “La Marquise de Tchernobyl”, Claude-Michel Prévost
  28. “Akimento”, Claude-Michel Prévost
  29. “Aplatir le temps”, Marc Provencher
  30. “Devenir vivante”, Esther Rochon
  31. “Le Piège à souvenir”, Esther Rochon
  32. “Au fond des yeux”, Esther Rochon
  33. “Dans la forêt de vitrail”, Esther Rochon
  34. “La double jonction des ailes”, Esther Rochon
  35. “Boulevard des étoiles”, Daniel Sernine
  36. “Métal qui songe”, Daniel Sernine
  37. “La Tête de Walt Humphrey”, Daniel Sernine
  38. “Les Amis de monsieur Soon”, Daniel Sernine
  39. “Yadjine et la mort”, Daniel Sernine
  40. “Le train”, Marc Sévigny
  41. “Le Jeu des coquilles de nautilus”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
  42. “La carte du tendre”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
  43. “La machine lente du temps”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
  44. “La Maison au bord de la mer”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
  45. “Mané, Tékel, Pharès”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
  46. “Cogito”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
  47. “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

  1. “La Cité de Niba”, Natasha Beaulieu
  2. “La Cité de Penlocke”, Natasha Beaulieu
  3. “Les Voyageurs de la nuit”, René Beaulieu
  4. “Pharmacopées”, Sylvie Bérard
  5. “La T-005”, Sylvie Bérard
  6. “Revoir Nymphéa”, Alain Bergeron
  7. “Les Jardins de l’infante”, Alain Bergeron
  8. “L’homme qui fouillait la lumière”, Alain Bergeron
  9. “Le Huitième Registre”, Alain Bergeron
  10. “Le Jeu après la mort”, Alain Bergeron
  11. “Rêves d’anges”, Alain Bergeron
  12. “{/thea} ou Le Jour venu”, Alain Bergeron
  13. “Dieu, un, zéro”, Joël Champetier
  14. “Luckenbach, les mathématiques et autres dangers de Montréal”, Joël Champetier
  15. “A’t”, Harold Côté
  16. “Le Projet”, Harold Côté
  17. “Le Dernier hôtel”, Harold Côté
  18. “Base de négociation”, Jean Dion
  19. “Rêves de chiffre”, Jean Dion
  20. “Dégénérer”, Karl Kleinberg
  21. “Jusqu’au dernier”, Michel Lamontagne
  22. “Ralentir l’ennemi”, Michel Lamontagne
  23. “Un temps pour mourir”, Michel Martin
  24. “Le Pierrot diffracté”, Laurent McAllister
  25. “En sol brûlant”, Laurent McAllister
  26. “Equinoxe”, Yves Meynard
  27. “La Rose du désert”, Yves Meynard
  28. “Les Mots du tabac”, Yves Meynard
  29. “Chasseur et proie”, Yves Meynard
  30. “Soldats de sucre”, Yves Meynard
  31. “Le Vol du bourdon”, Yves Meynard
  32. “Brasiers volés”, Yves Meynard
  33. “Cloche vaine”, Francine Pelletier
  34. “L’Ourlandine”, Annick Perrot-Bishop
  35. “Adieu aux armes pour une fourmi-soldat”, Claude-Michel Prévost
  36. “À la recherche de monsieur Goodtheim”, Daniel Sernine
  37. “Hôtel Carnivalia”, Daniel Sernine
  38. “Rêve de métal”, Daniel Sernine
  39. “Report 323 : A Quebecois infiltration attempt”, Jean-Louis Trudel
  40. “Tirés d’une même chair”, Jean-Louis Trudel
  41. “Un papillon à Mashak”, Jean-Louis Trudel
  42. “Les Ponts du temps”, Jean-Louis Trudel
  43. “Scorpion dans le cercle du temps”, Jean-Louis Trudel
  44. “Passions étouffés sous la pierre cendreuse”, Jean-Louis Trudel
  45. “Chanson pour une sirène”, Elisabeth Vonarburg et Yves Meynard
  46. “…suspend ton vol”, Elisabeth Vonarburg
  47. “Le Musée de l’impermanence”, Élisabeth Vonarburg
  48. “Les Dents du dragon”, Élisabeth Vonarburg

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