Top 10 Short Stories, The - Early Sci-Fi

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author? The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. The ideas and inventions of mankind on many occasions have their roots in the minds of authors. From Interplanetary journeys, time travel, robots and cyborgs to voice control, organ transplants, mobile phones and even the internet are just some that began as mere inky black on paper as thrills and adventures. 1 - The Top 10 - Early Science Fiction - An Introduction 2 - Cool Air by H P Lovecraft 3 - Master Zacharius by Jules Verne 4 - A Thousand Deaths by Jack London 5 - The Park of Kings by Alexander Kuprin 6 - The Artist of the Beautiful by Nathaniel Hawthorne 7 - The Tachypomp by Edward Page Mitchell 8 - What Was It? by Fitz James O'Brien 9 - The Republic of the Southern Cross by Valery Bryusov 10 - The Repairer of Reputations - Part 1 by Robert W Chambers 11 - The Repairer of Reputations - Part 2 by Robert W Chambers 12 - Into the Sun by Robert Duncan Milne