I think one of the reasons I love writing is because I also love reading. I’m a voracious reader and have been so for years. I thought that this week it would be nice to share five of my favorite short stories, as they are some of the pieces that have influenced my own writing.

The Last Question, Issac Asimov

By Asimov’s own admission, this was his favorite short story that he wrote over his prolific career. It’s an interesting, thought-provoking tale whose final implications left me reeling and have given me a lot of interesting ideas to this day.

It’s basically a loosely connected series of tales that revolve around a computer, the Multivac, and people asking it a question that basically boils down to, “Can entropy be reversed?” I can’t say anything else about it without giving too much away, but there’s a reason why it’s at the top of this list.

Nightfall, Issac Asimov

Another one of Asimov’s greatest tales, Nightfall is an interesting take on life on another world.

It tells the story of a group of scientists who live on a planet that has six suns and is therefore never in darkness. This leaves the inhabitants of the planet with a terrifying fear of the dark, as “night” is not a concept they have ever had to comprehend.

These scientists are preparing their observatory for an incredible celestial event: an undiscovered moon of the planet will eclipse one of the suns when it is the only one present in the sky, leading to over half a day of total darkness.

The Library of Babel, Jorge Luis Borges

A very creative tale, to say the least, this story is the writings of an inhabitant of a universe that consists of an infinite library. This library’s books are filled with exactly 410 pages of random characters from a specific set of 25 symbols.

The speaker discusses the history of this universe and the practices of the people within, which include a cult dedicated to finding a book that is the index of all other books in the library and groups that threw millions of volumes into the empty space between the hexagonal rooms of the library.

The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, Hunter S. Thompson

This crazed tale is the first instance of what would come to be called gonzo journalism: where the journalist writes without any claims of being objective about the subject matter. It is, as such, often told in a first-person narrative style.

In this story, Hunter S. Thompson and his sketch artist partner Ralph Steadman experience the celebrations and manic activity that surround the Kentucky Derby as they make their way through the event. They never actually see the Derby, though what they do see is undoubtedly more interesting.

"—And He Built a Crooked House—", Robert Heinlein

This is a tale about an architect who wants other people in his field to integrate the mathematical study of topology into their works. To demonstrate what he means, he convinces his friend to build a house that is model of a four-dimensional tesseract. The house is damaged by an earthquake, leading to strange occurrences when the architect goes to show his friend and his friend’s wife around the place.

Those are my five. There are many others that I have enjoyed, but these come to my mind as being some of the best. I hope you all enjoy and draw inspiration from them as I have.