A Personal Anthology, by Jevon Heath

I think of myself as a good reader and a bad writer. I want to share some stories I like, and I want to practice writing, so I volunteered to share my personal anthology with you.

I'm pretty sensitive to emotions, so I (unconsciously?) try to protect my own by reading genres that customarily prioritize other types of stimulation. But sometimes a story will slip through my filters and hit me right in the feels, as they say. Following are twelve stories that hit me hard enough to leave an emotional bruise, in one way or another.

'Charles' by Shirley Jackson (First published in Mademoiselle in 1948. Collected in The Lottery and Other Stories, FSG, 1949; and in 75 Short Masterpieces: Stories from the World's Literature, Bantam, 1983)

A story about narrators and viewpoints, and a story about children. I was a kid, maybe a tween- or teenager, when I found 75 Short Masterpieces in a used bookstore. I read ‘Charles’ and my world broke open. I felt pure shame, even though it wasn't mine, and it wasn't real. But it was mine, as I relived my memories of first grade—not kindergarten, I wasn't retaining memories yet—and saw myself first as Laurie observing Charles, and then, against my will, as Charles. I haven't reread this story, but I want it in my anthology so that I can, if I ever muster the courage.

'Jeffty Is Five' by Harlan Ellison (First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in July 1977. Collected many times, including in The Top of the Volcano: The Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison, Subterranean Press, 2015)

Another story about children, and a story about holding onto the past. Five-year-old Jeffty literally doesn't grow up, but the rest of the world goes on around him, until it can't. Now that I've had a five-year-old of my own I'm not convinced by Ellison's portrayal of Jeffty, but his innocence and bewildered acceptance rings true. I feel sad thinking about his parents.

'The Last of the Winnebagos' by Connie Willis (First published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in 1988. Collected in Time Is the Fire: The Best of Connie Willis, Gollancz, 2013; and The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories, Del Rey, 2014)

On the way out to Tempe I saw a dead jackal in the road. I was in the far left lane of Van Buren, ten lanes away from it, and its long legs were facing away from me, the squarish muzzle flat against the pavement so it looked narrower than it really was, and for a minute I thought it was a dog.

Another story about holding onto the past, and a story about love. A photojournalist is on his way to profile the last road-legal RV in Arizona when he sees a dead animal on the highway... I don't know how describe the way the pieces of this story come together without cheating the unaware reader out of first-hand experience of its genius. I hope it suffices to say they do. The result is a compassionate examination of how people hold on to the past.

'Hell Is the Absence of God' by Ted Chiang (First published in Starlight 3, 2001. Collected in Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002. Available in podcast form here)

Of course, everyone knew that Heaven was incomparably superior, but to Neil it had always seemed too remote to consider, like wealth or fame or glamour. For people like him, Hell was where you went when you died, and he saw no point in restructuring his life in hopes of avoiding that. And since God hadn't previously played a role in Neil's life, he wasn't afraid of being exiled from God. The prospect of living without interference, living in a world where windfalls and misfortunes were never by design, held no terror for him.

Another story about love, and a cosmic horror story. Chiang's SF stories frequently involve fundamental metaphysical changes taken to their logical conclusion. In ‘Hell Is the Absence of God’, the Christian God is real and miracles happen. It turns out that unconditional love is incompatible with the idea that "everything happens for a reason", and miracles aren't necessarily good from a human perspective. I felt the bleakness for days.

'The Liberation of Earth' by William Tenn (First published in Future Science Fiction in 1953. Collected in Immodest Proposals: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn, Volume 1, 2001)

Children’s schooldays were requested, too, in such collecting drives as "Platinum Scrap for Procyon" and "Radioactive Debris for Deneb." Housewives also were implored to save on salt whenever possible—this substance being useful to the Troxxt in literally dozens of incomprehensible ways—and colorful posters reminded: "Don’t salinate—sugarfy!"

Another story of cosmic horror, and a story about war. It's also very funny, as I hope the quotation illustrates. After contact with ineffably powerful aliens, humans find their planet a battleground for cosmic conflict. Cosmic horror is characterized by powerlessness in the face of unknowable power; Tenn's story foregrounds how a human society might cope with that powerlessness, while futility plays out in the background.

'The Lucky Strike' by Kim Stanley Robinson (First published in Universe 14 in 1984. Collected in The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson, 2010)

This is another story about war, and a story about morality. Alternate history is usually an intellectual exercise in what would follow from a different event. ‘The Lucky Strike’ instead looks at the immediate aftermath of the different event, asking how different what follows might be. As readers, we know what happened historically in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But what if a different pilot is flying the plane? We might hope that Captain January will break the straitjacket of history as we know it to be, but can he?

'When I Was Ming the Merciless' by Gene Wolfe (First published in The Ides of Tomorrow: Original Science Fiction Tales of Horror, Little, Brown, 1976. Collected in Endangered Species, Tor, 1989)

Another story about morality, and a story about the will to live. Wolfe's short stories are rarely this straightforward, even on their surface. An imagining of a social-psychological study along the lines of the Stanford prison experiment, this story takes the form of an exit interview from one of the participants. We don't hear the interviewer's questions, only the horrifyingly matter-of-fact responses. A very disquieting story.

'Rockabye Baby' by S.C. Sykes (First published in Analog in Mid-December 1985. Collected in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection, Bluejay, 1986)

He could remember hearing his neck snap. In fact, Cody could remember every long minute after the accident, crumpled in a limp ball against the van’s roof. He remembered the immediate numbing sensation, as if everything from his Adam’s apple down had gone to sleep. He wondered if this was what death was like and felt cheated.

Another story about the will to live, and a story about memory and identity. We see Cody adjust to life with tetraplegia over seven years or so, and we see a fully fleshed-out and specific life, one that's his. When Cody has a hope of a chance to give up this life to get his body back, it's a relief to remember that it's his choice, not ours.

'Mother Tongues' by S. Qiouyi Lu (First published in Asimov's Science Fiction in 2018. Collected in The New Voices of Science Fiction, 2019. Read online here at Clarkesworld Science Fiction & Fantasy Magazine)

You expect your mother to scold you, to tell you about the importance of your heritage and language—she’s always been proud of who she is, where she’s from; she’s always been the first to teach you about your own culture—but instead her expression softens, and she puts a hand over yours, her wrinkled skin warm against your skin.

“哎，嘉嘉，没有别的办法吗?”

Another story about memory and identity, and a story about immigrants and culture. I teach a university course on language in science fiction, and this is one of the stories I teach. Jiawen Liu is considering selling her entire linguistic competence in her native language of Mandarin, in order to raise the money to send her daughter to college. Linguistic identity can form an important component of a person's total identity, and this story beautifully and sympathetically asks how to value that contribution, and how to put it into words.

'The Slovo Stove' by Avram Davidson (First published in Universe 15 in 1985. Collected in The Avram Davidson Treasury, Tor, 1988)

The rent was seventy-five dollars a month, the painters would come right in, and Mrs. Keeley was very glad to have Nice People living there. Which was very interesting, because the last time Silberman had entered the house (Peter Touey, who used to live upstairs, had said, “Come on over after school; I got a book with war pictures in it”) Mrs. Keeley had barred the way: “You don’t live here,” said she. Well. Times had changed. Had times changed? Something had certainly changed.

Another story about immigrants and culture, and a story about society's relationship to technology. Where ‘Mother Tongues’ takes a personal view of what migrants give up—and why—even after immigrating, ‘The Slovo Stove’ takes a societal view. Fred Silberman's quest to find an example of the eponymous stove, a thermodynamically impossible appliance brought to the United States by Eastern European immigrants, is unsuccessful, for frustrating, pitiable reasons. I love Davidson's voice, and an easy half-dozen of his stories would make it into any real anthology I may compile, but this disheartening portrayal of unappreciated glory is my favorite.

'Pretty Boy Crossover' by Pat Cadigan (First published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in 1986. Collected in The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, 2010; and The Big Book of Cyberpunk, Vintage, 2023)

He forgets everything, the girl, the Rude Boy, the Mohawk, them on the stairs, and plunges through the crowd toward the screen. People fall away from him as though they were re-enacting the Red Sea. He dives for the screen, for Bobby, not caring how it must look to anyone. What would they know about it, any of them. He can’t remember in his whole sixteen years ever hearing one person say, I love my friend. Not Bobby, not even himself.

Another story about society's relationship to technology, and a story about what it means to be human. The unnamed viewpoint character is offered the opportunity to become immortal through digitization, and he refuses. I'm fairly sure I would also refuse, but not for the same reasons. Would sixteen-year-old me have refused?

'Learning to Be Me' by Greg Egan (First published in Interzone #37 in 1990. Collected in The Best of Greg Egan, Gollancz, 2021)

"My parents were machines. My parents were gods. It was nothing special. I hated them."

Another story about what it means to be human, and a story about narrators and viewpoints. (Also a story about society's relationship to technology, and memory and identity, and the will to live, and morality.) Everyone has a backup implanted in their brain, which is trained to mimic the brain's behavior by being reset whenever it thinks something different. But how can you tell whether you're the backup? Like "Hell Is the Absence of God", this story is an elegant dialectic proceeding from its starting assumption. But where Chiang's story encompasses multiple points of view in a detached, ironic way, "Learning to Be Me" is wholly personal.

* Jevon Heath is a teaching professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He is an avid board game player, short story reader, and list writer.

* You can browse the full searchable archives of A Personal Anthology, with over 3,000 story recommendations, at www.apersonalanthology.com.

* A Personal Anthology is curated by Jonathan Gibbs, author of two novels, Randall (Galley Beggar, 2014 and, in the US, Tivoli Books, 2025), and The Large Door, and a book-length poem, Spring Journal. He teaches on the MA/MFA Creative Writing at City, University of London. My most recent blogpost is an introduction and analysis of my two favourite semi-colons in All Literature. Read it here!

* And if you are interested in contributing your own Personal Anthology to the project, then please let me know by replying to this email. I’m always on the lookout for guest editors!

* Finally, if you enjoy this Substack you might enjoy Creative Digest, a collaborative Substack produced by the Creative Writing team at City, and to which I contribute. Read and subscribe here.