Illustration/Storyboard assignment: Please recommend me some sci-fi short stories...

winter_combat_knight

Hey fellas,

For a uni assignment, i will need to illustrate storyboards for a narrative of my choice. I've had a few ideas, but really want to steer towards science fiction. I dont want to illustrate a novel, but rather a short story. Problem is, i havnt read any science fiction short stories. Could anyone recommend me some interesting stories that i may be able to illustrate for my assignment?

btw, this isnt a 'do my homework for me' thread. But rather, to help me get started on where to look for interesting stories

Any help would be awesome! Cheers guys and dolls!

yalborap

There's some good stuff over in The Writer's Block, if you're up for sifting through to find the genre material.

Szechuanosaurus

Most great sci-fi authors have written slews of short stories (a lot of them started of writing stories for pulp sci-fi magazines).

Perhaps a good question is what sort of sci-fi most interests you?

RUNN1NGMAN

There's an Isaac Asimov short story called "Nightfall," I think. It's about some people who live on a planet in a binary star system, and they basically never have darkness because as one sun is setting, the other is rising. However, every couple thousand years everything aligns and they get an actual period of darkness, at which time society freaks out and tears itself apart. It would probably a cool one to do with from a graphic standpoint with the contrast between day/night.

Ponge

You could try some Ray Bradbury maybe?

Particularly The Pedestrian.

SanderJK

Philip K. Dick wrote a plethora of short stories. These are usually not hard science fiction, but more on consequences of new technology, possibilities and dangers, on what can be construed as "real."

I'm at a loss to suggest a specific one, though handling the short story that inspired "Total Recall" would be quite interesting.

Grislo

If you're being asked by someone to do sci-fi, you should go for something atypical. As in, steer clear of spaceships and aliens, and go for something like 'The Nine Billion Names of God', or what have you. Figure out how to do something interesting with a story that isn't terribly action packed.

EDIT: You're the one wanting to steer towards sci-fi, doh.

Alternate suggestion, then: pick up Roger Zelazny's 'The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth' from the library and thumb through it a bit, there's very likely something interesting there.

EDIT deux: If you're willing to stretch your genre choice a bit, there are some excellent Neil Gaiman short stories that would work well as storyboards/illustrations. It should be possibly to find either 'Smoke and Mirrors' or 'Fragile Things' at a library, or at a decent price from a store.

winter_combat_knight

Thanks a lot for the suggestions fellas. i'll have a look through some of those tomorrow morning. I'm probably going to stay clear of the typical sci-fi spaceships images (like what is present in 99% of video game concept art:) and try to just do something a little more creative, even if its not too sucessful. Cheers again.

Bryse Eayo

http://www.amazon.ca/Oxford-Book-Science-Fiction-Stories/dp/0192803816


Great collections of short stories here. And there are generally always 'Sci-fi of 2008' compilations in the sci-fi sections of your local book store.

Grislo

Another idea would be to go with something old (think Jules Verne/H. G. Wells-old), which is certainly unlike most current/recent sci-fi.

It should be possible to find something interesting that people in general aren't familiar with.

Also, really old stuff can be fun free on the internet. Wells, Verne and etc at the Gutenberg project, or just by googling any given story/author.

Like, Edger Allan poe's steam engine/balloon trip to the moon story:

http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/horror/TheWorksofEdgarAllenPoeVolume1/chap3.html

TychoCelchuuu

A whole bunch of Philip K Dick's stories are available. Those are just some of them.

Qingu

I have absolutely no idea how you would illustrate this story but I would love to see you try. Actually, if you do decide to illustrate this, I demand you post it so I can see.

http://www.swiftgear.com/last_question(long).html

"The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov. Very metaphysical, about the limits of AI and the universe and shit. It's basically a series of conversations between beings that get progressively more omnipotent. It's probably my favorite sci-fi short story.

Duffel

Stephen King has several collections of short stories that are very visually-oriented, like most of his writing. They're usually more towards horror than Scifi, obviously, but they're definitely speculative in nature. "The Boogeyman" in Night Shift would be very interesting to illustrate, although it's pretty short (less than twenty pages IIRC).

Orogogus

Harlan Ellison:
"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
Shatterday

Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon
EDIT: Note that there are a short story and a novel version of this

Steven King: The Jaunt (from Skeleton Crew)

Also, The Year's Best Science Fiction collections edited by Gardner Dozois often have good stories in them. Some that I remember liking:
Pat Cadigan: Dispatches from the Revolution
Dafydd ab Hugh: The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks, A Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk
Charles Sheffield: A Braver Thing

TychoCelchuuu

Qingu wrote: »

I have absolutely no idea how you would illustrate this story but I would love to see you try. Actually, if you do decide to illustrate this, I demand you post it so I can see.

http://www.swiftgear.com/last_question(long).html

"The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov. Very metaphysical, about the limits of AI and the universe and shit. It's basically a series of conversations between beings that get progressively more omnipotent. It's probably my favorite sci-fi short story.

http://www.multivax.com/images.html

Quoth

I second The Jaunt; I think it would make an excellent storyboard.

winter_combat_knight

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. Going through them now. TOO MANY TOO CHOOSE FROM. DAMN YOU ALL!!!

Cheers guys.

Sentry

Duffel wrote: »

Stephen King has several collections of short stories that are very visually-oriented, like most of his writing. They're usually more towards horror than Scifi, obviously, but they're definitely speculative in nature. "The Boogeyman" in Night Shift would be very interesting to illustrate, although it's pretty short (less than twenty pages IIRC).

"Jaunt."

"The House on Maple Street"

Would both be awesome for this.