1910: ‘Charon’ by Lord Dunsany

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: M10^-4.5

Available in: The Hashish Man And Other Stories

After a catastrophic manmade, uh, catastrophe, the boatman of the Styx takes the very last human being to Hades, wondering what the Hades he’s supposed to do with his life now that all mankind is dead. Of course, if Charon is looking for another job shuttling people across a dismal river to Hell, there’s an opening on the Manhattan-to-Newark ferry.  Zing! I’m going to sell that joke to The New Yorker. And if they reject it, I’ll change the names and sell it to their New Jersey competition, The Newarker. 

1911: ‘The Other Side Of The Hedge’ by E.M. Forster

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: B10^-3

Available in: 50 Great Short Stories

A surreal story in which a nameless narrator plods down a long, dusty road and struggles with life’s burdens. “Plods?’ you exclaim, your interest piqued, “Struggles? Long and dusty?  Sounds like a real page turner!” You’re a cynical jackass. Actually, this story is a highly allegorical tale about our journey through life and our search for truth and success (or, ‘truthcess’). As a rule, I consider everything in life allegorical. Everything is actually something else. This blog, for instance, is actually a sandwich.

1912: ‘A Woman Alone With Her Soul’ by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: F10^-5

Available in: The Book Of Fantasy

A woman is sitting alone in a house. She knows she is alone in the whole world: every other living thing is dead. The doorbell rings. That’s not a synopsis – that’s the whole story (the Coles Notes are ‘Woman. Alone. Doorbell.’) Writing of this brevity was common in the early twentieth century, when a single piece of typewriter paper cost more than a pair of spats. Spats, in turn, cost so much that people would fight over them in the streets. These disagreements were called ‘spats spats’ and could easily escalate into full-blown spattles.

1913: ‘The Horror Of The Heights’ by Arthur Conan Doyle

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: F0.1

Available in: The Best Science Fiction Of Arthur Conan Doyle

In this story, Doyle postulates colonies of bloodthirsty creatures which inhabit the upper skies, attacking and beheading aviators and tossing their noggin-less corpses to the ground far below. So, technically, The Weather Girls were correct. Initially this premise is horrifying, but having recently sat through The Green Hornet on a four-hour Air Canada flight to Tampa, a mid-air beheading doesn’t sound so bad.

1914: ‘Why Reeds Are Hollow’ by Gabriela Mistral

Hertzprung-Russell rating: A10^-3.5

Available in: Eye Of The Heart – Short Stories From Latin America

This is one of those why-things-are-the-way-they-are stories like ‘How The Leopard Got His Spots’ or ‘How The Puerto Rican Got His Horns’. In this one, the plants all decide they want to be the same size – straight up botanical socialism – and quickly learn that not everyone has what it takes to be a towering oak. Some of us have to settle for being something simpler, like a daisy or a Douglas fir. Of course, if you’re a chick named Daisy or a dude named Douglas Fir, that’s no problem.

1915: ‘Strange News From Another Star’ by Hermann Hesse

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: G10²

Available in: Strange News From Another Star

A naïve young lad from a peaceful, peaceable kingdom (read: ‘pussies’) journeys to the warring nation next door and witnesses, for the first time in his life, death, suffering and bloodshed. How much bloodshed? Well, they have an actual blood shed – a small wooden structure designed to hold all the blood that’s been shed until they figure out what to do with it. JK, of course. But this story does mess with your head a little bit. No wonder it prompted already-insane Spanish dramatist Jacinto Benavente y Martínez to exclaim when he read it in 1915: ‘You tryin’ to get crazy with us Hesse? Don’t you know I’m loco?” (Christ; that was long way to go for a really outdated Cypress Hill reference.)

‘1916: ‘Enoch Soames’ by Max Beerbohm

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: G10⁵

Available in: The Collected Works Of Max Beerbohm

Synopsis: A failed authour makes a pact with the devil and travels into the future to see if anyone there remembers his writing and works. Nobody does, and he goes to hell forever knowing he’ll remain unknown forever. Unfortunately, I can’t relate, since people will be reading my blog posts for years to come. I will, however, be going to hell.

1917: ‘A Report To An Academy’ by Franz Kafka

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: A0.1

Available in: The Apes Of Wrath

An ape who apes human thought and behavior waxes homo sapient about his decision to renounce jungle living and dwell amongst men as a famous concert performer. His concert rider? All bananas – absolutely no plantains! Humans and primates actually aren’t that different. Monkeys hurl their feces at each other, while humans voluntarily organize themselves into tightly knit social structures that require close interaction and interdependence to succeed. Either way you’re always dealing with someone else’s shit.

1918: ‘The People Of The Pit’ by A. Merritt

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: A10³

Available in: The Fox Woman And Other Stories

An Artic explorer discovers an ancient subterranean city populated by intelligent but malicious globes of light which enslave him to do their bidding: washing their malicious laundry, mowing their malicious grass and some light malicious filing. Despite being sans Clapper^TM  he escapes his luminescent bondage and dies wandering and insane in the forest. The ironic thing about going insane in a forest is that you’re among so many trees while simultaneously being out of yours (that joke kills with mentally-ill arbourists).

1919: ‘The Girl In The Golden Atom’ by Ray Cummings

Hertzsprung-Russell rating: F10^6.5+

Available in: The Big Book Of Adventure Stories

A scientist develops a formula that reduces him to the size of a single atom (talk about shrinkage!) and allows him to discover and explore hitherto unknown worlds that exist on the microscopic level. Eventually, he falls in love with the tiny unsuper-sized civilizations and decides to stay down there forever. No biggie. While entertaining, the whole story is preposterous: I took a shrink formula thirty minutes ago and nothing is _{happening yet and oh shit it’s kicking in and if you’re still reading this you have really good eyesight.}