You can read the question I was asked in the title. I responded.
I have read many surprising and original short stories over the years from Jack London's “Tales of the Klondike” to Graham Greene’s “childhood stories” Asimov’s Susan Calvin and “I Robot” to Lindqvist's “Letting the old Dreams Die” and I would recommend many of them but there are two short stories that have always stayed with me in terms of originality and thought-provoking inventiveness.
Without further preamble these are:
“The Giving Plague” By David Brin.
Not all villains succeed at being evil. Not all diseases deserve the word plague. Fate can be ironic indeed. The chilling short story, The Giving Plague, follows microbiologist Forry, a self-proclaimed cynic, jealous of his “boy wonder” colleague who discovers a unique virus that could change humanity for the better. Transmitted by blood donations, the virus manipulates humans toward altruism and charity.
And “Behold the Man” by Micheal Moorcock.
Meet Karl Glogauer, time Traveller and unlikely Messiah. When he finds himself in Palestine in the year 29AD he is shocked to meet the man known as Jesus Christ - a drooling idiot, hiding in the shadows of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth. But if he is not capable of fulfilling his historical role, then who will take his place?
BEHOLD THE MAN is one of the greatest books of Moorcock's long and varied career. Intense, delicate, and brutal, it explores the psyche of one man as he faces his ultimate fate. One he knows he cannot avoid.
If you get around to reading either or both of these short tales I am sure you will love them.
Ray