In middle school one of my teachers read a bunch of short stories to us. 13 years later, the ones I can remember the names of were all Ray Bradbury, so maybe these are also his work:

A story about a carnival that everyone is required to go to where certain rides are rigged to kill off random passengers to control world population.

A story where everyone is legally required to apply certain things to their faces to make everybody equally attractive. The better looking you are, the more crap you have to wear.

A story where someone visits another planet but can't get passed some alien force field. They eventually figure out that they can pass through if their body is unconscious.

Any of these ring a bell? Thanks in advance!

Hey, Josh,

I am not sure about the first and third plots, but the second one is almost certainly "Harrison Bergeron", a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, often anthologized in literature textbooks.

Yes, that looks like the one! Thank you

1 out of 3

"The Carnival," by Michael Fedo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...arnival_(short_story) Two out of three!

The third has similarities to "The Jaunt" by Stephen King but they were rendered unconscious for other reasons when traveling great distances.

Perfect! Thanks!

I'll look into the Stephen King one as well, that very well may be it.

It's just strange that out of the 6 stories, I remembered the titles of A Sound of Thunder, The Veldt, and All Summer in a Day, but couldn't remember the non-Bradbury stories

You can probably learn the name of the third one and others where I learned the second one, at the Abebooks forums at http://forums.abebooks.com/abecom/start/ You need to create a membership account, then make sure you are on the Booksleuth forum. Post in only the one most appropriate heading, probably Science Fiction.

Number three (needing to be unconscious to pass through a force field) sounds like Fredric Brown's "Arena", which was also the basis for episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS and STAR TREK.

If it has a fight with an alien (e.g. a giant lizard), then this is definitely it.