The Short Story Thread

[jojajihisc]

I read a really good and very short, short story by Ken Liu called "Real Artists" in Technology Review.

*Spoiler Alert*

Spoiler

It's about a film school graduate who gets an opportunity to work for the much praised "Semaphore Pictures" film company only to find that films aren't created in the traditional manner. A powerful computer network using complex algorithms measures audience responses to randomly generated plot themes. For instance as is says in the story "cowboys and dinosaurs, WWII tactics in space, a submarine film transposed onto Mars..." Based on data from past movies' box office results the computer can predict what will be a hit and what won't and gradually (although probably far quicker than the traditional method) it pieces together a movie. It's a fascinating idea about technology evolving so far as to be able to engineer art.

Probably as good as any short story from 2011 that I've read.

I also wanted to mention "Gene Wars" by Paul McAuley. Not from 2011, just something I read recently. It too is quite short but it's one that stays with you long after you've read it.

 

[J-Sun]

I've read and liked many Martin stories over many years but, other than the Tuf collection not too long ago (which was mostly a re-read), I think this is the first Martin book I've ever read.

I've got 3/7 of that collection...And I haven't read "Bitterblooms" yet.

Just to correct the record due to my apparent brain-damage, I happened to stumble across a list of readings and noticed I did read Sandkings but had completely forgotten. (I also read two Sheckley books around that time that I'd forgotten. But fortunately, I remember reading the rest on that list, so I'm not completely brain-damaged.) Anyway - my little note indicates I didn't hate it at the time, but was pretty indifferent. Then I got rid of it and then I forgot about it. Hope it suits you better, jo!

Dunno how I forgot that book - the book cover is the same artwork as on Sepultura's classic second-best album, Beneath the Remains.

 

[jojajihisc]

Oh, maybe I should just get to reading it after all. You've tempered my enthusiasm J-Sun and that's good because the book doesn't have to meet as high an expectation now.

 

[J-Sun]

Glad to help.

Since Edmond Hamilton's Interstellar Patrol is made up of six shorter stories in addition to a novel sandwiched between them and John W. Campbell's Arcot, Morey, and Wade series starts with three stories before going on to two novels, I'll mention that I read them. There's also my much-too-long-to-post discussion of them if anyone's interested but I'll say that probably only real classic SF/space opera enthusiasts would be but also that I really particularly liked Campbell's "Piracy Preferred" and that can be read from Gutenberg if necessary.

 

[dask]

Yeah, CRASHING SUNS is essentially a crash course in formulaic literature. Still, the first and last stories are worth reading. The formulas in the middle are little more than equations that for the most part cancel each other out.

 

[dask]

"Korney Vasiliev" by Leo N. Tolstoy. According to the translator this is a story about the Russian "quality of forbearance" but struck me more as about unbridled anger and the of tenuous nature of forgiveness. Either way it's a good story, a powerful story, if something of a downer.

Have started "The Murmuring Forest: A Polish Legend" by V. Korolenko. Never heard of him but seems to be the Ray Bradbury of his day. I'm enjoying it so far.

 

[J-Sun]

Partly read and partly re-read The Compleat Bolo by Keith Laumer. This is an omnibus of the six stories from Bolo and the two from Rogue Bolo. The definitive Bolo story, and a generally excellent one is the first published one (and probably internally chronologically last), "Combat Unit". Two other very good ones are "The Last Command" and "A Relic of War". The weirdest one is "Rogue Bolo". The other four are more or less readable and more or less skippable. That means that all the really good stuff is in Bolo and even it starts out slow before getting really good.

For those who don't know, the Bolos were a series of tanks. Early models were just plain old supertanks but later models were AI robot tanks. Most of the time an old semi-defunct tank will be accidentally or purposefully triggered into a usually subpar but still ferocious fighting state and will sometimes be joined by a similarly less-than-optimal human (very old or very young). Frequent motifs are the AI never going "rogue", though this is constantly feared, but sometimes making mistakes just like humans do, of enduring loyalty despite sometimes vicious mistreatment, and of people and Bolos being at less than their prime but still being valuable. Bolos are kind of combinations of dogs and gods.

Some stories, like "The Last Command" have some exhilarating action sequences and most stories (though not all) give an impression of some serious hardware and mentality but, if you're looking for true kickass combat stories, these aren't really those. But the best are really good, regardless.

The one frustrating thing is that, as with many casual sorts of series, this has various internal inconsistencies and doesn't form a real coherent future history - it simultaneously helps and hurts that the stories generally take place decades or centuries after the particular model featured in the story was originally built.

Re: the odd one, I see a lot of people savage Laumer's later works and think that's pretty unconscionable. People may critique or dislike late Laumer but they shouldn't be contemptuous. I can hardly type posts when my brain is supposedly fully functional. The idea that I could have a series of strokes and suffer brain damage and partial paralysis and still force myself to rehabilitate to the point that I could write a pretty good story is admirable. And I gather Laumer's personality wasn't always the best but, again, I don't think I'd be all sweetness and light after something like that either.

Anyway - Laumer could sometimes experiment in an almost New Wavy style. Both "Field Test" and especially "Rogue Bolo" are written as a bunch of snippets (43 "chapters" in the 21 page "Field Test" and 200(!) "chapters" (some with sub-chapters) in the 95 page "Rogue Bolo". The chapters are nothing but snippets of overheard dialog, letters, extracts from reports, etc. There's no description, no subjectivity other than the Bolo's, no characters in a sense and dozens in another, and so on. Just monologues. An amazingly vivid picture of the AI's consciousness and the weird society around it is created in "Rogue Bolo" but the tone and some of the bureaucratic swipes, while pointed and shrewdly observed, are more suited to a Retief story than a Bolo story and it just doesn't work as a whole. It's somewhat difficult to get into and then wears before the end, but it's still very interesting. I don't know if this is because he found it easier to write such short scenes post-stroke or if this was a stylistic experiment - in other words, if it was done out of "strength" or "weakness". The other half of what was Rogue Bolo is an unrelated story written in a more conventional manner but I don't know when either was written except that they were both likely post-stroke.

Anyway - I wouldn't recommend it unreservedly to everyone but I liked it overall (especially the top 1-3) and think many would.

-- Oh, almost forgot: if you have any interest in this sort of thing, Elizabeth Bear wrote a very good "Bolo" story (in all but name) with "Tideline".

 

[jojajihisc]

I checked out Bolo from the library and it looks like I agree very much with your opinions on those stories, J-Sun. I gave up on "The Night of the Trolls" but very much liked "Combat Unit," "A Relic of War," and "The Last Command." I like the mix of human feelings of honor and apparent pleasure in besting an opponent in battle that Laumer shows with the Bolos combined with the cold analytical qualities of a machine. He also gives the strong impression of a near invincibility of the Bolos. Perhaps as a warning consequence of the Cold War arms race? I also have "Tideline" in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Vol. 25 so I'll have to read that sometime soon to see how it compares.

 

[J-Sun]

I checked out Bolo from the library and it looks like I agree very much with your opinions on those stories, J-Sun. I gave up on "The Night of the Trolls" but very much liked "Combat Unit," "A Relic of War," and "The Last Command."

Glad you liked them.

I like the mix of human feelings of honor and apparent pleasure in besting an opponent in battle that Laumer shows with the Bolos combined with the cold analytical qualities of a machine. He also gives the strong impression of a near invincibility of the Bolos. Perhaps as a warning consequence of the Cold War arms race?

That's a really good point on the mix in the Bolo's subjectivity. The Bolos have a lot of very human qualities but the sum feels distinct from a human. As far as the Cold War, I don't know. I know there's a lot of Cold War commentary in Retief but given the Bolos are AI and kind of benevolent, I don't know that it would be like a play on MAD or anything. Could be, but maybe more just a warning that our tech/society is kind of an emergent thing that we'd better instill with certain values so that it works for us rather than against us like it might if we just adopt stuff willy-nilly. I dunno.

I also have "Tideline" in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Vol. 25 so I'll have to read that sometime soon to see how it compares.

Yep - that where I read it. Look forward to your impression of it (and the anthology as a whole).

 

[jojajihisc]

Yep - that where I read it. Look forward to your impression of it (and the anthology as a whole).

It'll probably be some time before I've finished the whole thing because I read anthologies in pieces. I have read "Finisterra" by David Moles (which tied with "Tideline" for a Sturgeon Award) which I liked a lot and about eight or ten others. Baxter's and Reynold's stories I thought were also good.

 

[elvet]

I downloaded my first E-short stories on to my Kobo. Having just finished Skirmish by Michelle West, I just couldn't let go of the Empire and the Dominion. I found that she published 6 short stories based in the same world. I particularly liked The Memory of Stone.
For anyone that likes her work as much as I do, check out Smashwords.

 

[andyw1691]

I recommend the Intel funded 'The Tomorrow Project' which is free to download. Just do a Google search on Intel Tomorrow Project.

There are four short stories which try and project the consequences of current or expected Intel research. While the stories are very technology orientated it does make you think about were things may be headed. The very last story about the house fitted with sensors is just creepy

Andy

 

[J-Sun]

Read (partly re-read due to anthologies) Greg Egan's Luminous. All but the last story are 1st-person narratives set on Earth in the relatively near future and some are even in present tense. Definitely not how I'd ask a collection to be constructed in the abstract.

My favorites:

"Reasons to Be Cheerful" is a brilliant story of a boy who has brain cancer, the radical treatments he undergoes to try to beat it, and the radical side effects. It deals with some fascinating questions of neurobiology, pleasure/pain, choice, identity, etc. Indeed, these are central features of several of the stories.

"Chaff" is a story about a sort of artificial jungle, the drug dealers who live there (and "drug dealer" doesn't begin to cover it) and the murderous spook who goes in. This directly quotes "The Heart of Darkness" regarding principles being chaff in the wind before things like hunger and goes beyond that.

"Transition Dreams" is a truly creepy whacked out tale of what it might be like to have your brain translated into software, if that's even what goes on in the story. Buckle up, 'cuz it's an intense ride.

The last story takes us out to explore a black hole (though we're actually exploring the societies of our AI descendents). As "Transition Dreams" mentions "Gleisner robots" directly and those occur elsewhere, this story also shares background ("fleshers" and polises and so on) with some of his other works like Permutation City, Diaspora, and Schild's Ladder, IIRC, though none of this forms an actual series AFAICT. There's some really harsh slams at magical thinking, historical truth, and "poetry" which includes a truly brilliant analogy regarding statues but I'm not sure how seriously Egan intended this to represent a whole view.

Less great but still very good, the title story deals with ideas of mathematics only being true via empirically being made true and how competing mutually incompatible mathematics might be misused by some forces and how our protagonists try to avoid this. And "Cocoon", is also pretty good, being about a gay cop in a privatized police force being brought in to handle a crime that ends up bringing his identities and loyalties (and humanity's behaviors and so on) into question.

Dropping another level, "Silver Fire" was maybe great, being about social decay, superstition, and a truly horrific disease but was a little too cruel and vicious without enough catharsis only to make a point that, while important, should be fairly self-evident and... I dunno - it just wasn't worth it for me.

"Mister Volition" and "Mitochondrial Eve" were both okay but actually flawed. The first seemed to me to be an unsatisfactory scenario using a miscast psychopathic protagonist to illustrate some ideas about the little dude in the "I" who may or may not be supposed to be pulling the levers. Nifty idea, but I dunno about the execution. And the latter is kind of as pig-headed in its own preachiness regarding human tribalism as the "bad guys" are supposed to be.

But the only one I didn't like at all (except that parts of it were still really well written and it held my interest in the course of the reading) was "Our Lady of Chernobyl" but that may be simply because either I didn't understand it at all or I disagreed with how he chose to resolve it. It deals with a private eye being sent to track down a missing religious icon after the courier transporting it is murdered.

Still, 4 superior stories, 2 lesser ones that still shouldn't be missed, a trio of fair filler and one that could have been left out (yet was the title story of a small press collection and was still readable). A highly recommended collection from one of the very best.

(But somebody needs to tell Egan that his American characters would never do anything for a "fortnight" (two weeks) or use a "torch" (flashlight) and few, if any, would be "disorientated" (disoriented) and so on. )

 

[J-Sun]

Not much short fiction reading going on, it seems.

As mentioned over in the Nebula Nominees thread, I've read the short story nominees (novelettes and novellas next, but with comments likely only on that thread) and would especially (if not strongly) recommend "Movement" by Nancy Fulda and "The Axiom of Choice" by David W. Goldman.

 

[J-Sun]

Hat trick.

Back on the aforementioned Nebula thread I mentioned the rest of the novelettes and novellas and, VideoChrist turned me on to Peter David's "Bronsky's Dates with Death" (link in that thread) which was actually on the Locus recommended list but hadn't been listed as being available online when I saw the list. That's a superb story.

Meanwhile, I read part of the thing andyw1691 pointed out but, alas, while the Doctorow was fine, it wasn't spectacular; the Lyris was passable; the Kirkland and Lupashin were not; and I gave up.

Meanmeanwhilewhile I read Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Visions which is one a of a series a Byron Preiss books but the illustrations for this were pretty terrible (or at least terribly rendered, mostly looking like a lot of mud) and the book was pretty skimpy, having just 11 short stories, 2 novelettes, and 0 novellas.

This is mostly the sort of simply written, straightforward, semi-modern/semi-old-fashion-styled SF usually set in a reasonably high-tech reasonably futuristic setting that it seems like I read a lot more of when I was younger and a lot less lately. So I enjoyed even the merely fair ones in that respect. "Toy Shop" is a good sort of Analog thought experiment, "The Secret of Stonehenge" is not too far removed from that, "The Repairman" is a fun "Mr. Fixit goes to space and meets the natives" story, etc. But these aren't particularly great stories - just nice.

Then there's a set of stories related to other things. There's a Stainless Steel Rat story which was original to this collection, "The Golden Years of the Stainless Steel Rat". It wasn't great but it was great to see Slippery Jim and Angelina again. Primarily it just made me want to re-read the earlier ones. There's a Deathworld sequel with "The Mothballed Spaceship" which I skipped because I have The Deathworld Trilogy in the TBR. And there's a Make Room! Make Room! (Soylent Green) connection with "Roommates" though I don't know what the exact nature is. The first several pages of each are identical but then they diverge and I don't know if the rest of the story is dribbled into the novel or not, since the novel is what's coming next. There was a slight failure of catharsis but it was otherwise neatly depicted and rounded and was good, if proven "false" by events.

On the downside, as Harrison himself notes in his introduction to the volume, there's a strain of didacticism that, IMO, mars a few stories - "Commando Raid", "Brave Newer World" (which should have had less of a title to live up to and should have been told from the viewpoint of the cop so that the "message" being filtered through the anti-message would have blunted the preachiness) - and is present in others. "Survival Planet" may not suffer from this particularly, but struck me as a lesser story anyway.

But on the upside, there are the more individually noteworthy stories. I don't know that "The Streets of Ashkelon" is all that it ought to be but the story of a priest trying to bring Christianity to some nominally logical and certainly literal-minded aliens is certainly memorable. Similarly, "Rescue Operation", the story of the crashlanded and injured alien who is found by Yugoslavian fishermen in a backwards village is also very vivid, if flawed. "Portrait of the Artist" (which, appropriately, has about the best illustration) is close to brilliant - the general idea of the artist being replaced by robots is (and was) pretty tired and the details aren't exactly how CGI would turn out to work or anything, but it's a kind of brilliant story anyway. Even closer to brilliance is "Not Me, Not Amos Cabot!" which is a sort of Kafka retells Tithonous.

The collection is, I suspect, a reasonable overview of Harrison but could likely be bettered. A nice read overall and at least those last two stories, especially, are worth seeking out from some source.

 

[jojajihisc]

Back on the aforementioned Nebula thread I mentioned the rest of the novelettes and novellas and, VideoChrist turned me on to Peter David's "Bronsky's Dates with Death" (link in that thread) which was actually on the Locus recommended list but hadn't been listed as being available online when I saw the list. That's a superb story.

I'm going to have to read that one pretty soon.

Meanwhile, I read part of the thing andyw1691 pointed out but, alas, while the Doctorow was fine, it wasn't spectacular; the Lyris was passable; the Kirkland and Lupashin were not; and I gave up.

It seems there are at least two collections with this title. The larger one you mention and another called The Tomorrow Project with four other stories by different authors.

I haven't come across anything outstanding in a while but there have been a few that were entertaining enough like:

"Christmas at Hostage Canyon" - James Stoddard
"Ten With a Flag" - Joseph Paul Haines
"Dead Space for the Unexpected" - Geoff Ryman

 

[J-Sun]

It seems there are at least two collections with this title. The larger one you mention and another called The Tomorrow Project with four other stories by different authors.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I thought it was dumb that they had just split them up but, still, something gave me the impression that that was just a subset of the larger one.

Re: the Harrison story, "Portrait of the Artist", maybe Harrison foresaw more accurately than I first thought. Having just read the story, I come across this intriguingly heavy metal approach to portraiture.

-- Oh yeah - and more research (which I should have done first) tells me that "Roommates" was mostly extracted from Make Room! Make Room! in response to a request for an excerpt from the novel - Harrison apparently didn't feel there was a good standalone excerpt, so pulled a thread woven through the novel (which seems good so far) and turned it into a story - which fits the vaguely excerpty feeling it gives off. So I definitely should have read the novel first there, too. Either certain things are foreshadowed when they probably shouldn't be or there will be discordant divergences from my expectations - kind of like the lame TV trailers for series episodes that are always messing up the enjoyment of the actual episode. So basically, while a fine thing to read by itself, I don't think "Roommates" should have been in the collection (if you read the novel, the story is presumably redundant and the novel is presumably better than the story) and definitely don't think it should be read before the novel.

 

[Connavar]

Not much short fiction reading going on, it seems.

As mentioned over in the Nebula Nominees thread, I've read the short story nominees (novelettes and novellas next, but with comments likely only on that thread) and would especially (if not strongly) recommend "Movement" by Nancy Fulda and "The Axiom of Choice" by David W. Goldman.

I have new Solomon Kane collection, new William Hope Hodgson collection, Best SF and fantasy of year anthology 2009 i can get from the library that im very keen on trying Ted Chaing, Keji Johnson, Robert Reed, Nancy Krees etc

So much short stories i like to read but i have a literary class and Ancient celtic class at the same time. My uni terms ends in late april that im saying my short reading for.

I feel like someone who has a lost a part of me when i dont have time to read but its only temporary that keeps going through the lack of reading my own books

 

[jojajihisc]

I read Peter David's "Bronsky's Dates with Death" and thought it was tremendous. The ending was a little abrupt but it took nothing away from the story overall, maybe even gave it a bit more depth. SFWA missed the boat for the Nebula on this one, hopefully the Hugos don't. (Thanks to VideoChrist for the recommendation)

Also read Elizabeth Bear's "Tideline" from 2006 which is great too (thank you J-Sun for that one) and her more recent "Dolly" which wouldn't surprise me to get some recognition as well.

 

[J-Sun]

I read Peter David's "Bronsky's Dates with Death" and thought it was tremendous. The ending was a little abrupt but it took nothing away from the story overall, maybe even gave it a bit more depth. SFWA missed the boat for the Nebula on this one, hopefully the Hugos don't. (Thanks to VideoChrist for the recommendation)

Also read Elizabeth Bear's "Tideline" from 2006 which is great too (thank you J-Sun for that one) and her more recent "Dolly" which wouldn't surprise me to get some recognition as well.

You're welcome - glad you liked it - liked both of them, really. I actually wouldn't want the Bronsky to win the Hugo because I still think Hugos ought to be for SF (and Nebulas, too, for that matter) but they're obviously not and it's certainly worthy of winning some kind of award. The WFAs come up in October, apparently.

In other news, I found a (late) review of Dozois' 28th Annual. His matches my notes in the broadest possible outlines but there are a lot of specific differences, even allowing for the fact that he throws out "stars" like candy. Point is, he recommends the book, too, and his specifics may give people things to seek out that mine didn't.

-- Actually, looking back at that post, I have to correct one thing: I said only one crossed the line out of science fiction but that's excluding the four or so alternate history stories. Alternate history stories are ipso facto not SF to me though they can be more or less SF-like. If you want to argue some sort of fundamentalist many-worlds view of physics as being SF then, okay, I guess they can be considered SF but, even so, they rarely are actually science fictional in their own terms but just mainstream fiction internally. (De Bodard is SF within the althist framework but Moles isn't (IIRC), for instance.) Anyway - most people would consider probably every story in the book to be SF.