The Short Story Thread

"Apostle to Alpha" by Betty T. Balke (The Episcopalian, January 1966) -- As you might expect from a story printed in a publication other than an SF magazine, the science part isn't very convincing. There's a planet "Alpha" that can be reached pretty easily from Earth using ordinary rockets. Anyway, this is -- again! -- about a preacher sent to evangelize the aliens, and why it isn't necessary.

"God of the Playback" by Stephen Dentinger (original to this anthology) -- Takes place in a future where all prayer is done by automated machines, so the spirit of religion is lost. Has a sudden, not terribly plausible ending.

"Robot Son" by Robert F. Young (Fantastic Universe, September 1959) -- In the distant future, the "god" in charge of the technology that makes the Earth an eternal pleasant summer suddenly brings back winter, and creates a "son" who demands repentance and worship. Not bad, but the epilogue lays the religious allegory on a little thick.

"That Evening Sun Go Down" by Arthur Sellings (New Worlds, September 1966) -- Starts off with a couple of pages of extremely hard to read, almost Joycean text ("Against all the blue of that rotate I hivelong, sick for three sun, not this moty yellow but so bright soulshadow of one.") Then we find out we're reading an "ancient" text in the far future, and that the humans of that time incorrectly think that they're the descendants of the aliens that came to Earth after human civilization fell. An interesting tale with a touch of New Wave to it.

"The Wolfram Hunters" by Edward D. Hoch (The Saint Mystery Magazine, March 1964) -- Despite appearing in a mystery publication, and having a murder plot, this is a true SF story. After an atomic war, a small number of Apaches seem to be the only survivors. They have forced their one priest into exile, and punish crime with crucifixion.
 
Reviews from this collection of original stories (1975).

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"Find the Lady" by Nicholas Fisk. Aliens in rather "War of the Worlds" style machines wipe out humanity (apparently) except for a few folks in an English town, who survive by providing the invaders with antiques to amuse them. The story is done as black comedy. I found it unpleasant because the two main characters are outrageously stereotypical effeminate gay men whose dialogue is full of things like "Oh dearie me, I'll die!"

"A Solfy Drink, a Saffel Fagrance" by Dorothy Gilbert. Electronic signals from outer space are translated, revealing alien poetry of a sorts. The translation process isn't described -- the author just waves a magic wand and calls it "the Amissy code" -- and presenting excerpts of the half-translated poems (hence the imaginary words in the title) seems to be the only point of the story.

"A Scarab in the City of Time" by Marta Randall. The background for this story is rather complex. In the far future, people who left a dying Earth return to find the few remaining folks on the planet living in a domed city, cut off from what they think is an unlivable world. The narrator managed to tunnel her way into the city to study its inhabitants, and can't get out. The story actually begins with the narrator acting as a sort of prankster, leaving graffiti everywhere and messing with the city's environmental controls in an attempt to get the inhabitants (and herself) outside, where it is now safe to live. Written in a very fast-paced, feverish, present tense style.

"Theodora and Theodora" by Robert Thurston. Odd, rather surreal tale in which two very similar women with two very similar husbands and two very similar young daughters (each pair has the same name) both acquire very similar lovers while on vacation in Italy, both of whom meet very similar fates. I'm not sure if there's anything to it other than the pervasive theme of doubling.
 
"A Day in the South Quad" by Felix C. Gotschalk. Pyrotechnic account of life in a super-technological future full of people with radically changed bodies. Written in the author's typical eccentric, jargon-ridden style. (An early sex scene begins with "She wove a complex pattern of friction vectors into the coitional matrix.") Full of imaginative concepts, if no real plot.

"Rogue Tomato" by Michael Bishop. The fact that the hero of this whimsical tale is named "Philip K." will clue you into its literary predecessors. Anyway, he turns into a planet-sized tomato orbiting a distant star, and has a religious/mystical experience while being devoured yet regenerated by swarms of giant space insects. Manages to be silly and metaphysical at the same time.

"The Mother's March on Ecstasy" by George Alec Effinger. Satiric black comedy in which a mad scientist (who even has a hunchbacked assistant) tries to eliminate a plague of happiness that has folks dancing in the streets. Beneath all the jokes it seems to be an examination of Apollo and Dionysus (or possible Hippies and Squares.)

"The Local Allosaurus" by Steven Utley. Brief poem in which the narrator describes the title creature talking about the Good Old Days.
 
I recently came across an absolutely fascinating short story in David Hartwell's marvelous 'The World Treasury of Science Fiction', called 'The Valley of Echoes' by Gerard Klein. It's one of the most haunting science fiction short stories I've ever read, about an exploration team on Mars that comes across sounds implying the presence of an entire burgeoning civilization in one of its valleys.
 
"Achievements" by David Wise. A series of short, mostly comic paragraphs about various kinds of human inventions and discoveries. Seems to be trying for an impressionistic effect. (One paragraph is just the word "Millions.")

"The Dybbuk Dolls" by Jack Dann. A very dense, complex background, along with a great deal of Yiddish terms and concepts from Judaism, make this a difficult but compelling story. The protagonist finds himself possessed by strange, seemingly alien artifacts and/or beings that are sold (for unclear reasons) in porno shops (which, again for unclear reasons, are one of the few types of businesses that Jews are allowed to run in this strange, high-tech, overpopulated New York City.)

"The Mirror at Sunset" by Gil Lamont. I had to reread this brief story to realize that the narrator is a clothing store mannequin. He observes a woman and a man in the store after hours who are, in some sense, reflections of each other in a store mirror. An odd, rather overwritten story.

"Report to Headquarters" By Barry N. Malzberg. Bitter, sardonic comedy in which the narrator supplies a dictionary of non-human terms, through which he reveals his terror and rage about being stranded on an alien world. Funny and disturbing.
 
"Museum Piece" by Drew Mendelson. Rather poetic description of a museum which contains all manner of exhibits from many possible versions of Earth two million years in the future. Creates a stately, elegiac mood.

"White Creatures" by Gregory Benford. A man lies on a tablet, apparently being experimented on by vague alien beings. During the procedure he thinks back on his life, working on a project to detect signals from extraterrestrials and his affair with the wife of the project's director. Contains a subplot very similar to the author's story of a couple of years later, "Knowing Her."

"The Contributors to Plenum Four" by Michael Bishop. Spoof of the little author biographies you find in anthologies (like New Dimensions), but in this case universes are being created instead of stories. An amusing in-joke.

"Sail the Tide of Mourning" by Richard A. Lupoff. In the far future, descendants of Australian Aborigines sail starships across the void. This is the story of one such starsailor, who must face eternal exile from his vessel because he was forced to kill a passenger during an attempted mutiny. Rather romantic and mythic.
 
Moving along to stories from this anthology (2003, with Kathryn Cramer credited inside the book as co-editor):

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"In Paradise" by Bruce Sterling (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 2002) -- Set in the very near future, this manages to be both a light romantic comedy and a biting satire on the American passion for security after 9/11. An American man and a Iranian woman fall in love at first sight and elope, even though neither one can speak a word of the other's language. (They use cell phones that can easily translate between Farsi and English to communicate.) Then Homeland Security gets involved. It all adds up to a rather sweet ending.
 
Victoria Silverwolf said:
"In Paradise" by Bruce Sterling (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 2002) -- Set in the very near future, this manages to be both a light romantic comedy and a biting satire on the American passion for security after 9/11. An American man and a Iranian woman fall in love at first sight and elope, even though neither one can speak a word of the other's language. (They use cell phones that can easily translate between Farsi and English to communicate.) Then Homeland Security gets involved. It all adds up to a rather sweet ending.
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I read that in Sterling's Visionary in Residence collection. (I have the Hartwell, too, but haven't read it.) That's the only collection of his first four that isn't near-solid gold but I did list that one as my second favorite of the collection (after "The Code") and called it a "love is all you need" story.
 
"Slow Life" by Michael Swanwick (Analog, December 2002) -- Three astronauts on Titan investigate the strange, complex chemistry of the moon's "ocean" -- could there be life? Meanwhile, one of them gets stuck in the harness of the balloon carrying her around, apparently dooming her to die. A good, solid, hard SF story. There's some nifty worldbuilding, interesting technology (I particularly liked the robot "fish" that explores the "ocean"), a bit of satire of the Internet age as the astronauts have to put up with the often inane comments and questions from those following their videocasts on Earth, and a nice tribute to Hal Clement.

"Knapsack Poems" by Eleanor Arnason (Asimov's, May 2002) -- All the characters in this story are aliens who form gestalt personalities from multiple bodies, which can be male, female, or neuter. Other than that, this is a pretty typical "wandering bard" fantasy, with ghosts, a wizard, and an evil aristocrat. It reads like something from an alien fantasy magazine. I'm not sure it was a good idea to have footnotes.

"At Dorado" by Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov's, October/November 2002) -- Set in the far future at a station which serves the ships that travel through space and time through wormholes, this story relates what happens when a wrecked ship comes through the wormhole. An imaginative story, with a subtle ending.
 
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"Coelacanths" by Robert Reed (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 2002) -- Alternates sections about a "speaker" (a man who is addressing an unseen audience about the way in which humanity has transformed itself into countless different forms throughout the universe) and intertwining sections about several of those forms. A complex, difficult story, with the "humans" altered in such extreme ways -- some submicroscopic bits of energy, some not even in the same dimension -- that it's hard to figure out what's going on. Certainly a remarkable feat of the imagination.

"Flight Correction" by Ken Wharton (Analog, March 2002) -- A change in the migration patterns of birds provides a clue that something is wrong with a space elevator based in the Galapagos. In addition to this high-tech puzzle plot, there's a very human story dealing with marriage and family.

"Shoes" by Robert Sheckley (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 2002) -- The great master of satiric SF proves that he could do the same thing in the 21st century with this yarn about a guy who buys a used pair of "smart" shoes at a Goodwill store, which turn out to be equipped with an AI that just wants to "help" him. Sharp and funny.

"The Diamond Drill" by Charles Sheffield (Analog, April 2002) -- Very brief story about a scheme to smuggle illegal diamonds from another world past the machine that inspects them. Somewhat clever, but a very minor piece.

"The Seasons of the Ansarac" by Ursula K. LeGuin (webzine [i[Infinite Matrix[/i], June 3, 2002) -- One of a series of stories about visits to other "planes" (parallel worlds, it seems.) In this one the bird-like inhabitants have a lifestyle of migration inspired (as the author notes) by that of ospreys. An elegantly written story.

"A Few Kind Words for A. E. van Vogt" by Richard Chwedyk (Tales of the Unanticipated, May 2002) -- Short poem paying tribute to the author in the title, mostly describing his winning of the Grand Master award from the SFWA while he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
 
"Halo" by Charles Stross (Asimov's, June 2002) -- Extremely dense, concept-rich story which is probably better understood by those familiar with the other stories in its series. Anyway, the complicated plot involves a teenage girl, her brain super-enhanced by high-tech, who escapes from her control freak of a mother through an intricate legal scheme devised by her father and his new wife. The plot involves selling her into slavery to a corporation which will be controlled by herself when she's of age. Meanwhile, she sets out to the rings of Jupiter with a bunch of other youngsters in a vessel controlled by the mind of a dead industrialist which is shared by a bunch of folks in a sort of group possession. There's also a Muslim judge in orbit around Jupiter who becomes involved in the story when the girl's mother converts to Islam in order to invoke shari'ah law to get her daughter back. Did I mention the superintelligent talking cat, or the Bose-Einstein 3D duplicators, or the off-stage aliens, all of which play an important part in the story? As you can see, a lot of stuff goes on in this novelette. It's rather dizzying.
 
"I Saw the Light" by Terry Bisson (website SciFiction.com, October 2, 2002) -- A flashing light visible from Earth appears on the Moon, bringing astronauts back for the first time in years to investigate it. The story can be seen as a tribute to or pastiche to Arthur C. Clarke's story "The Sentinal" (inspiration for 2001: A Space Odyssey) but it goes in an original, unexpected, bittersweet way. A very moving story, with a special meaning for pet lovers.

"A Slow Day at the Gallery" by A. M. Dellamonica (Asimov's, October/November 2002) -- An elderly man is guided by a young alien through an alien art gallery, which happens to hold some of Earth's great treasures as well as the most important alien artwork. Starts off as a gentle, sedate story, but quickly becomes something very different, and ends quite sadly. The aliens are very richly imagined.
 
Abominable, by Carol Emshwiller. As dense as Poor Little Warrior! by Aldiss or Day Million by Pohl, or The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Le Guin. I call these kind of stories the microcosmic gods.
 
"Ailoura" by Paul Di Filippo (Once Upon a Galaxy, 2002) -- From an anthology of SF stories inspired by fairy tales. This one takes its pattern from "Puss in Boats." In the far future, a young man is framed for the "murder" of his father (actually, for failing to ensure his reincarnation) and loses his inheritance. He gets his revenge with the help of a loyal servant, a humanoid with cat genes. Reads like Dune mixed with Cordwainer Smith.

"The Names of All the Spirits" by J. R. Dunn (website SciFiction.com, July 24, 2002) -- Deep in the Solar System, an investigator tracks down an astronaut who may have encountered a rogue AI. Depicts a realistic outer space frontier, with the people working out there as rough but decent types.

"Grandma" by Carol Emshwiller (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 2002) -- The fine author noted by Alex Sharkey above spins a satiric yarn about a Wonder Woman type superhero, now in extreme old age, and her less than superhuman granddaughter. A brief, wry tale.

"Snow in the Desert" by Neal Asher (Spectrum Sf #8, May 2002) -- A lone gunslinger wanders the desert, avoiding those who are after him, and killing them when he can't get away from them. I've deliberately left out the SF elements to point out that this is a pure space western. Vividly written, with plenty of sex and violence if you care for this sort of thing.
 
"Singleton" by Greg Egan (Interzone, February 2002) -- A couple raises an artificial intelligence as their own child. What stands out about this version of a theme which has been used before are Egan's sophisticated handling of very advanced scientific and philosophical concepts, and his ability to tell a story about fully realized characters.
 
"Geropods" by Robert Onopa (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 2002) -- Comedy in which a group of elderly folks with various disabilities have the legal right to form a sort a group individual (strictly a legal fiction) as long as they compensate for each other's lacks. A bit silly at times, but with some satire on the treatment of the aging and disabled.

"Afterlife" by Jack Williamson (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 2002) -- In his nineties, and more than seventy years after starting his writing career, the old pro offers a tale of a fellow who crash lands on a backwards human colony planet, and who seems to offer the gift of immortality. A bit old-fashioned, as you might expect, but a good story which reminded me of Clifford Simak.
 
"Shields of Mars" by Gene Wolfe (Mars Probes, 2002) -- Long after Mars has been settled by both humans and aliens from another star system, one human and one alien are left alone at a "ghost town" after it has been abandoned, now that travel to other stars is much easier. Despite the SF trappings, it's really about friendship and imagination.

"Patent Impingement" by Nancy Kress (Asimov's, May 2002) -- Brief satiric story of a guy whose genetic material was used to create a cure for a certain strain of flu. He tries to get the drug company to pay him for it. If you know how drug companies act, you may not be surprised to find out this doesn't work out well for him. A funny story with a sting.

"Lost Sorceress of the Silent Citadel" by Michael Moorcock (Mars Probes, 2002) -- A deliberate pastiche of old-fashioned science fantasy, particularly the works of Leigh Brackett (although you'll catch references to Edgar Rice Burroughs and even Raymond Chandler as well.) Lush swashbuckling adventure on a Mars that never was.
 
And now for something completely different:

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"So Help Me" by Nelson Algren (1933) -- A somewhat naive young man gets mixed up with two unscrupulous fellows as he wanders Depression America, with tragic results. Supposedly based on events in the author's own life (although without the completely tragic outcome.) A solid story about that dark period in history, although I could have done without the narrator's dialect (he's one of the two bad guys.)

"The War in the Bathroom" by Margaret Atwood (1964) -- Details an elderly woman's struggles and small triumphs in her new boarding house. The narration is unusual, in that the woman is called "she" by a narrator (who calls herself "I") who seems to be the same person. Possibly they are meant to represent body and mind. A sophisticated story for a new author.

"Previous Condition" by James Baldwin (1948) -- An African-American actor struggles with racism. Not an unexpected theme from a black American writer in the 1940's, but with good depth of character. Notable is the character's close and complex friendships with a white man and a white woman, and for the fact that he feels at home neither in the white world or the black world.
 
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