The Short Story Thread

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Pretty Green Eyes" by E. J. Tett. The author is careful to create two real and sympathetic characters so that we are drawn into their experiences. A completely original menace is created to threaten the protagonists, with a powerful effect on the reader. It all builds to a thrilling conclusion.

"Verity's Weekend" by Joleen Kuyper. The style of this fantasy is quiet and gentle and very sad. The protagonist is someone who has suffered greatly, but still has room in her heart to care for the plight of others. A powerful surprise is in store for the reader at the end of this tale.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Jumbled-up Jack" by Christopher Bean. This subtle and complex tale requires careful reading. We witness events through the troubled and distorted perceptions of a protagonist whose grasp on reality may not be entirely reliable. Add to this a number of extraordinary concepts and we have a nearly surrealistic story with enough depth for a full novel.

"The Long Way Home" by Victoria Silverwolf. I refrain from comment.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Horseshoe" by Gwendolyn Kiste. The author takes us into the emotions of the protagonist with great skill. The reader shares her past, her present, her dreams, and her fate. Through the use of present tense narration, a series of strange experiences leads to a tense climax.

"A Key to Kill For" by D. J. Tyrer. This story adds elements of crime fiction to dark fantasy to result in a highly original creation. The characters are not entirely admirable, but human enough for us to empathize with them. An increasing level of suspense is developed as the characters are drawn deeper and deeper into mysterious circumstances.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Emancipation of Olive Pickbone" by Brooke Warra. The realistic style of this tale of the way in which our pasts come to haunt us is made all the more convincing by dealing with ordinary characters with whom we can identify. A subtle touch of very dark, sardonic humor strengthens the impact of its tragic events. The possibility that history does not have to repeat itself offers a touch of hope at the end.

"Friends Without Faces" by D. G. Jones. This is a hard-hitting story which grabs the reader right away and never lets go. The way in which modern technology forms a major part of the uncanny events in the plot makes it all seem as real as today's headlines. m The author dares to make use of a deeply flawed protagonist, making us feel for his plight even as we deplore his faults.

"Blood is Thicker" by Samanda R. Primeau. In this heartfelt tale of the power of family the reader is treated to many vivid character portraits. The plot begins with mysteries of the past and the present, and builds into a thrilling adventure. The conclusion is unexpectedly heartwarming.

 

[BigBadBob141]

I have just finished reading "The Transition Of Elizabeth Haskings" by Caitlin R Kiernan.
It's in the anthology "New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird" ed by Paula Guran.
It's only seven pages long, very short compared with some of the sagas in this book.
But it is a polished gem of a story which I found quite moving.
I suppose you would class this as a Lovecraftian Horror but it's a quite little tale with no shambling horrors from the outer darkness.
If anybody wants to know why I waste my time reading short stories instead of novels then all I need do is point them to this!

 

[Caliban]

Sector Diamond - Brian Aldiss
Really enjoyed this story concerning a survey team arriving on a planet to find that another human who crashed years ago has lived there all the while taming the native species. The survey team continue their own investigations into the planets past and the history of the three species currently living on the planet. The revelations at the climax of the story are neatly done and the story somehow manages to avoid being a rehash of thousands of other surveyor team stories.

Sight of a Silhouette - Brian Aldiss
This was okay. It concerns an immortal man who having just lost his immortal partner is accosted my a non immortal woman who wants to be his partner. He explains to her what it's like being immortal and leaves her. It's not bad exactly it's just I've seen it so many times before in recent movies and to shows. Not a fault of Aldiss of course who wrote this in the 50s but still.

Carrion Country - Brian Aldiss
Another story looking into discovering the true nature of the native species of a unexplored planet. The physiology and adaptations of the creatures are very interesting and form the heart of the story.

Equator - Brian Aldiss
A bit of a cliched Alien invasion/political intrigue action story. I really didn't enjoy this to be honest but it was definitely full of incident. It's just that I don't think Sci fi does action movie/thriller type stories very well.

Intangibles inc - Brian Aldiss
I really enjoyed this. It's the story of a man who gets duped by a strange man from a company called intangibles inc into keeping two pots in exactly the same place on his table and not moving them until he dies. Interesting non cliched premise done well.

 

[John Thiel III]

I think that's a key difference, FE; as far as I recall, Multivac, which appeared in many of Asimov's stories, wasn't used for communication in the way that the internet is, but you're right, some foreshadowing of the www can certainly be read into Mulivac, for all that it was one centralised computer rather than an interconnecting network of millions.

Computers that became giant intelligences were common in the 50s sf, and there was one story about the net which ended with the whole thing destroying itself and the people in it.

 

[John Thiel III]

I'm reading The Science Fiction Hall of Fame (Vol. 1, 1929-1964)

I've only read 9 of the 26 so far. I'll post a full review when I'm finished, but so far my favourite 3 are:

The Roads Must Roll - Robert A. Heinlein
Microcosmic God - Theodore Sturgeon
Mimsy Were The Borogoves - Lewis Padgett

 

[John Thiel III]

Anent "Mimsy Were the Borogroves", that title always made me suspicious of Lewis Padgett, because he had the same first name as Lewis Carroll, who wrote "Jabberwocky", in which the line appears in which that phrase in the title was used, and he had another title based on a Lewis Carroll verse, "The Voice of the Lobster". A third title, "When the Bough Breaks", may also have come from a poem by Lewis Carroll, "Rock a bye baby, in the tree top". Of course, it turned out Lewis Padgett wasn't his real name, but was rather the pen name of Henry Kuttner, but that made me even more suspicious.

 

[John Thiel III]

I'm fond of "The Anthropic War" by Jay Werkheiser, in the June Analog (maybe most of you have read it), in which there is a war between two, and then several, universes, all of them threatening to obliterate mankind, all this in the space of four pages.

 

[Caliban]

I'll be posting my thoughts on Dead Letters a newly released anthology of original stories edited by Conrad Williams and inspired by lost mail.

 

[Caliban]

The Green Letter - by Steven Hall
Hall has previously written a novel that was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke award but I primarily know him for writing a few Doctor Who audio stories for big finish featuring Sylvester McCoy (I know I'm sad). Anyway this story is written as a report on events regarding identical letters delivered to random people. The letters have options on them and circling each option creates a different outcome. I thought it was a fairly cool concept and it was short enough that I could read it in one sitting. No real characters or plot developments though. Still it has me stoked for the rest of the stories.

 

[Caliban]

Over to You - by Michael Marshall Smith
Set in America, this story features a delivery sent to the wrong address containing a chess piece and a note. This story has more of a plot than the previous one and it explores various forms of addiction and parenting. The speculative aspect isn't really explained but I thought the story worked rather well.

 

[J-Sun]

Got a couple of reviews up at Tangent but am posting to point out "A Partial Inventory of Things I Have Loved" by Michelle Ann King. At 982 words it won't take much time from your day and you might like it.

 

[Caliban]

Ausland - by Alison Moore
I am unfamiliar with the work of Alison Moore but here she tells a slight but interesting story about p childhood friends in Germany who talked of inventing and time machines only to meet up years later to discover that one of them achieved these childhood dreams. Again this is very short and almost a bit of fluff but I liked it.

 

[Caliban]

Wonders to Come - by Christopher Fowler
Again I'd never heard of this author. Chris Fowler delivers a slightly longer story about Roy who is wondering why the hotel he has been part of building is not meeting carefully managed deadlines. It turns into a bit of a generic alien invasion story but the alien creature thing is very innovative in its conception. Poor Roy by the end he's just had one of those days where he started off worried he was going to lose his job and then quickly realised that was the least of his worries.

 

[John Thiel III]

I read a book that was just like what you described, FINITY by John Barnes. The fellow was worried about his job and ended up being tossed around through the multiverse. Not a short story, though. Where was "Wonders to Come" printed? It has an interesting title.

 

[Caliban]

I read a book that was just like what you described, FINITY by John Barnes. The fellow was worried about his job and ended up being tossed around through the multiverse. Not a short story, though. Where was "Wonders to Come" printed? It has an interesting title.

The past few short fiction reviews I've been doing are from a new original anthology entitled Dead Letters edited by Conrad Williams. The theme is missing undelivered mail and from the dead letters office. Wonders to Come is only loosely tied to this theme though. Some of the more famous contributors to the anthology are Ramsey Cambell, China Mieville and Pat Cadigan.

 

[Caliban]

Cancer Dancer - by Pat Cadigan
I've bviously heard of the queen of the cyberpunk Pat Cadigan before but I'm ashamed to say that until now I'd never read any of her work. The story follows a woman who comes across a card in the mail that allows her to enter the eternity club and the card seems to be valuable as there are others eager to get it off her. This story is a pretty cool exploration of cancer and alternate realities. I get the feeling that it could have been a big longer though it was a good plot that was crammed into the short story format when it should have been allowed a longer form to breathe more. I do want to read more of Cadigans work however.

 

[J-Sun]

Last I heard, she was fighting that herself, for real. So project good thoughts and all. I understand the prognosis was good and hopefully that's come through.

It's not available yet, but I read Humanity 2.0 and particularly liked Caroline M. Yoachim's "The Right Place to Start a Family" and also "E^H" (the H is supposed to be superscripted) by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro and "An Endless Series of Doors" by David Walton of the originals. Of the reprints, as I mentioned in the thing, I love practically all early short Varley and "Picnic on Nearside" is no exception. The others are all pretty good to very good, too. Perhaps the most interesting of the rest is Silverberg's "The Iron Star", which teeters between being very clever and good on the one hand, and appalling on the other, depending on how you look at it. I think Silverberg meant it to be unambiguous but it's certainly not. Anybody else read that one?