The Short Story Thread

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"In Entropy's Jaws" by Robert Silverberg -- A man experiences images of both the past and the future. That's a very simple description of a dense, complex story, beautifully written. The author at the peak of his talent, and the gem of the anthology.

"Reunion" by Arthur C. Clarke -- Brief, ironic tale of the aliens who are humanity's remote ancestors, and the small mistake they have come to correct. A bagatelle, but nicely done.

And that's the end of that anthology.

 

[Caliban]

Sandition - by Helen Marshall
A fairly innovative story concerning a woman
who finds the text of a lost Jane Austen novel under her
skin. (8/10)

George Clooney's Moustache- by Robert Shearman
I don't think there was really a speculative element here
but it looks at a woman held hostage who develops
Stockholm syndrome until the tables are turned and
she takes charge. (7/10)

A Texture Like Velvet - by Helen Marshall
Written in the form of a letter detailing a terrifying discovery.
What if books were made out of human skin? (4/10)

Damned if you Don't- by Robert Shearman
A man finds himself in hell, if that wasn't bad enough he's sharing a
cell with Hitler's dog. (7/10)

The Old and the New - by Helen Marshall
Becca and her perfect partner visit Paris together, where they meet the
ghost of his dead in the catacombs. (6/10)

So Proud- by Robert Shearman
A not so happy couple manage to conceive and some
nice new furniture for their house. (5/10)

Roadkill - by Robert Shearman
The speculative element concerning winged rabbits
takes a backseat to the story of a weekend affair.
This was done very well if you like that sort of thing. (6/10)

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Up next:

"Encased in Ancient Rind" by R. A. Lafferty -- As expected from this author, this is an eccentric, soberly whimsical tale in which the Earth is covered by a canopy of warm grey clouds of pollution, leading to the reemergence of ancient life forms and the extension of the human lifespan to many centuries. Besides the weirdness, there seems to be a certain degree of religious allegory. Unique.

"Home Again, Home Again" by Gordon Eklund -- A veteran of an interstellar war returns to Earth. Chaos ensues. Written in a rather affected style. Seems more intended as dark satire than realism.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Dog in a Fisherman's Net" by Samuel R. Delany -- On a Greek island, a fisherman is trapped and killed when a dog gets tangled up in a net. The story mostly deals with his brother's reaction. Full of local color, beautifully written, with just a touch of possible fantasy content in the fact that there are still hints of goddess worship on the island.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Zanzibar Cat" by Joanna Russ -- Whimsical fantasy relating the adventures of a young woman and an evil Duke. The story eventually winds up folding into itself. Subtitled "hommage a Hope Merrilees*"; presumably it takes its affected style from Lud-in-the-Mist by that author, which I have not read.

*(The correct spelling of her name is actually "Merrlees." I assume this is an error, and not a subtle joke.)

"Field" by James Sallis -- Pure surrealism made up of various forms of narration, lists, and so on. If it's about anything, it appears to be about divorce.

"Vanishing Points" by Sonya Dorman -- Two-part poem with interesting images, if not much decipherable meaning.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Where Have You Been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?" by Kate Wilhelm -- Jumps back and forth in time, and apparently different realities, from the childhood of the protagonist to adulthood. Mostly a series of dystopian near futures.

"Brave Salt" by Richard Hill -- Satiric account of rock bands, political revolutions in the Caribbean, and other stuff. Very much of its time, and not very funny or enlightening.

"Nature Boy" by Josephine Saxton -- Psychological study of a child-like adult man who imagines the forest to be full of supernatural beings, and his encounter with a little girl. Effective and chilling, if not exactly speculative fiction.

 

[dask]

Up next:

Another great cover.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Another great cover.

The art actually continues on the back cover, to make one big image:

"Balls: A Meditation at the Graveside" by Virginia Kidd -- Satiric story about a Hollywood screenwriter, obsessed with Mickey Mouse and other Disney stuff, who receives messages in various forms from a mysterious source. I'm not quite sure what the point might be, but it reads amusingly.

"Ring of Pain" by M. John Harrison -- Written in a difficult style, this is the story of the last survivor (or so he thinks) of some sort of disaster, and what happens when he meets another. A dark, dense, and depressing tale, but worth the effort.

"To the Child Whose Birth Will Change the Way the Universe Works" by George Stanley -- Subtitled "after the Fourth Ecologue of Virgil." Since I'm not familiar with that, I can't really judge it. Seems to be a poem praising the birth of a baby in extravagant terms.

"A Sexual Song" by Tom Veitch -- More pure surrealism. Seems to be an encounter between two characters. Weird things happen.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Twenty-Four Letters from Underneath the Earth" by Hilary Bailey -- Two people living in separate areas of an underground complex communicate with each other through a forgotten letter-transporting system. An effective portrait of daily life during an apocalypse.

"The Coded Sun Game" by Brian Vickers -- More surrealism, this one with lots of typographic tricks and changes of point of view. Hard to put up with this at novella length. Towards the end it gets somewhat more lucid, and it seems to be something like the experiences of an autistic character with eidetic memory, visions of past and future, and a sun obsession. Psychedelic, with lots of 1960's references.

And that's the end of that anthology. Very heavy on the experimental/"New Wave" side, but with stories ranging from nearly mainstream to genuine science fiction and fantasy.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Starting on this anthology:

The Big Names on the cover (the first two columns) supply essays related to the Clarion SF writing workshop experience. I won't review these.

"What About Us Grils?" by Mel Gilden -- Farce about an alien with multiple sexes and very complicated biology trying to find the mates it needs. Pretty silly stuff.

"Only at Night" by Vonda McIntyre -- Narrated by a nurse who works the night shift caring for a ward full of severely deformed, seemingly mindless children. Deals with the secret things that happen at night. Powerful, emotional story.

"The Soft Blue Bunny Rabbit Story" by Ed Bryant -- Very much of its time, this story relates what happens when psychoactive drugs are used on student protesters. Intense.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Wheels" by Robert Thurston -- Takes place in a near future where illegal drivers race around on the expressways, playing cat-and-mouse games with the police. Seems like the work of a more mature writer than most of the stories in this anthology. Ambiguous, thoughtful ending.

"Trouble Follows" by Geo. Alec Effinger -- A college student encounters a strange old man. You'll figure out who the old guy is pretty quickly, but the rather obnoxious narrator is nicely created.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Just Dead Enough" by C. David Belcher (published as "The Price" in Orbit 5, 1969) -- Realistic story of the legal implications of organ transplants. I'm not sure this would be considered speculative fiction even in 1969, but it's a good mainstream-style story.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Sending the Very Best" by Ed Bryant (published in New Worlds, January 1970) -- Brief, surreal tale of somebody buying a "greeting card" which creates what we would now call virtual reality. Pretty much prose poetry.

"A Free Pass to the Carnival" by Geo. Alec Effinger (published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1971) -- Aliens with three sexes take a tour of New York City. Can be read as an allegory of the tension between different social classes.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"The Beholder's Eye" by Amy Hutton -- Brief tale of what seems to be reality contrasted with idealized fantasy. Evocative, at least.

"Chains" by Dave Skal -- After the breakdown of society in the USA, a traveling medic encounters a faith healer. Grim and realistic.

"Anaconda" by Robert Thurston -- Seems to be a man experiencing various times in his life all at once, from a fight for survival on an island in the Pacific during WWII to his possible murder and funeral. Could be read just as his imaginings.

"Crossover" by Octavia Estelle Butler -- A woman has to deal with the return of her lover from jail. Would be straight mainstream but for subtle hints that he's a ghost (or just her memories.)

"Norman: Friends and Other Strangers" by Lynnda Stevenson -- A day in the life of a woman and her lover. Might be post-apocalyptic (they spend a lot of time cutting the edges off pennies to use them as dimes in vending machines) but otherwise mainstream

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Silent Hands" by Gerard F. Conway -- A man who serves as the "Hand" for a woman who serves as the "Eye" work together to create art. Mostly about their complex relationship. Pretty good character-driven SF.

"An Uneven Evening" by Steve Herbst -- A guy goes out with his buddies, and they take him out for a sporting activity he's never heard of before, but which everybody else takes for granted. Interesting bit of reality bending.

"The Inspector" by Evelyn Lief -- Brief tale of a woman who goes to a shop after what seems to be some kind of apocalypse, mixed with her memories of her lover, and a meeting with the title character. Rather opaque.

"The Last Desperate Hour" by Robert Thurston -- Takes the idea of a crook holding a family hostage in their house (as in the movie The Desperate Hours) to an absurd extreme, as this goes on for several years. Fairly amusing.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"'The Westfield Heights Mall Monster'" by Geo. Alec Effinger -- Yes, that's a double set of quotation marks; one set is in the original title. This story is about a guy in a movie theater in what seems to be a hedonistic future -- you can buy cocaine in a vending machine -- who watches a movie about a blob-like monster taking over a suburban mall. Could be see as an allegory of cultural changes of the time.

"Song from a Forgotten Hill" by Glen Cook -- Set in a grim future of all-out race war in the USA, with slavery back. Powerful stuff.

"The Secret" by Maggie Nadler -- Set in a near future USA where it's illegal to have more than two children. A very dark story.

"The Bandemar" by Joe Wehrle, Jr. -- Kind of silly little fantasy about a fey young woman in a sort of fairyland setting and the weird creature she encounters. Not much to it.

And that's the end of that anthology.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Starting reviews from the next volume in the series (and skipping the essays by all the folks listed on the left column of names.)

"Punchline" by Robert Thurston (published as "Stop Me Before I Tell More" in Orbit 9, 1971) -- Takes the structure of a travelling salesman joke and transforms it into a vaguely disturbing, unresolved story. Interesting.

"Magic Passes" by Steve Herbst -- Told from the point of view of a young boy whose youthful-appearing mother leaves him alone much of the time, under the care of a strange character. Has the feel of fantasy, but it's science fiction.

"In the Greenhouse" by Lin Nielsen -- Slightly comic, slightly serious tale of a botanist who wires up a plant to talk and his encounter with a strange, not quite human creature. Offbeat.

"Early to Bed" by Geo. Alec Effinger -- Realistically told story with a surreal concept. A man is sentenced to never leave his bed, even though that means he'll die there, for an unspecified crime. Compelling.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Here, There, and Everywhere" by F. M. Busby -- Depicts an encounter with a human being through the viewpoint of an alien. Convincingly done.

"The Hanged Man" by Ed Bryant -- Gruesome little account of a conversation between a man hanging upside down and the man who put him there. Seems to happen twice in two different settings.

"Winter Housekeeping" by Molly Daniel -- An elderly woman replaces things in her home in an attempt to stay done. Pretty effective.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

"Frozen Assets" by Robert Wissner -- Darkly ironic tale of two men who stand guard over cryogenically suspended bodies, and how one transforms them into art.

"Crayola" by Dave Skal -- Weird little story of a guy in a completely white hospital room -- even the nurse is an albino -- and what happens when he finds some crayons.

 

[Caliban]

No Ghosts in London - by Helen Marshall
A story concerning a woman who - sick of the ghosts plaguing her house
leaves her English ancestral country home to see London and other
parts of the world for herself. (7/10)

Clown Envy - by Robert Shearman
A very short story about a guy who tries to impress
his family by becoming a clone like all the parents in
his sons class. (8/10)

Pieces of Broken Things - by Helen Marshall
After 12 years of marriage Davids wife leaves him.
How does he cope? By burying all her possessions of course.
(4/10)

Elementary Problems of Photography Number Three: An Analysis and Proffered Solution
by Robert Shearman
An Eccentric academic attempts to solve the problem
of cats not appearing in photographs. This story seems is historical and
very fun and unique. (7/10)

The Mouth Open - by Helen Marshall
In this one a guy goes with his sister to Croatia to
Meet her new family. But things get super trippy
Super quickly. (6/10)

Good Grief - by Robert Shearman
A widower attempting to adjust after his wife dies in a car
crash meets the widower of the woman drink driving in the other car.
All the while coping with the apparition of his late wife appearing on
his face. Really liked this one (8/10)

Lines of Affection- by Helen Marshall
A girl is not impressed with her parents new
partners. I couldn't tell if they were meant to be
child abusers or the same being and some
Sort of shapeshifter. (5/10)

Custard Cream - by Robert Shearman
A story about spiders with a background story of a relationship
breakup. I feel like I've read the background story before even in these two
collections I'm currently reading and the spider story was a bit one note.
(4/10)