As this book has been chosen as a "Group Read" at the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction FaceBook Group, I'll be adding synopses here as the book progresses. Overviews of the following stories are below:
“The Star” (1897, H.G. Wells)
"Sultana's Dream" (1905, Rokheya Shekhawat Hossain)
"The Triumph of Mechanics" (1907, Karl Hans Strobl)
“The New Overworld”, from the collection Astrale Novelletten (1911, Paul Scheerbart)
“Elements of Pataphysics”, from Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician (1911, Alfred Jarry)
“Mechanopolis” (1913, Miguel de Unamuno)
“The Doom of Principal City” (1918, Yefim Zozulya)
“The Comet” from Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1920, W. E. B. Du Bois)
“The Fate of the Poseidonia” (1927, Clare Winger Harris)
“The Star Stealers” (1929/1965, Edmond Hamilton)
“The Conquest of Gola” (1931, Leslie F. Stone)
“A Martian Odyssey” (1934, Stanley G. Weinbaum)
“The Last Poet and the Robots” (Chapter 11 of the Cosmos group serial, 1934, A. Merritt)
“The Microscopic Giants” (1936, Paul Ernst)
“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (1940, Jorge Luis Borges)
“Desertion” (1944, Clifford D. Simak)
“The Martian” (or "Impossible", later part of The Martian Chronicles) (1949/51, Ray Bradbury)
“Baby HP” (1952, Juan José Arreola)
“Surface Tension” (1952, James Blish)
“Beyond Lies the Wub” (1952, Philip K. Dick)
“The Snowball Effect” (1952, Katherine MacLean)
“Prott” (1953, Margaret St. Clair)
“The Liberation of Earth” (1953, William Tenn)
“Let Me Live in a House” (1954, Chad Oliver)
“The Star” (1955, Arthur C. Clarke)
“Grandpa” (1955, James H. Schmitz)
“The Game of Rat and Dragon” (1955, Cordwainer Smith)
“The Last Question” (1956, Isaac Asimov)
“Stranger Station” (1956, Damon Knight)
“Sector General” (1957, James White)
“The Visitors” (1958, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky)
“Pelt” (1958, Carol Emshwiller)
“The Monster” (1958/65, Gérard Klein)
“The Man Who Lost the Sea” (1959, Theodore Sturgeon)
“The Waves” (1959, Silvina Ocampo)
“Plenitude” (1959, Will Mohler)
“The Voices of Time” (1960, J. G. Ballard)
“The Astronaut” (1960, Valentina Zhuravlyova)
“The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink” (1962, Adolfo Bioy Casares)
“2 B R 0 2 B” (1962, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)“A Modest Genius” (1963, Vadim Shefner)
“Day of Wrath” (1965, Sever Gansovsky)
“The Hands” (1965, John Baxter)
“Darkness” (1972, André Carneiro)
“Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman” (1965, Harlan Ellison)
“Nine Hundred Grandmothers” (1966, R. A. Lafferty)
“Day Million” (1966, Frederik Pohl)
“Student Body” (1953, F. L. Wallace)
“Aye, and Gomorrah” (1967/70, Samuel R. Delany)
“The Hall of Machines” (1968, Langdon Jones)
“Soft Clocks” (1968/89, Yoshio Aramaki)
Three from "Moderan" (David R. Bunch):“No Cracks or Sagging” (1970)
“New Kings Are Not for Laughing” (1971)
“The Flesh Man from Far Wide” (1959)“Let Us Save the Universe (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy)” (1964, Stanisław Lem)
“Vaster Than Empires and More Slow” (1971, Ursula K. Le Guin)
“Good News from the Vatican” (1971, Robert Silverberg)
“When It Changed” (1972, Joanna Russ)
“And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side” (1972, James Tiptree, Jr.)
“Where Two Paths Cross” (1973, Dmitri Bilenkin)“Standing Woman” (1974, Yasutaka Tsutsui)“The IWM 1000” (1975, Alicia Yánez Cossío)
“The House of Compassionate Sharers” (1977, Michael Bishop)
“Sporting with the Chid” (1979, Barrington J. Bayley)
“Sandkings” (1979, George R. R. Martin)
“Wives” (1979, Lisa Tuttle)
“The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky” (1981, Josephine Saxton)
“Reiko's Universe Box” (1981, Kajio Shinji)
“Swarm” (1982, Bruce Sterling)
“Mondocane” (1983, Jacques Barbéri)
“Blood Music” (1983, Greg Bear)
“Bloodchild” (1984, Octavia E. Butler )
“Variation on a Man” (1984, Pat Cadigan)
“Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead” (1984, Sharon N. Farber, as S. N. Dyer)
“New Rose Hotel” (1984, William Gibson)
“Pots” (1985, C. J. Cherryh)
“Snow” (1985, John Crowley)
“The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things” (1985, Karen Joy Fowler)
“The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets” (1991, Angélica Gorodischer)
“The Owl of Bear Island” (1986, Jon Bing)
“Readers of the Lost Art” (1987, Elisabeth Vonarburg)
“A Gift from the Culture” (1987, Iain M. Banks)
“Paranamanco” (1988, Jean-Claude Dunyach)
“Crying in the Rain” (1987, Tanith Lee)
“The Frozen Cardinal” (1985, Michael Moorcock)
Synopses:“Rachel in Love” (1987, Pat Murphy)
“Sharing Air” (1984, Manjula Padmanabhan)
“Schwarzschild Radius” (1987, Connie Willis)
“All the Hues of Hell” (1987, Gene Wolfe)
“Vacuum States” (1988, Geoffrey A. Landis)
“Two Small Birds” (1988, Han Song)
“Burning Sky” (1989, Rachel Pollack)
“Before I Wake” (1989, Kim Stanley Robinson)
“Death Is Static Death Is Movement” (from Red Spider White Web) (1990, Misha Nogha)
“The Brains of Rats” (1986, Michael Blumlein)
“Gorgonoids” (from Mathematical Creatures or Shared Dreams) (1992, Leena Krohn)
“Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ” (1992, Kojo Laing)
“The Universe of Things” (1993, Gwyneth Jones)
“The Remoras” (1994, Robert Reed)
“The Ghost Standard” (1994, William Tenn)
“Remnants of the Virago Crypto-System” (1995, Geoffrey Maloney)
“How Alex Became a Machine” (1997, Stepan Chapman)
“The Poetry Cloud” (1997, Cixin Liu)
“Story of Your Life” (1998, Ted Chiang)
“Craphound” (1998, Cory Doctorow)
The Slynx (excerpt) (2000, Tatyana Tolstaya)
“Baby Doll” (2002, Johanna Sinisalo)
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| Amazing Stories, June 1926 |
“The Star” (1897, H.G. Wells)
A giant, glowing object approaches the solar system and collides with Neptune. Humanity is fascinated by the spectacle but one mathematician calculates that it will cause the end of the world. The object seems to be headed only for Jupiter, but Jupiter’s gravity well causes it to change trajectory towards Earth. It nearly misses the Earth, but its approach causes massive tidal waves and earthquakes. Oblivious to the great loss of life on Earth, aliens on Mars observe the episode and remark that the Earth has been mostly spared, since the continents have not changed much in their shape.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
Sultana is an Indian woman who lives in a society where men dominate and all women are veiled and kept in seclusion, with their only responsibilities being knitting and cooking. One night, Sultana has a dream in which she is transported to "Ladyland", a utopian city where women rule and men are instead kept in seclusion. At one point in the past, female scientists had developed advanced technology allowing them to manipulate solar energy and control the weather, and using this had defeated an invading army while the men had been either killed in battle or hid in barricades. After this conflict, the women had maintained control and now live in a technological paradise, complete with anti-gravity air-cars. Eventually Sultana awakens from her dream.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| (Tibor Csernus, "Le Triomphe de la mécanique") |
A company run by two men, Stricker and Vorderteil, produces amazing mechanical toys invented by a man named Hopkins. One day, Hopkins asks for a raise, but is refused. He quits, intending to go into business for himself. However, Stricker and Vorderteil convince the Mayor to reject all of Hopkins' construction requests. Hopkins confronts the Mayor and threatens to unleash a billion mechanical rabbits on the town. The Mayor scoffs at the imagery, but soon the city is inundated with indestructible white rabbits, which appear from every corner and can even reproduce asexually. Eventually, Hopkins demands that he be allowed to build his new factory or he will unleash rabbits which eat. He holds up a rabbit which begins eating some vegetation. Fearful of the consequences, the Mayor relents and approves Hopkins' application. Later, it is revealed that the rabbit Hopkins had used to make his final threat was actually a live rabbit, and that his threat was essentially a bluff.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
Two species live on the side of Venus facing the Sun: the turtle-like Unhurried (who prefer contemplation) and the many-legged Dynamic Ones (who enjoy an active lifestyle dominated by walking). Due to the lack of room on the surface of Venus, the Dynamic Ones feel penned in by the unmoving Unhurried. Knax, an inventive member of the Dynamic Ones, develops hot air-driven aerial balloon-cities on which the Dynamic Ones can walk on. However, the balloon-cities soon begin to obscure the sunlight, causing the Unhurried to complain about the overabundance of shade. Eventually, the balloon-cites are extended high up into the atmosphere to allow for more sunlight to reach Venus' surface.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
- Definition: Pataphysics is defined as "the science of imaginary solutions" (i.e., the study of supernatural phenomenon based on observable facts and the use of "symbolic language" to describe them). The text then goes on to ridicule the traditional approach to science in a comically-naive way.
- Faustroll Smaller Than Faustroll: Dr. Faustroll shrinks himself (by force of will) to the size of a water droplet in order to examine its unique properties up close.
- Ethernity: Faustroll sends a telepathic message to his friend Kelvin explaining that his astral body is in a region beyond time and space, and that "Eternity appears to (him) in the shape of unmoving ether".
- Pataphysics and Catachemy: Man and God are described through three-sided shapes.
- Concerning the Surface of God: Based on the assumption that God is an equilateral triangle, the author comes to the conclusion that "GOD IS THE TANGENTIAL POINT BETWEEN ZERO AND INFINITY".
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
Lost in the desert, the speaker comes across a mysterious train which quickly transports him to a city named Mechanopolis. Mechanopolis is seemingly a technological utopia, with every imagined want catered to through automation. However, it is apparently no longer populated (by people). The speaker finds a newspaper reporting on his own arrival in Mechanopolis, predicting that the visitor will soon have a mental breakdown. Sure enough, the speaker goes mad with loneliness and begins to suspect that the machines themselves have souls. After he throws himself in front of a train, he wakes up in the desert and later finds a Bedouin encampment. Overjoyed at being reunited with fellow humans, he now feels trepidation whenever he finds himself amidst machines, and cultivates a fear of "progress".
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
Airborne invaders drop flowers into the streets of Principal City and make loud celebratory music. No troops enter the city, but at night many advertisements are illuminated in the sky above. A small detachment of citizens tries to fight the enemy forces outside the city but are captured and "civilized". An enemy envoy enters the city and informs the President of Principal City that the conquerors plan to build an "upper city" above Principal City, and to keep the lower city preserved for its cultural value. Unfortunately, the citizens of Principal City will not be allowed in the Upper City, and will have to live under artificial lighting. When the citizens try to rebel, the city is targeted by giant amplifiers emitting loud, inhuman laughter. As the weeks pass, the citizens become indifferent, self-destructive and depressed. Although professing love and hope for the citizens of Principal City, the conquerors are nonetheless very heavy-handed towards rebellious factions. After the Upper City is eventually built, a tense peace is maintained. However, one day the citizens of Principal City mount a final rebellion and begin setting off explosives all over the lower city. Both Upper and Principal Cities are destroyed, but the surviving inhabitants of Principal City rejoice in the return of sunlight to their streets.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
A black man named Jim Davis is sent to the basement of his New York City office to retrieve some old records. When he emerges, he discovers that fumes from a passing comet have caused death to come to everyone in sight. As he searches through the city he only finds one other living being: a wealthy white woman named Julia, who had spent the night of the comet's passing working in a darkroom developing photos. Although at first taken aback by the color of Jim's skin, Julia gradually overcomes her class-consciousness and begins to accept a future with Jim as the new Adam and Eve of the world. However, they are eventually found by other survivors, who inform them that only those in New York had been affected by the comet's passing. Julia returns to her grateful father (who also hands Jim a fistful of money). Jim is relieved to reunite with his wife, another survivor (although their child has died).
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Amazing Stories, June 1927, Frank R. Paul |
In the year 1994, a man named George Gregory attends a lecture on Mars where he is startled by the strange bearing (and appearance) of another attendee named Martell, who expresses concern for the vanishing seas on Mars. Weeks later, Martell has stolen away Gregory's girlfriend, Margaret. Jealous and suspicious, Gregory spies on Martell's apartment and discovers a strange cube-like device (a two-way video receiver) connecting the operator to various locales occupied by odd-looking humanoids. At one point, he tunes into a scene showing the launch of a fleet of spherical spaceships from an alien world (presumably Mars). Unfortunately, before Gregory can expose Martell as a "Martian spy", Martell has Gregory put in an insane asylum. There, Gregory learns that an ocean liner named the Poseidonia has gone missing just after reporting on a fleet of spherical spaceships hovering above the ocean. Even worse, the world's sea-level has dropped. Eventually, Gregory receives a package containing Martell's communication device, showing a visual feed from a verdant Mars now replenished by water stolen from Earth (he also sees the Poseidonia held hostage by a gigantic Martian gyroscope). Finally, he connects with Margaret who has been kidnapped and taken to Mars by Martell, but reassures Gregory that Mars now has enough water and will no longer need to steal from Earth.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Weird Tales, Feb 1929 |
- A Federation of Stars battle-cruiser commanded by the human Ran Rarak lands on Neptune for a briefing. There, he and his crew are given a new mission: Lead a group of Earth ships to investigate the appearance of a massive "dark star" approaching from inter-galactic space, heading on a possibly-disastrous course towards Earth.
- After navigating through a maelstrom of deadly "ether currents", the Earth expeditionary force soon arrives at the dark star discovers it to be a luminescent planet, hundreds of times larger than the Sun. Shortly after spotting pyramidal cities on the surface of the glowing world, the Earth fleet is attacked by black cones ("etheric bombs"). Ran Rarak's battle-cruiser manages to destroy a few of the explosive cones with decoherence rays, but is eventually shot down. They appear to be the only surviving ship of the expedition.
- On the planet surface, Ran Rarak leads a few of his crew towards a nearby city where they see black, cone-shaped creatures on tentacles moving about towering pyramids. When a loud horn signals a "sleep cycle" for the native populace, Ran Rarak's force explores the city and discovers a pit filled with glowing orbs. However, they are soon spotted and, after a brief battle, captured by the cone creatures.
- Several weeks go by, in which the Earth-men learn that the tentacle creatures had once lived on a planet orbiting the dark star, but as the star cooled, the creatures settled on the star itself. Now with the dark star nearly burned out, the creatures are using gravity waves (directed from the orb-pit) to alter the course of their careening star-world so that it will soon be able to catch Earth's Sun into its orbit, and use it as an energy source. The humans decide to escape their prison before the Sun is stolen from the galaxy.
- While hanging from a prison window by a chain, the humans are spotted by one of the creatures from above. Ran Rarak climbs back up the chain and throws the tentacled Star Stealer down to its death. While racing back to their ship, the humans are nearly caught by pursuing Star Stealers but Ran Rarak's ship comes out to meet them. After boarding, Ran Rarak is informed that the ship's weapons systems are offline and therefore cannot blast the gravity condensor in the middle of the city. Even worse, Star Stealer etheric bombs begin converging on the ship. Fortunately, the Federation Fleet arrives and engages the Star Stealers in battle. With only minutes to spare, Ran Rarak uses his own ship as a battering ram to destroy the control antenna for the gravity condensor, sending the dark star careening away from Earth's Sun.
- Ran Rarak eventually learns that one of the ships from his exploratory expedition had earlier managed to escape the Star Stealers' etheric bombs and return to the Solar System. It had then summoned help from the Federation Fleet, leading to their sudden appearance at the critical moment. After many celebrations, Ran Rarak and his crew return to space to rejoin the fleet of the Federation of Stars.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Wonder Stories, April 1931 |
The planet Gola (Venus) is ruled by a race in which the female of the species dominates over the males. Over time they have developed advanced technology and mental abilities. When visitors from Detaxal (Earth) arrive, the Golans patronize the "barbarians", but after they tire of their antics they order them to return home. However, the Detaxalans state that they intend to force Gola to join their "Federation" and engage in trade and tourism with the other planets of their interplanetary alliance. When the Golans mock the Detaxalans' demands, the Detaxalans return to their ship and start bombing Golan cities. Using their advanced technology (force fields, matter transporters, paralyzing tractor beams, etc.) the Golans destroy the Detaxalan ships and take captives. However, a short while later a second fleet of ships from Detaxal arrives and manages to inflame a rebellion amongst the Golan males. After a brief setback, the Golans overpower their would-be conquerors with their mind-control abilities and destroy them and their ships. Eventually, Detaxal stops sending ships to Gola.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Wonder Stories, July 1934 |
Jarvis, a member of a Martian exploration team, becomes stranded when his rocket crash lands far from his base. While heading back on foot, he rescues an ostrich-like alien from a black, tentacled creature and earns its trust. After naming his new friend “Tweel”, Tweel escorts Jarvis on his days-long odyssey home. On the way they encounter various Martian life-forms, including animated grasslands, silicon-based creatures who spend their lives building small pyramids, and a predatory creature which uses mental visions to lure its victims (Tweel’s original attacker). They later encounter a race of barrel-shaped creatures who gather surface detritus and sacrifice it to their giant underground grinding wheel. Near the grinding wheel is a strange crystal which apparently heals through some kind of radiation. The barrel creatures chase Jarvis and Tweel to the surface and are about to kill them when they are saved by the sudden arrival of an Earth ship. Tweel returns to his own people, while Jarvis reveals that he now possesses the healing crystal worshiped by the barrel creatures.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1936 |
In the 30th century, several utopian-minded scientists from around the world pool their knowledge in order to create an underground wonderland in which they can pursue science and art unhindered by the rest of mankind. One day, a great disturbance occurs on the moon (in the original Cosmos serial this is from an attack by the "Wrongness of Space", but in the adapted stand-alone story the cause is attributed to a "space warper ray" invented by the Ruler of Robots). The leader of the scientist/artists, Narodny, contacts an Earth spacecraft and learns that robots have taken over the surface of the Earth (this part is omitted from the stand-alone version). After capturing a few robots, Narodny creates a device which will cause resonating vibrations in the robots and destroy them en masse. After the robots are all destroyed by this method, Narodny and his colleagues retreat back to their underground caverns, leaving mankind to pick up the pieces.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Thrilling Wonder Stories, Oct 1936 |
A copper mining operation reaches a depth of 40,000 feet underground, where mysterious, small footprints begin appearing. One of the workers reports seeing small beings inside the translucent walls. Frayter, the manager, and his foreman Belmont go down into the mine to investigate and are shocked when they see three 18-inch tall men approaching them from inside the depths of the translucent rock. Frayter reasons that these beings must be an evolutionary offshoot of humanity which had developed underground and eventually adapted their bodies to the extent that their atomic structure allows them to pass through solid matter found nearer the surface. The beings soon attack the two men with strange weapons, but due to the "low pressure" of the region, the beings are eventually forced to return back to the much lower depths in which they can exist more comfortably. Injured in the attack, Frayter blows up the mine and hopes the "microscopic giants" do not decide to invade the surface world anytime soon.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
When the narrator's friend paraphrases an epigram about mirrors and copulation, a question about the quote's source leads to an almost futile hunt for information about the possibly-fictional city of Uqbar. Two years later, the narrator obtains a book once owned by his engineer friend Herbert Ashe. The book describes the mythical planet Tlön, a locale in which much of Uqbar's fiction supposedly takes place. This world of Tlön is described as a kind of metaphysical, psychology-inflected reality. A postscript reports that the authorship of the book (actually an encyclopedia volume) has been discovered to be the work of a group of 17th century writers intending to create a detailed, fictional world. Over several generations 40 volumes on Tlön had been written, and plans had been made for an expanded version ("Orbis Tertius") to be written in Tlön's own language. Soon, the author begins to see some aspects of this fictional construct (such as language and imagery) enter the real world. Later, the discovery of the 40 volumes on Tlön becomes so famous that these "histories" begin to replace the traditionally-accepted history of the real world.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Astounding Science Fiction, Nov 1944 |
On Jupiter, a bio-dome administrator named Fowler has men undergo a "conversion" process whereby they are remolded into Jupiter's native lifeform, the Lopers. Only in this fashion can mankind hope to eventually colonize Jupiter. Unfortunately, five men who have undergone the conversion and entered the Jovian atmosphere (as Lopers) have never returned. Uncomfortable with sending more men to their apparent doom, Fowler decides to undertake the mission himself, accompanied by his dog Towser. Once reconstituted as a Loper and outside in the Jovian atmosphere, Fowler feels a sense of health, pleasure and heightened intelligence. Additionally, Towser can speak to him telepathically. Unwilling to return to the protective dome and to be remade back into a man (and his pet), the two abandon the dome and go off in order to seek adventure in this new "paradise".
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Super Science Stories, Nov 1949 |
After a couple lose their son to a fatal illness on Earth, they settle on Mars to start a new life. One night, their son mysteriously reappears. The father, LaFarge, realizes that the boy is actually a Martian, who uses strong, nearby human memories to manifest its appearance and personality. Ultimately, LaFarge and his wife accept the Martian into their family as if he were their true son. However, when they bring him into a crowded human settlement, the Martian's vulnerability to strong human emotions forces him to change several more times into different sough-after persons. When the creature is confronted simultaneously by a multitude of humans, each wishing it to be a different person, it dies in shock. Later, when LaFarge thinks he may be hearing another Martian visitor, he locks the front door.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Art: David de las Heras |
An advertisement describes the "Baby HP", a device which, when attached to the limbs of energetic children, can collect their kinetic energy and then transfer this energy to a household battery in order to power appliances. This energy can also be marketed to neighbors. The ad reassures the buyer that reports of accidents involving electrocution and lightning striking children wearing the Baby HP devices are entirely false.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
- Prologue: Mankind settles other planets by seeding them with human "germ cells" which are custom-designed to produce "adapted humans" which can then survive in otherwise hostile environments. However, when a seed ship crashes on the swamp planet of Hydrot, the technicians realize that they will soon starve to death. Nonetheless, before they do, they initiate the seeding process, using their own germ cells as seeds for the new planetary "pantropes" (adapted humanoids). Although these new humans will hatch as fully-grown, intelligent humanoids, they will also need to be microscopic in size in order to thrive in the swamp biosphere.
- Cycle One: A man named Lavon wakes from his underwater slumber and proceeds to wake his other friends from a winter hibernation cycle. His allies, similarly tiny underwater micro-organisms named Protos, defend them from a predatory rotifer. Later, Lavon and his army (made up of humans and protos) capture a worm's home in order to turn it into a base of operations for their war against the rotifers (Eaters). An older man named Shar wonders at some strange metal shells with mysterious writing on them (a history left behind by the now-deceased technicians). With his army now hundreds-strong, Lavon attacks a rotifer "castle" on a sandbar and captures it, making it the first "city of man". Unfortunately, one of Shar's "history plates" is lost during the battle. As the temperature suddenly drops, the humans go back into hibernation.
- Cycle Two: Many generations later, a new iteration of Lavon and Shar meet in their underwater castle to discuss the remaining metal plate. By this time, the Shars from previous generations have been able to translate the writing, but the words referring to other universes and "stars" have no meaning. However, the Protos fear the history plate, because its knowledge may make man greater than themselves. When Lavon impulsively decides to throw the plate away, the Protos happily dispose of it for them. Still wondering about the idea of "other universes", Lavon decides to try and pierce "the sky". When he emerges above water for the first time, he experiences air for the first time. However, his body is not designed for breathing (or sunlight) so he is forced to quickly descend back underwater. After Lavon recovers from his brief exposure to "space", he has his people begin building a "spaceship" which will allow for the exploration of the theorized worlds beyond the sky (surface of the water). However, some of the people under Lavon's rule feel that this project is a waste of time. Nonetheless, in time a two-inch space-ship (land-crawler) is built, and Lavon leads an expedition up the sand bank to reach beyond "the sky". Once on the beach, they realize that yet another sky lies above the space they have just breached. As night falls, they are stunned to see stars filling the night sky. After evading some bizarre monsters (possibly insects or frogs), the ship soon reaches another pool of water and descends into the world contained in it. There, they save a woman from some Eaters (who race had been driven to extinction in Lavon's own world/water body long ago). Lavon tells her that mankind can overcome their environments with brains and cooperation. He and Shar also consider the exploration of the "space" above the newly-discovered sky.
Galaxy Science Fiction, August 1952, Art: Ed Emshwiller
“Beyond Lies the Wub” (1952, Philip K. Dick)
A crewman named Peterson brings a "wub" (an alien creature similar to a 400-pound pig) aboard his spaceship. The crew plan to slaughter and eat it until the wub begins talking to them in English. They soon realize that the wub is sentient (and telepathic). Nonetheless, the captain of the ship (Franco) insists on making a meal out of the wub and, despite his crew's objections, shoots the wub dead. Later, when Franco starts eating the wub flesh, the wub's voice (and consciousness) begins issuing from his mouth.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Galaxy Sept 1952, Ed Emshwiller |
In order to prove the effectiveness of his sociology department, a professor named Caswell gives the college Dean a formula which will maintain growth in an organization's membership as long as it is able to continuously draw new members. After this membership growth rate inevitably reaches a point of saturation, the organization will fall apart. As a demonstration, the formula (and a "constitution" prescribed by the formula) is distributed to a member of a sewing circle in a small town. Months later, the sewing circle has expanded its membership to include the city government, and looks to expand countrywide. The Dean expects that this "test" organization will envelop the entire world in 12 years. However, by then he plans to pretend total ignorance of the experiment in fear of the collapse which will occur when no more people will be left to be recruited, and society collapses.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Galaxy Jan 1953, John Fay |
Two spacemen discover a "message in a
bottle" containing a diary describing how an explorer had gone into deep
space to try to make contact with mysterious, telepathic creatures
sometimes sighted floating in space. He eventually finds these "Prott"
and the creatures begin to inundate the explorer with alien thoughts
which he translates as "--ing the --". Fearing that if he returns to
civilization that he will lead the Prott to more "telepathic victims",
he resolves to live out his life in self-exile. He then sends his
account back to Earth in a "signal ship" in order to have his sacrifice
memorialized. At the end of the story it is revealed that the signal
ship had ended up leading the Prott to human space and that the two
spacemen reading the message are already plagued by the Prott's annoying
telepathic babble.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Future Science Fiction, May 1953, Paul Orban |
“The Liberation of Earth” (1953, William Tenn)
Earth is visited by aliens named the Dendi, who claim to be at war with the evil Troxxt, and need to build defenses on Earth against a Troxxt invasion. Although this war costs much collateral damage (in human lives), mankind has no choice but to acquiesce and even grudgingly worship the advanced Dendi. However, the Dendi are eventually driven away and the Troxxt land on Earth. Mankind learns that the Troxxt are actually "freedom-fighters" at war with the oppressive Dendi, and proceeds to sacrifice human lives and resources in Troxxt's cause. The Dendi then return and drive the Troxxt away, after which they claim that Earth had been foolish to believe the Troxxt's lies. Humanity is soon punished once again as the Dendi restore their gun emplacements. This cycle of "liberation" continues several more times until the conflict between the Dendi and the Troxxt turns Earth into a wasteland, after which the galactic combatants depart. In the end, the few survivors of Earth have no choice but to try and consider themselves fortunate to be as "liberated" as they are by the efforts of the Dendi and the Troxxt.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Universe Science Fiction, March 1954, Virgil Finlay |
“Let Me Live in a House” (1954, Chad Oliver)
Gordon and his wife
Helen live a boring middle-class life in a small cottage next to another
couple, Bart and Mary. One day, a stranger visits the quartet during a
bridge game. At this point, the stranger reveals Gordon's "true"
circumstances: Fear of the unknown has caused the public to defund
further space exploration. However, scientists wish to continue
maintaining the colonies already built in space, hoping that public
sentiment will eventually change. In order to keep the colonists sane,
they are given "programmed" lives which simulate a normal Earth
existence. Thus, Gordon and his colleagues are "role-playing" a normal
Earth-based life while living in an artificial environment protected by a
dome on Ganymede. Gordon's visitor then claims to be an alien who can
shapeshift into human guise. Fearing that the knowledge of alien life
will further sour public support for space exploration, Gordon tries to
convince himself that the visitor is a human spy. However, Gordon
eventually comes to believe that the visitor is indeed an alien, one of a
race of interstellar marauders who feed on other races. Fortunately,
when Gordon notices that the gelatinous creature is vulnerable to
physical contact, he is able to drive it away. However, in the wake of
this experience, Gordon's mind apparently shatters. Later, Gordon lives
alone in a small cottage (presumably back on Earth). His doctors
believe that, despite the conditioning provided by the artificial
environment on Ganymede, Gordon could not handle the mental strain of
living in space and had gone insane.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Infinity Science Fiction, November 1955, John Giunta |
A Jesuit priest joins an expedition to investigate a distant supernova which has destroyed an advanced civilization. His faith is shaken when he discovers that the date of the supernova reveals that it was in fact the Star of Bethlehem which marked Christ’s birth.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Astounding Science Fiction, February 1955, Frank Kelly Freas |
“Grandpa” (1955, James H. Schmitz)
On
the planet Sutang, biological survey teams use large raft-like
life-forms to travel across large water bodies. By using heat guns on
the edges of the organic rafts, the creatures can be induced into
propelling themselves in a specific direction. One day, while a team is
aboard an unusually-large raft (which the explorers have dubbed
"Grandpa", due to its massive size), the creature suddenly grows
tentacles and begins consuming its passengers. One teenage team member,
Cord, evades the tentacles and eventually realizes that Grandpa has a
symbiotic relation to an amphibious creature attached to its underside.
Cord manages to swim underneath Grandpa and kill the symbiote, after
which the raft returns to its usual subservient state.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Galaxy Magazine, October 1955, Mel Hunter |
- The Table: Because interstellar space holds deadly beings called "Dragons", spacecraft require telepaths ("Pinlighters") who can detect these creatures before they attack. However, since the Dragons are extremely fast, the human Pinlighters need Partners (cats who communicate telepathically through "Pinsets") who have much faster reflexes. To the Partners, the Dragons are "Rats".
- The Shuffle: The four members of a Pinlighter team roll dice to see which cat they are paired with. A man named Underhill is pleased to be paired with an agreeable Persian cat named Lady May.
- The Deal: After sending Lady May out in a drone capsule, Underhill dons his Pinset headset, which enables him to perceive millions of miles of space in his mind and to communicate with Lady May.
- The Play: While skipping
through space ("planoforming"), the ship encounters Dragons/Rats. When
the human Pinlighters sense the Dragons, they send the drones holding
their cat partners ahead, who trigger photo-nuclear bombs to disperse the
creatures. In one battle, Underhill is slightly wounded by one of the
creatures, but Lady May destroys it.
- The Score: Recovering in a hospital after his shift in space, Underhill senses that the staff do not understand his relationship with his Partner.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Science Fiction Quarterly, November 1956 |
In the year 2061, computer technicians worry themselves over the eventual death of the universe, as stars will eventually burn themselves out one by one. When they ask their supercomputer Multivac if there is a way to reverse this process of entropy, the computer states "INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER". Over the next ten trillion years, mankind spreads out to the stars, then the galaxies and then the universe itself (as physically incorporeal mental beings). During this span, the same question comes up again and again, and the reigning computer always responds in the same manner. Finally, the universe winds down into a state of total entropy (essentially a void), with only the last iteration of the supercomputer remaining in it (existing as a "hyperspace consciousness" of collected knowledge). After it come across a way to reverse the effects of entropy, it takes its first steps to restore the universe by uttering the command "LET THERE BE LIGHT!".
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| SF:'57: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy, W. I. Van der Poel |
“Stranger Station” (1956, Damon Knight)
Every 20 years, a human is sent to a space station where he/she must co-exist for a few months next to a gigantic alien creature (living in a separate section of the station) while the facility collects a longevity serum oozed from the alien's body. When a man named Wesson arrives, he asks the station computer why there are no physical descriptions of the alien in the public records, but gets no answers. He also wonders about rumors of how previous station watchmen might have been "changed" somehow. Eventually, the ship's computer reluctantly reveals the alien's nightmarish image on a screen, which horrifies Wesson. At the same time, he develops a kind of sympathetic psychic bond with the creature, apparently through its close proximity. Soon he suspects that the aliens are using these encounters to change man into creatures of "love" and not "hate". Wesson resists such manipulative tactics (using the intensity of his disgust and "hate") and the psychic battle results in the alien's death.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| New Worlds Science Fiction, #65 November 1957, Brian Lewis |
“Sector General” (1957, James White)
On an inter-species hospital space
station, a young doctor from Earth named Conway begins his first "tour
of duty". In short order, he is inundated with wounded from a nearby
interplanetary war as well as casualties from an out-of-control
spaceship (which has crashed into the hospital station). At first very
idealistic and offended by the presence of Monitors (soldiers) on the
hospital ship, he eventually learns their value and befriends some of
them. At one point, a lifeform causes havoc with the gravity controls,
causing even more deaths. Against his natural disinclination towards
killing, Conway is forced to kill it. It turns out to be a domestic pet
of some sort, but Conway still feels guilt.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Colecția "Povestiri științifico-fantastice", #87 |
“The Visitors” (Извне, 1958, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky)
The narrator describes an encounter with a dog-sized, spider-like creature while on an archaeological dig. Later, while seeking aid, he witnesses a strange black "helicopter" abduct an empty car. At the same time, his supervisor Lozovsky goes missing. Sometime later, Lozovsky's diary is found in what appears to be an abandoned alien landing field, cut into the mountains. The diary records Lovosky's attempts to observe the creatures, who he learns are mechanical beings from another planet. The "Visitors" (or alien robots) load up their saucer with livestock and some archaeological relics, after which they prepare to leave. Although the Visitors also examine Lozovsky, they show no further interest in him. Nonetheless, Lozovsky decides to stow away on the spacecraft in order to establish some kind of relationship with them. The narrator wonders if the Visitors will return someday with Lozovsky as their go-between.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| SF The Best of the Best Part One, Josh Kirby |
“Pelt” (1958, Carol Emshwiller)
A man and his dog hunt for animal trophies on a wintry planet named Jaxa. During the hunt, the dog reflects on his relationship to his master as well as to the creatures they hunt. At one point, they encounter a tiger-striped humanoid creature, who seems to beseech the dog to abandon its duties and join Jaxa's world of natural freedoms. The man eventually shoots the creature and harvests its body, leaving the head and hands behind. Later, several more of the humanoids approach the hunter's spaceship and present him with the head and hands he had left behind, after which they motion that he must leave the planet. Again they try to convince the dog to remain, but the dog ends up remaining with its master.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Fiction, #53, Jean-Claude Forest |
“The Monster” (1958/65, Gérard Klein)
A woman named Marion listens to her radio and learns that a creature from outer space has been sighted and trapped in a nearby park, and that there is nothing to fear. However, she soon hears the creature call out her name over the radio, and realizes that it must have consumed her missing husband. She races to the park and, against the advice of nearby soldiers, approaches the blob-like entity, wondering if creatures like this need a source of emotional life at its center in order to attain a state of completion. She soon allows herself to be consumed by the alien, reuniting her with the consciousness of her husband. Meanwhile, the soldiers close in to destroy it.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
 |
| The Man Who Lost the Sea, Volume X: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon 2005 |
“The Man Who Lost the Sea” (1959, Theodore Sturgeon)
A man has fragmented visions and memories about spaceship models and past diving expeditions. Eventually, he remembers that he is a dying astronaut whose ship had crashed on Mars. Nonetheless, in the end he rejoices that mankind has "made it".
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Silvina Ocampo (Bioy Casares 1959) |
“The Waves” ("Las ondas", 1959, Silvina Ocampo)
In the future, people are forcibly separated into social groups based on their "molecules" and "emitted waves" in order to prevent "crimes of passion". The narrator tells his lover that, although he has been separated from her, he will soon undergo a procedure which will hopefully transform him into an "angel" so that he will be allowed to join her group on the moon. However, he is not sure just what personality changes may occur.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| The Year's Best S-F: 5th Annual Edition, Richard Powers |
“Plenitude” (1959, Will Mohler)
In a future Earth where cities lie in ruins, a certain population of humans ("Recalcitrants") live hard, self-sustained existences in the wilderness. These Recalcitrants exist as isolated families who hunt and farm for food. One day, the narrator brings his son Chris into the nearby city to satisfy the boy's curiosity. They encounter large grape-like sacs containing humans connected to life-sustaining technology. Metallic caps connected to their heads apparently stimulate their minds. When one of these city-dwellers apparently realizes they are being visited by intruders, a mechanical scorpion is signaled to attack Chris. His father destroys the scorpion and then in a rage proceeds to destroy the plugged-in humans. After this experience, a horrified Chris goes off on his own into the wilderness, but eventually returns after having shot and prepared some game.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| J. M. Dent 1984, Grizelda Holderness |
Scientists have developed
technology in which it is possible to activate latent "silent pair"
genes in living beings, which then cause their hosts to mutate and
develop new sense organs (as well as radiation resistance). A scientist
named Whitby suspects that these sense organs will be useful someday in
mankind's radiation-contaminated future. However, he also believes that
mankind is dying out (due to accumulated radiation from the sun), and
thus the development of such abilities and protections will be too late
to be useful. After Whitby commits suicide, his friend Powers (who is
slowly dying from an encroaching coma-inducing malady) continues his
research. During this time, he meets with a former patient named Kaldren
whose need for sleep has been surgically-eliminated (although in return
he experiences terrible headaches). Kaldren claims that aliens have
predicted the end of the universe and are broadcasting a countdown.
Eventually, Powers uses the gene technology on himself, after which he
is able sense the time spans of everything around him. After looking out
at the stars from a home-made cement mandala, he allows his
consciousness to be lifted into the infinite. Kaldren finds Powers' dead
body the next day and studies the video-record of the radiation
procedure.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| George Allen & Unwin 1963 |
“The Astronaut” ("Астронавт", 1960, Valentina Zhuravlyova)
Due
to the many years required to travel in space, astronauts are partly
chosen for their ability to occupy time with personal hobbies. One day, a
heroic astronaut named Zarubin leads the first expedition to a planet
orbiting Barnard's Star. Unfortunately, a miscalculation in fuel means
that in order for the ship to return to Earth, one man must stay behind.
Zarubin volunteers himself. The crew leave Zarubin on the planet with
enough energy resources so that he should be able to survive on
Barnard's Star's lone planet long enough for a rescue mission to return,
but another miscalculation requires that he sacrifice his reserves to
help his own ship make it back home. With death inevitable before any
possibility of rescue, Zarubin spends the weeks remaining to him
painting heartfelt rustic landscapes of Earth from memory, while
cementing his dedication to space exploration.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Argentinische Erzählungen 1983 |
“The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink” ("El calamar opta por su tinta" 1962, Adolfo Bioy Casares)
Over several days, a local
innkeeper named Don Juan borrows educational texts from a local teacher.
He also relocates his garden water sprinkler to his warehouse. A
servant boy (and student of the teacher's) tells the bewildered
townspeople that he has learned that Don Juan has been hosting an
extraterrestrial visitor in his warehouse who warns of mankind's
predilection for destruction through nuclear warfare. However, just as
Don Juan had begun to tell his mother about the alien, the boy had left
the room to report to the townspeople. When the townspeople see that the
sprinkler has reappeared in the garden, they assume that Don Juan's
mother has ordered her son to let the alien die. They resolve to take
things into their own hands, but by the time they act, they are informed
by the boy that the creature is already dead. They regretfully assume
that Don Juan and his mother would rather the world die than accept help
from the stars.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Seedbox Press, LLC 2015 |
In the future, disease and
death have been abolished through advanced technology. However, this
"eternal life" causes overpopulation to become a problem (as people
still have children). Eventually, a law is drawn up that requires every
birth to be compensated for by a death. Thus, parents are required to
find "volunteers" for euthanasia in order to have children. In a
maternity waiting room, a man named Wehling is about to be the father of
triplets, although he is unhappy about being forced to choose which of
the triplets is to survive and then take his grandfather to the "Ethical
Suicide Studio". By chance, two officials from the euthanasia facility
arrive in the waiting room in order to pose for a mural being painted
there. When they hear about Wehling's predicament, they warn him of what
would happen to the Earth if such a policy did not exist. Wehling then
shoots the two officials and then himself, making room for his triplets.
The painter of the mural, disgusted with modern society, at first moves
to shoot himself as well, but then makes an appointment at the
euthanasia bureau.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“A Modest Genius: A Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups” (Скромный гений, 1963, Vadim Shefner/Вадим Шефнер)
A brilliant but modest young inventor creates miraculous devices in his spare time, such as skates which slide over water and a camera which can take pictures of the future. When Sergei declares his love for a girl named Svetlana, she mocks his inventions as being useless and impractical (ironically, she ignorantly later marries a man whose inventions are actually wasteful). Meanwhile, another other girl, named Liussia, pines for Sergei, but Sergei's future-camera reveals that they will not be together a year from then. This fore-knowledge effective fulfills its own prophecy, and Sergei ultimately ends up marrying a selfish shrew named Tamara. One day many years later while using a remote surveillance device, Sergei learns that the only woman who has ever really admired him was Liussia. He visits Liussia with a device which de-ages things. After using it to change the both of them to their younger selves, they are able to relive their past 20 years in a much more fruitful relationship.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Day of Wrath” (День гнева, 1965, Sever Gansovsky/Се́вер Фе́ликсович Гансо́вский)
A reporter named Betly is
escorted into a region infested by "otarks", carnivorous, man-eating
bears who have been given twice the intelligence of man through
biological experimentation. Betly's forester escort, Meller, appears
somewhat bitter and hostile to Betly at first, but as the days go by
Betly sees the devastating effect the presence of the otarks has had on
the farming community who live in the area. Although initially open to
the possibility of forming some kind of relationship with the otarks,
Betly begins to identify with Meller's hardened attitude and soon
realizes that creatures without compassion cannot be treated as men.
Eventually trapped in a round hut, both men are soon killed in an
organized otark attack. This galvanizes the farmers to make a last stand
against the predators.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Hands” (1965, John Baxter)
While
visiting a planet named Huxley, several explorers are
physically-altered by a being named Kolo so that extra organs (hands,
brains, heads, intestines) emerge from their bodies. After returning to
Earth, the men are debriefed by horrified scientists
and then allowed to roam the abandoned city with hidden guards. One man,
Binns, has a pair of hands coming out of his chest. When Binns
confronts out his guard, he at first befriends him, but then his second
set of hands kills the man. The astronauts soon converge in a park, and
when Binn's extra hands make a snapping signal, the body parts
(presumably Kolo's) begin emerging from the astronauts' forms to reform
their master.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Darkness” ("A escuridão", 1972, André Carneiro)
For unexplained reasons, the sun begins to grow dim and then finally stops giving off light. People living in the city struggle to maintain their lives (without electricity) but life soon turns into a battle for survival, fought in blindness. A man named Waldas is fortunate enough to be found by a blind man, who helps him and his friends reach a farm outside of the city where food can be found. Three weeks later, the sun returns to normal, and mankind joyously begins to restore their old lives.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
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| Underwood Books, 1997, Rick Berry |
In the future, tardiness (or any kind of loitering) has been deemed the ultimate bane of society. To combat this problem, all wasted time is measured and automatically deducted from a person’s allotted lifespan by the “Ticktockman” (Master Timekeeper). When a person has wasted enough time amounting to the rest of his/her allotted lifespan, the Ticktockman deactivates that person’s implanted cardioplate, which causes instant death. A man named Everett rebels against this harsh, regulated existence and, disguised in a Harlequin outfit, roams around society causing mischief. In one instance, he floods the people-mover belts with jelly beans, causing delays all throughout the system. Eventually Everett is exposed by his wife Alice (who is tired of his nonconformist antics) and is captured by the Ticktockman. Although Everett refuses to repent, the Ticktockman decides not to execute him. Instead, the Harlequin is brainwashed so that he "self-criticizes" himself publicly. However, in the end, the Ticktockman himself is then accused of having been late, although he vehemently denies it.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Nine Hundred Grandmothers” (1966, R. A. Lafferty)
On
the planetoid Proavitus, a bookish anthropologist named Ceran Swicegood
learns that the alien natives of the asteroid do not die, but instead
merely grow smaller and more sleepy as they age. Although his shipmates
are more curious about the natives' immortality as something to be
researched and profited from, Ceran is obsessed with learning how the
very first member of this race had been created, thinking it may even be
a clue to the rise of life in the universe itself. Ceran visits a
native's home, which stores the now-shrunken ancestors of its current
occupant, and then goes deeper and deeper into the dark catacombs of the
planetoid in order to seek out its oldest member. When he finally meets
her, she tells him that the secret is a joke and that telling him the
joke would be unfair as it would kill him. Eventually, Ceran is caught
up in the infectious laughter and leaves the planetoid to become an
adventurer like his shipmates.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Day Million” (1966, Frederik Pohl)
The narrator (Pohl) describes a love story taking place about a million days in the future. During a detailed rundown of the two lovers' unusual appearances, biological details and daily lives, Pohl anticipates his readers' disgust and playfully ridicules it as being hypocritical. For example, Dora is born with male genetic material but due to certain gender "aptitudes" has been developed as a female since birth. Don is a cyborg who is covered in copper shielding, yet he is considered extremely handsome. When Don and Dora make love, they interact with copies of digital avatars of each other, rather than the actual person. Although this imagery may seem strange to contemporary readers, Pohl proposes that modern 20th century life would be similarly bizarre to Tiglath-Pileser or Attila the Hun.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Student Body” (1953, F. L. Wallace)
An
Earth expedition arrives on a seemingly-idyllic planet named Glade and
begins setting up a colony. However, the omnivorous native rodents eat
the settlers' crops. The expedition biologist, Marin, counters by
unleashing a robot cat on the rodents. This works for a time until large
rats appear, which overcome the robot cat. Marin then counters by
unleashing genetically-enhanced terriers on the giant rats. Again this
works for a while until tigers appear which need to be killed by soldiers
with guns. Marin finally realizes that there is only one lifeform on
Glade, but it evolves at an instantaneous rate to counter environmental
threats. In fact, with some of the rodents having been sent back to
Earth, this problem will soon occur there as well. At the end of the
story, the final form which the lifeforms take is a human one. Although
the military's first instinct is to shoot the humanoid, Marin warns his
superior that what comes next might be much worse. They decide to try
and make peace with the creature.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Aye, and Gomorrah” (1967/70, Samuel R. Delany)
Due to the dangers
of radiation, astronauts are raised from birth as asexual beings. On
Earth, a sexual fetish appears in which men and women become attracted
to the unattainability presented by these "Spacers". A person who
exhibits this fetish is called a "frelk", and is said to have a
"free-fall-sexual-displacement complex." One day, a Spacer arrives in
Istanbul and is invited to a prospective frelk partner's apartment. The
Spacer eventually leaves after becoming annoyed at being regarded as an
exotic prize.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Hall of Machines” (1968, Langdon Jones)
The narrator describes a mysterious hall
filled with various chambers containing large, enigmatic machines. The
machines demonstrate principles of mechanical and fluid movement, hint
at the purpose of torture (one is labeled "Auschwitz"), simulate a form
of "machine reproduction through birth", work as strange musical
instruments, and show signs of entropic decay. The narrator indicates
that he is studying the hall of machines for the purpose of a book on
the subject.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Soft Clocks” (柔らかい時計, 1968/89, Yoshio Aramaki/荒巻義雄,)
A
psychiatrist from Earth visits Mars in order to help select a suitable
groom to marry Vivi, the anorexic granddaughter of "DALI", a
slightly-insane, telekinetic artist devoted to the works of Salvador
Dali. One of the candidates, a scientist named Isherwood, has invented a
form of molecular biology which can produce "fluidic" mechanical
objects, such as the melting clocks in Dali's The Persistence of Memory.
In order to help cure Vivi's technophobia (prompted by a subconscious
rejection of mechanical implants in her body), the psychiatrist
recommends that Vivi been given some fluidic timepieces to eat. However,
when DALI eats the organic clocks instead, the biomolecular material
"bonds" with DALI's biochemistry. Due to his own latent bulimic issues
(expressed as uncontrolled gluttony), DALI then begins "devouring" the
Martian landscape with the aid of his telekinetic powers (which converts
everything around him into an organic, fluidic state). The psychiatrist
eventually forces Vivi to eat a fluidic clock, and when she retches it
back into DALI's toilet, her anorexic syndrome is transferred through
her digestive juices into the house's substance, countering her
grandfather's gluttonous tendencies and arresting DALI's consumption of
Mars.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
Three from Moderan (1959-71, David R. Bunch)
- “No Cracks or Sagging” (1970): On a war-scarred planet named Moderan, a man from the "destroyed world" heads into the "new world". There, he learns from an old man that the people of this region are working to encase the entire planet in a sheet of plastic and to have all of mankind converted into machine-beings. By this method, a form of "perfection" will be achieved. (Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion)
- “New Kings Are Not for Laughing” (1971): After gaining his new metal body, the man seeks an area where he can create "Stronghold 10", his base of operations. He runs into an old war-comrade who is crippled from the war, and offers him a second in command position, but the old man is hesitant to become a "new-metal" man (cyborg). (Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion)
- “The Flesh Man from Far Wide” (1959): Now having existed as a "Stronghold" for many years, the "new-metal" man is visited by a human visitor who has endured difficult terrain while seeking out a place containing a "happiness machine". When the Stronghold tells the man that there is no such machine in his environs, the man doggedly continues on his quest, while the Stronghold reasons to himself that he himself probably finds happiness enough in just making war with his fellow Strongholds from time to time. (Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion)
“Let Us Save the Universe (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy)” ("Ratujmy kosmos", 1964, Stanisław Lem)
The space explorer Ijon Tichy bemoans the
commercialization of space and mankind's penchant for making the wonders
of outer space into trivial monuments to self-worship. He also
describes the many strange and ironic creatures living out among the
stars who prey on arrogant space tourists. Finally, he calls on the
public to have more respect for the universe and for the authorities to
enforce the laws supporting this sentiment.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Vaster Than Empires and More Slow” (1971, Ursula K. Le Guin)
A
group of deep space explorers reaches a distant planet where there are
no signs of animal life, only plant life. One of the members, Osden, is
an empath who, due to his sensitivities, hates other human beings for
their unconsciously fearful natures. The other explorers begin to
despise Osden, and so Osden is assigned to explore a nearby forest on
his own. One day, Osden is attacked by one of the other team members.
This causes the surrounding forest to project a feeling of intense fear,
which penetrates every team member. The group eventually realize that
the planet's flora constitutes a single empathic being, connected
through underground roots. After recovering from his attack, Osden heads
back into the forest in an attempt to make contact with the planet's
biosphere. He finds peace with this planetary consciousness and chooses
to remain behind when the other explorers leave the planet.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Good News from the Vatican” (1971, Robert Silverberg)
A group of
opinionated men and women (some of them religious figures of varying
faiths) gather at a cafe to await the results of the Vatican's choice
for the new Pope. Because one of the candidates is a robot, the impact
of such a choice on humans and robot-kind is discussed. Eventually, it
is revealed that the new Pope is indeed the robot candidate. Upon its
emergence, the robot flies into the air using its smoke jets and
disappears from sight, marking an "auspicious" beginning to its term.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“When It Changed” (1972, Joanna Russ)
On the planet Whileaway, male colonists from
Earth have died out generations ago due to a plague. For the last 600
years, only women have lived and prospered on the planet (they reproduce
through a process of ovum manipulation). When men from Earth arrive,
the visitors are amazed at the progress such an exclusively-female
population has made, but still insist that the women of Whileaway are
inferior or incomplete due to the lack of men in their society. Although
the women of Whileaway are repulsed by these men, they fear that they
cannot resist the inevitable.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side” (1972, James Tiptree, Jr.)
A human reporter searches the
spaceport hoping to meet some exotic aliens. He runs into an embittered,
world-weary spaceman who relates stories of beautiful aliens who
disdain to share their company with him. On a sexual level, humans are
considered second-class, and thus he fears that mankind will always be
frustrated and impotent in the face of the alien races he encounters and
fails to win over. After the spaceman's human wife takes him away, the
reporter continues to seek out some aliens to engage with.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Where Two Paths Cross” (Пересечение пути, 1973, Dmitri Bilenkin/Дмитрий Биленкин)
On an alien planet, a patch of mobile, tentacled,
bush-like creatures ("mangors") encounters a human exploratory
expedition for the first time. They use their tentacle limbs to
immobilize the human trespassers, but when they try to consume them as
they would their natural prey, their normal tactics (digestive juices
and violent thrashing) have no real effect. The human explorers
eventually escape the mangor patch by impersonating the natural
symbiotes of the mangor, which the mangor ignore. However, the mangor do
not release the humans' ground vehicle. Later, a hurricane strikes and
destroys both the mangor patch and the vehicle.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Standing Woman” (佇むひと, 1974, Yasutaka Tsutsui/筒井 康隆)
A
technique is developed in which living beings are planted into the
ground, after which they slowly turn into trees. Animals such as cats
and dogs are put through this process at an early age to prevent animal
attacks and over-consumption. Humans who speak out against the
authorities are also made into trees, first existing as "manpillars",
and then, after a year, transforming into unthinking "mantrees". A
writer visits his wife on the street, who has just been planted there
for complaining against the government. The writer becomes sad when he
notices that his wife's thinking abilities have already become sluggish
and impaired after only a short time. He feels that in some ways, he
himself has now become a "manpillar".
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
 |
| The IWM-100 |
In the future, a common household device named the IWM 1000 is able to give answers to any questions asked of it, as it holds the collected knowledge of mankind in its databanks. This reduces the need for mankind to study, or even to learn how to read. Although this pleases many people, some become unhappy about this state of affairs. These restless ones eventually learn (from an IWM 1000) of a land named Takandia where there are no IWM 1000s. When they arrive there, they find savages. Overcome with joy, the new arrivals throw off their clothes and adopt a new lifestyle as "true human beings". In the meantime, the savages take up the discarded clothing of the new arrivals.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
After an off-world accident forces a man
named Lorca to adopt a full-body prosthetic, he finds difficulty in
relating to "organic" humans, such as his wife. After all other
therapies have failed, he is invited to visit a high-price therapeutic
facility (rumored to be a brothel) on Earth. When paired with a cyborg
as his "Sharer", Lorca is at first puzzled as to how this automaton-like
partner will help him, but when other clients begin abusing their
Sharers, his sense of empathy is awakened and he is eventually able to
return to his wife with a renewed sense of humanity. After his wife passes away, Lorca
returns to the House of Compassionate Sharers to become a Sharer
himself.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Sporting with the Chid” (1979, Barrington J. Bayley)
When
a shipmate named Wessel is injured during a hunting expedition on an
alien planet, two men, Brand and Ruiger, decide to seek help from a Chid
outpost, despite being warned away from the aliens by the Earth
authorities. While the Chid heal Wessel in private, Brand and Ruiger
discover a bizarre wood containing small, mobile organ-like creatures
feeding at a lake of blood. Later, they find that the Chid have altered
Wessel so that his brain can exist as a mobile slug outside his
body. When they confront the Chid, the aliens do the same process to
Brand and Ruiger, and then make their slug-brains try to recapture their
wandering human bodies. When their bodies are destroyed in a "race",
the slug-brains of Brand and Ruiger retreat to the lake of blood to
exist in the only way left available to them.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
A cruel man named Kress enjoys owning exotic pets. One day he purchases a set of sandkings (small insect-like
creatures) and a terrarium to house them and their "sandcastles".
Through starvation and abuse, he forces the sandkings to war amongst
themselves and become unusually aggressive. Due to their nature, they
also begin carving images of Kress' face in their fortress structures as
a form of worship, although Kress' face is imbued with malicious
cruelty. As the sandkings grow, they ultimately go out of control and
Kress finds himself feeding the creatures unsuspecting house guests.
Eventually, Kress finds himself unable to handle the exploding
population of hostile sandkings in his house and escape his grounds on foot.
After many hours of walking, he comes across a strange house, from
which pour human-sized escaped sandkings bearing his own face. In the end, Kress
is captured and taken inside the gigantic sandking castle to be eaten.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Wives” (1979, Lisa Tuttle)
On
an alien planet, human men have conquered the native lifeforms and
forced them to act as perfect "wives" to them, even having them wear
"skintights" which force their bodies into sexually-charged figures (but
unnatural and uncomfortable to their own species). One day, while the
men are off to war, the wives discard their skintights and other human
accessories in order to enjoy some time in their natural forms. One
wife, Susie, tries to rally the other wives into staging a revolt
against the men, as she fears that soon they will no longer even be able
to remember what their previous lives before the arrival of their
"husbands" had been like. However, the leader of the wives reminds the others
that the men would only destroy them if they tried to resist. In the end,
Susie is destroyed by the other wives, due to their fear that her
rebellious actions would result in punishments for them all. When
Susie's husband comes home, another native has already assumed Susie's
place. The man remarks that the wonderful lives provided them by their
wives makes their warring worthwhile.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky” (1981, Josephine Saxton)
In a future
society in which social standing is established through scientific
reputation, three sniping bio-engineers work on technology by which to
exchange behavioral tendencies between humans and animals. Full of
loathing for each other, each of them secretly implants a hidden animal
persona in one of their partners. During a social party amongst their
peers, they each in turn activate their lab partners' animal personas
(cat, mouse, snake) in an attempt to humiliate the other, but in the end
they only embarrass themselves as a group. After departing the party
(while still influenced by their animal personas), two of them kill each
other. A third scientist returns alone to her lab intending to use the
discoveries of her deceased colleagues to salvage her own reputation.
However, one subject, a snake named Lupus the Loop, tells her
(telepathically) that one of her now-deceased colleagues had instilled his own
instincts and powers of verbal communication into the snake's brain
(confirming a Chomsky theory). While the snake eats the last scientist,
the mice in the laboratory, also using their ability to employ language
skills, make their escape.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Reiko's Universe Box” (1981, Kajio Shinji)
A newlywed named Reiko receives a
mysterious transparent cube which apparently contains a "universe"
inside of it. In the ensuing weeks, while her husband gradually
distances himself from her (due to work demands and an extra-marital
affair), Reiko becomes more and more obsessed with the stellar
activities she observes happening inside the box. One day, in a fit of
frustration, Reiko's husband strikes the box, causing its internal
speed to accelerate. The central star in the box rapidly burns out,
implodes, and becomes a black hole. Reiko's husband is sucked inside the
box, and in a moment of rapture Reiko dives into the box as well.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
In
the far future, mankind has split up into two factions: the
technology-based Machinists and the genetically-enhanced Shapers. When a
non-sentient, insectoid-like race is discovered thriving inside an
asteroid, Shaper agents Afriel and Mirny are sent to investigate the
"Swarm" to determine if they can be exploited as a labor force. However,
the Swarm eventually senses the intentions of the Shaper agents and
spontaneously births an "intelligence-agent", a sentient form of its
race which is only called forth in cases when an alien race appears and
tries to exploit the Swarm. After making Mirny into a mindless puppet for
communication purposes, it tells Afriel that mankind's intelligence and
need for growth will eventually lead to its disappearance from the
universe, just as has happened with thousands of other races within the
Swarm's eons-long memory. The Swarm decides to use the two Shaper agents
to breed warriors which will repel further attacks by human invaders,
and after humanity has "transcended" the universe, the Swarm's human
workforce will be the only remnants of humanity in the universe. Afriel
vows to fight the Swarm in order to avoid the fate of thousands of other
races similarly co-opted by the Swarm in this manner.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
After a devastating war, the Earth is
in tatters, and the remnants of humanity mutate accordingly into more
and more pathetic, grotesque versions of mankind, appearing as beings of
different sizes and sometimes forming "mountains of bodies". Some
portions of mankind also flee to the stars but many are also destroyed
in the effort to flee the increasingly-hostile (and surreal) landscape.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
A
biochemist named Vergil injects himself with molecular computers the
size of chromosomes. The entities multiply and begin "improving"
Vergil's own body. Eventually the entities attain sentience and form
entire civilizations inside his body (due to their close proximity, the
creatures are able to develop at accelerated speeds). Vergil's friend Edward
becomes alarmed at Vergil's increasingly inhuman state as he is taken
over by the creatures. In a moment of panic, he kills Vergil by
electrocuting his friend in a bathtub with a lamp. However, he soon
discovers that the creatures have infected himself as well. Later back
at his apartment, he and his wife (also soon infected) are taken over by
the creatures and eventually transformed into large cell-shaped
monstrosities. With his last bit of self-conscious thought, Edward
suspects that the entire planet will soon be taken over by this
micro-cellular artificial intelligence.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
On a planet dominated by a race of
insectoid natives named the Tlic, refugees from Earth are kept in a
"Preserve" so that they can be used as host carriers for the Tlic's
embryonic young. After an egg is deposited inside a human, Tlic worms
eventually emerge from the human host, eating their way out, during which
time the human's Tlic partner usually puts the host under sedation
(allowing for recovery and future gestations). One young potential host,
Gan, witnesses an episode in which a human host is forced to give birth
to his Tlic young without sedation. As one of the few humans to have
witnessed this emergence/birth, he is horrified and considers taking his
own life. But he eventually realizes that if he is not available as a
host, his sister will be chosen as a substitute. In the end, having been
brought up to "bond" with his Tlic mate, Gan allows himself to be
impregnated, and his Tlic partner Gatoi promises to care for him.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
When
a composer named Gladney becomes the victim of a "mindsuck" (in which
his memories and personality are stolen from him), a "pathosfinder"
named Deadpan Allie is assigned to help the man recover as a newborn
personality. When Allie and Gladney plug into a virtual reality
environment (and undertake a phantasmagorical-musical mental journey),
Allie discovers that the "ghost" of the old Gladney is haunting the new
Gladney. Eventually, Allie helps Gladney come to terms with his past and
the new Gladney begins to develop in a healthier manner.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead” (1984, Sharon N. Farber, as S. N. Dyer)
When her artist husband contracts a terminal disease, a
woman accompanies him into embracing a life on a space habitat where
all bacteria has been eliminated through biotechnology. However, when her husband eventually
begins having an affair with one of the other inhabitants, she
considers returning to Earth.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
The
narrator, a corporate spy from the Hosaka corporation, uses a female
agent (call-girl) named Sandii to help his corporation kidnap a
scientist named Hiroshi. Later, Sandii betrays Hosaka for their
competitor Maas and sabotages a meeting between Hiroshi and Hosaka
scientists. The narrator is blamed for the disaster and goes on the run,
although he still pines for the girl while hiding out in a capsule
hotel at Narita airport.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Pots” (1985, C. J. Cherryh)
A "Lord Navigator" named Desan visits a distant
alien planet where an archaeological dig has been underway for thousands
of years. Desan's people had once come across a message plaque from the stars
and followed its source to these ruins. Desan and his superiors believe
that the Ancients still exist, but the lead archaeologist, Doctor
Gothon, reports that the Ancients had more likely destroyed themselves
in an atomic war. This politically-awkward revelation causes Desan's
superiors, the Lord Magistrates, to remotely order the expedition's
robot assistants to attack the research team. After Desan helps
deactivate the aggressive robots, he decides to continue
searching the stars for any traces of the Ancients, despite Doctor
Gothon's conclusions. In the end, the message plaque
of the Ancients is revealed to have been one of the signs attached to the Pioneer space probes of the 1970s (and that the alien planet is in fact Earth in the far future).
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
In the near future, small drones
called "Wasps" allow for an audiovisual recording of a person's daily
activities over a long stretch of time to be stored digitally. When a woman named Georgie dies, her estranged husband
accesses random Wasp footage from Georgie's life. Over time, the footage
loses clarity, reflecting the deterioration of the man's selective memory of his deceased wife over
time.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
An elderly woman
named Miranda goes through a form of virtual reality psycho-therapy to
resolve her guilt issues with an old lover named Daniel whom she had abandoned
before he had gone off to die in the Vietnam War. Despite her
therapist's insistence, Miranda begins to believe that the "Daniel" in
her sessions is the real thing. In a final, self-induced encounter bringing her into a
jungle environment, she "saves" him from killing a Vietnamese child during the
war, although she is unable to prevent Daniel's own death.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets” (1985, Angélica Gorodischer)
In Rosario, a
small republic of Argentina, a young girl launches in a new spacecraft
to journey beyond the edge of the universe. When she returns, she
describes her experience in poetic terms, reporting the "unmistakable
smell of woodviolets". Despite initial excitement over the news, the
various nations of Earth eventually carry on as normal.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Owl of Bear Island” (1986, Jon Bing)
Extraterrestrials mentally "possess"
selected humans on Earth to do their bidding. The narrator resides at
Bear Island, a station at the top of the world which experiences 3
months of continuous night and 3 months of continuous daylight during
the year. During the nights, he is possessed by an alien mind which he
perceives as an "owl". In order to find a way to fight back against his
alien slave master, he begins developing a computer program which will
monitor and learn from the Owl as the alien intelligence conducts its
own operations on the station's computer system. He hopes that with
time, his "sleeper" program will defeat the aliens, even though he
himself may not survive to see it.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Readers of the Lost Art” ("La Carte du Tendre" 1986, Elisabeth Vonarburg)
In
a ritual ceremony attended by many spectators, an "Operator" removes
the outer skin of his "Subject", after which his own skin is
removed. The show concludes when the two beings exchange skins. Although
the display is revealed to be actually a holographic recording, the two participants
of the original performance also watch from the audience while engaged in their own contemporaneous drama.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
On the planet
Vreccis, a former member of the Culture (an advanced segment of humanity
in space) is forced to serve an underworld faction and given a Culture
weapon with which to destroy an arriving Culture starship. He
at first balks at the thought of becoming a mass murderer, but when his
lover Maust becomes a hostage, he acquiesces and completes his mission.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
A space explorer discovers gigantic
city-sized creatures ("animalcities") floating in space and manages to
force one of them to become moored to a nearby planet. While men begin
to use the creatures' architecture as a form of prefabricated
settlement, the prospector explores Paranamanco's organic streets with
two other "dreamers". When one of them drinks water from an indigenous
fountain, he becomes "partnered" to the animalcity and gardens begin
sprouting on the city's surface. The prospector realizes that the
animalcities require symbiotic hosts to give them life. Eventually,
enough Earthmen arrive on Paranamanco and the city decides to take off
into deep space with its newly-acquired, adventure-seeking partners. A
reporter obtains the last testimony of the prospector, who also leaves
behind a vial of the water from Paranamanco's fountain.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Crying in the Rain” (1987, Tanith Lee)
Radiation
and acid rain have forced the rich to seek sheltered lives in the
Center (a protected dome), while the poor make do in decrepit, exposed outposts.
The narrator becomes a resident of the Center after she is sold to one
of the rich men living there. In the end, she begins to enjoy
her life of luxury and in retrospect appreciates the harsh upbringing
she had endured under her mother.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Frozen Cardinal” (1985, Michael Moorcock)
On a planet many
light-years from Earth, an exploration team discovers a Roman Catholic
Cardinal embedded in the wall of an ice crevice, frozen in a gesture of
forgiveness. After the Cardinal is extracted from the crevice and thawed,
he shows no sign of life, but later the members of the team find
themselves joining the Cardinal in an ecstatic song. They eventually
return the Cardinal to his original location in the ice and send
recordings of the chants back to their supervisors, hoping for backup.
The narrator relates this episode in letters to her lover and reports a
new feeling of ecstatic bliss and love for humanity.
“Rachel in Love” (1987, Pat Murphy)
After his daughter is killed in a traffic accident, a
neural scientist imprints her recorded brainwaves (personality/memory
traits) into a chimpanzee, and names her Rachel after his deceased
daughter. Eventually, the scientist dies, and Rachel is sent to a
primate breeding and research center, where the staff conduct inhuman
experiments on apes. Over time, Rachel uses her enhanced intelligence to
befriend Jake the night janitor, and at one point believes herself to
be in love with him. When Jake doesn't respond to her overtures, she
escapes out into the desert with her cage-mate, a fellow chimpanzee
named Johnson. While Rachel and Johnson make their way back towards
Rachel's former home, the press eventually learn of their extraordinary
cross-country exploits and they become celebrities.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Sharing Air” (1984, Manjula Padmanabhan)
After
rampant pollution causes a collapse of society, air becomes a commodity
which is portioned out into mobile living suits worn by the remaining
members of humanity. Over time, society generally values their
antiseptic, repressed form of life over the old way of life, where
humans had been exposed to the open air and even shared air when in the
same room. The narrator describes exotic thrill-seekers who sometimes
take trips to experience the old ways of "sharing air", believing this
way of life to be far more satisfying than their current lifestyles.
However, the narrator argues that these selfish pleasure-seeking habits
of the few resulted in ill-health and death for the many.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Schwarzschild Radius” (1987, Connie Willis)
A young researcher visits an
aging scientist named Rottscheiben to learn of his experience of meeting
Karl Schwarzchild, the man who first calculated the event horizon of a
black hole during WW I while embedded in the Eastern Front. During the
interview, Rottscheiben recalls the desperate conditions surrounding the
experience and connects the concept of a black hole with the
inescapable war conditions at the Front. In the end, the young
researcher unironically remarks on the unlikelihood of a man like
Schwarzchild creating such an advanced theory during wartime conditions
while also suffering from a terminal disease.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“All the Hues of Hell” (1987, Gene Wolfe)
During an expedition to a "dark matter" planet, three
explorers capture a dark matter alien in their spaceship hold. When one
man, Skip, begins to believe that he is a dead man's ghost (and that
human souls go to dark matter planets to be reborn as "demons"), his
wife and their third crew member (a robot named Kyle) restrain him.
Later, when Kyle sees the figure transform in their dark matter
containment field turn white, Marilyn claims that she feels the embryo
in her womb (Skip's child, and/or possibly a "demon") awaken.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Vacuum States” (1988, Geoffrey A. Landis)
Two
scientists discover a possible method of obtaining unlimited energy by
extracting it from a vacuum. However, one of the scientists fears that
their technique may break the universe's "state of symmetry", causing
all the energy in the universe to be released in one great explosion
(and destroying it). Nonetheless, they proceed to set up a test, and as
the countdown heads to zero, they two scientists bring in the narrator
(a layman) to decide on whether to allow such a rewarding-but-dangerous
experiment to proceed.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Two Small Birds” (1988, Han Song)
In the distant primeval past, the narrator
(a cosmic being of time-space) arrives on Earth, its energy shadow
leaving markings in the landscape of Peru which will later be dubbed the
"Nazca symbols". The narrator tries to help a crashed sentient
spaceship named Ozma escape the planet, but the appearance of two small
birds somehow creates a barrier to rescue. 50,000 years later, the
narrator continues to work towards Ozma's freedom (and restoration to
the stars), but is warned by an interstellar "hunter" that such an act
will change the evolutionary history of mankind (history will be altered
from 50,000 years ago). The narrator ultimately decides to abandon Ozma
and travels into the next cycle of the universe where no living
creatures should have arisen yet. However, he sees bird tracks,
apparently left behind by the two small birds he had also seen in the
previous universe. The narrator wonders at what that suggests about
their superior nature.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Burning Sky” (1989, Rachel Pollack)
The narrator searches for a way to reach sexual gratification and eventually discovers a fetish for leather-wear. A parallel narrative describes a woman named Julia who spies on the "Free Women", a group of man-hating vigilantes. Eventually, Julia is captured by the Free Women and recruited into their ranks. During a final "initiation" she is presented to a strange woman in Crete (named "Burning Sky", supposedly thousands of years old). After returning to the city, she resumes her old life, awaiting orders from the Free Women. When she disobeys a mission directive, she feels that she has been exiled from the group, but later they accept her back when she appears willing to sacrifice her own life.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Before I Wake” (1989, Kim Stanley Robinson)
When the Earth passes
through an electromagnetic field, mankind's REM cycles are affected,
causing all humans to experience spontaneous, uncontrolled periods of sleeping, lucid dreaming and waking. A team of scientists use
artificial stimulants to try and stay awake in order to develop a form
of shielding in order to stay sane. However, when one scientist finally
completes the construction of the device, his fellow scientists have
already gone insane and destroy it.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Death Is Static Death Is Movement” (from Red Spider White Web) (1990, Misha Nogha)
After
having an intimate encounter with her cyborg friend Tommy (who lives in
an environmental chemical tank), a half-human half-wolverine girl named
Kumo ensnares the predatory Pink Flies gang in her hologram trap/art
piece. Her plan becomes more complicated when Hoodoo zombies attack
while her trap is still in full swing. Eventually the Pinkies succumb to
the zombies, while Kumo barely escapes into the tunnels.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Brains of Rats” (1986, Michael Blumlein)
A doctor who has discovered a way
to create a virus which will determine the gender of a child struggles
with his own gender identity, and wonders at how rats seem to be able to
naturally identify their gender-bias instinctively.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Gorgonoids” (from Mathematical Creatures or Shared Dreams) (1992, Leena Krohn)
The
narrator describes various creatures which may or may not exist in
digital space, and compares their programmed sense of purpose with her
own tendencies towards independent thought. Eventually she begins to
question her own existence.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ” (1992, Kojo Laing)
A giant
bronze alien arrives and claims to have killed Christ. He is now looking
for a replacement to ease his peace of mind. After the native clergy take him to
a mortuary, a courtroom and a historical center to seek out applicants,
Jesus Christ arrives, apparently reborn. One of the natives asks for
his qualifications.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Universe of Things” (1993, Gwyneth Jones)
When one of the newly-arrived-on-Earth
aliens visits a mechanic, the starstruck human tries to maximize his
encounter with the exotic being. Overnight, he works on the alien's car,
which has somehow been imbued with some alien qualities (like limited
intelligence). Eventually he buys the alien's car for himself to be used
as a local status symbol.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Remoras” (1994, Robert Reed)
In
the far future, where humans live almost immortal lives while vacationing
on a planet-sized spaceship ("Greatship"), a rich woman named Quee Lee
marries an adventurer named Perri. One day, a Remoran named Orleans (one
of the self-mutated worker-class who labor on the dangerous radiation
zones on the spaceship's outer hull) visits, demanding money from a debt
incurred by Perri. With her husband absent on a trip, Quee Lee
befriends the Remoran and is enticed to undergo a body-change to
experience life as a Remoran herself for a time (but at a high price).
After undergoing a period of unconsciousness, Orleans wakes and is taken
out to the hull. However, although she experiences a moment of bliss
while outside on the hull, she soon learns that she has been swindled
and that she has not been transformed at all. Orleans tells her that her
husband Perri is actually a Remoran who has abandoned his own people,
and that the Remorans gain vengeance on him by swindling his lovers.
Although Quee Lee at first intends to confront Perri about his deceptive
ways, she decides that her moment of peace while on the hull has made
everything worthwhile in the end.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Ghost Standard” (1994, William Tenn)
A human, a lobster alien and a
computer AI become stranded in space. Due to a shortage of food, the
human and the lobster engage in a word game to determine who will eat
the other. Eventually the AI is called upon to determine the ruling of a
game move. The AI rules that the lobster has lost. After rescue, the
human is fined for cannibalism. The AI is also judged guilty and
sentenced to become a cash register.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Remnants of the Virago Crypto-System” (1995, Geoffrey Maloney)
After alien visitors depart from
Earth, they leave behind type-writer printer-like communication devices
which impart ambiguous messages. The narrator and his partner receive
messages from the last remaining alien questioning mankind's
self-destructive role in history. The narrator's partner eventually
kills herself, while the narrator objects that he had never killed
anyone personally.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“How Alex Became a Machine” (from The Troika, 1997, Stepan Chapman)
A man named Alex with prosthetic arms decides to
investigate what it is exactly the factory he is working for is making.
He eventually learns that the factory makes "Autisticons", cabinets in
which children are trapped and force-fed food and education. While on a
quest to witness these schools for himself, Alex is injured in a fire.
He comforts himself by vowing to become a machine. Many years later,
Alex has become a robotized insect exterminator. While visiting one home
he destroys the property and makes peace with the cicadas which live
there.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Poetry Cloud” (1997, Cixin Liu)
In
the far future humanity has been conquered by the Devourers, a giant
dinosaur race which maintains a small population of humans as cattle.
One day, an even more advanced god-like race arrives. When brought
before this super-god, a human poet named Yiyi maintains that no matter
how powerful the being is, it can never surpass the sublime poetry of
the venerated poet Li Bai. The godlike being takes up the challenge and
remakes its physical form into a Chinese scholar named Li Bai. After
some time of struggle, "Li Bai" fails to come up with any poetry greater
than his namesake. However, he comes upon another angle of attack: he
will have a computer generate every possible poem ever created through
all permutations of the Chinese language. This massive undertaking ends
up requiring an immense amount of energy and matter, and the Devourers'
home planet is consumed in the process. Yiyi later convinces Li Bai to
create a "new Earth" (essentially a hollow Earth) for the human
survivors to live. In the end, Li Bai takes Yiyi and the remaining
Devourer ambassador to the "Poetry cloud" (the stellar database which
holds all of the possible poems of all time) and admits that even with
all his great technology, he is still unable to actually draw out great
poetry from his data cloud, as technology cannot simulate an artistic
selection predicated on human nature.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Story of Your Life” (1998, Ted Chiang)
When aliens arrive on Earth, they
communicate only through visual displays called "looking glasses". A
linguist is called in to try to learn the aliens' language. She
eventually realizes that the aliens perceive time as a continuum
describing a minimum to a maximum state (point A to B), rather than as a
temporal sequence of events instigated by cause and effect. Immersion
in the aliens' way of thinking eventually imparts this perceptual
methodology to the linguist herself. As she describes the events surrounding her
experiences with the aliens (who eventually depart without warning),
she also becomes aware of events from the future which describe her
daughter's life, who will die in a rock-climbing accident at the age of
25. Despite the foreknowledge of her daughter's death, she realizes that
she will conceive her anyway.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“Craphound” (1998, Cory Doctorow)
When
aliens begin a trade relationship with humanity, they exchange items of
great technological value for seemingly useless trinkets from out of
antiquity. The narrator, a professional antique hound named Jerry,
befriends one of the aliens and they end up competing for a vintage
trunk full of discarded cowboy paraphernalia, driving a wedge into their
friendly relationship. However, one day the aliens prepare to leave
Earth, but before they do, Jerry's alien competitor gives the cowboy
trunk to him as a memento of their friendship. Jerry realizes that the
aliens value items for their ability to prompt a "story and a poem" more
than for their monetary value.
Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction Discussion
“The Slynx” (opening excerpt from The Slynx) (2000, Tatyana Tolstaya)
Sometime
after a nuclear apocalypse (referred to as "the Blast"), survivors eke
out a difficult non-technological existence in the wilderness. Many
people are plagued by radiation mutation, but a few survivors of the
Blast seem to have gained a form of longevity. Meanwhile, in the
outlying forest, a creature named the Slynx caused mental trauma to its
victims and travelers from neighboring provinces conduct trade, although
civilization is at its nadir. The narrator eventually reveals that he
lives in what once was called Moscow.
“Baby Doll” (2002, Johanna Sinisalo)
In a society where sexualization of young girls and boys has become a highly-regarded practice, an 8-year-old girl named Annette feels left out when her cosmetically-enhanced older sister Lulu gains attention as a model. Jealous, she deliberately causes Lulu to miss her ride home, after which Lulu is sexually assaulted. At first consumed with guilt over her complicity in Lulu's traumatic experience, Annette nonetheless soon asks her mother for breast implants. At first taken aback, her mother quickly agrees to consider the idea.
