The Short Story Thread

"Boojum" by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette (Fast Ships, Black Sails, an anthology of original stories with pirate themes) -- Deliberately old-fashioned space opera with space pirates using living alien "ships" to raid cargo vessels. There's a reference to the seas of Venus, and the story even makes use of H. P. Lovecraft's alien Mi-Go from Pluto (AKA Fungi from Yuggoth) and their tendency to capture human brains. Not my cup of retro tea.

"Exhalation" by Ted Chiang (Eclipse Two, one of a series of anthologies of original stories) -- Strange tale narrated by a being, very human in psychology but actually an intricate metallic mechanism, who investigates the workings of its own gold-foil "brain" and discovers that it runs on differences in pressure in the argon that fills its removable, refillable "lungs" and which fills the chromium lined "universe" in which it and those of its kind live. Depending on how you look at it, it's either the hardest of hard science fiction -- the entire thing is a case study in experimental investigation -- or the most fantastic of fantasy, having nothing to do with our own reality. In any case, it's a real tour de force, and its elegant style and rigidly extrapolated surreal premise remind me of Borges.

"Traitor" by M. Rickert (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 2008) -- Subtle tale set in the near future, with a background of an underground revolution seen through the eyes of a little girl. A chilling study of the psychology of terrorism.

"The Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away" by Cory Doctorow (website Tor.com, August 6, 2008) -- Set in New York City in the near future, this story deals with a man who is one of a sort of "monks" (although their "order" is strictly secular) who have dropped out of society and use their technical skills to detect anomalies in the data stream. The protagonist leaves the "campus" of the "order" and goes into the city, which is under the tight control of security agents, in order to find out what happened to a fellow "monk" who had altered the data stream in some way. This is a dark, cynical tale, with a not very subtle satiric edge for the 21st century passion for security. You can read it here:

http://www.tor.com/2008/08/06/weak-and-strange/

There are so many excellent stories out there, I shall have to give this some thought.
Here are a few stories that spring to mind, these are all good, worth looking out for.
"Four In One" by Damon Knight, a really brilliant story which starts with the hero being eaten alive.
"The Marching Morons" & "The Little Black Bag" both by C.M.Kornbluth, both set in the same universe, when I look at some of modern day TV I can see "Morons" coming true.
"The Wordprocesser Of The Gods" by Stephen King, a man is given one tinkered together by his late nephew, which he then finds can alter reality.
"I Made You" by Walter M. Miller Jr, a man is trapped on the Moon, being hunted by a robot tank, interestingly it's written from the tanks point of view.
"Little Lost Robot" by Isaac Asimov, what can happen when you mess with the three laws.
"The Liberation Of Earth" by William Tenn, a very heavy satire about little people caught up in a big fight.
"Big Joe And The Nth Generation" also by Miller, set on a terraformed Mars where civilization has lost all the old knowledge.
"All Mimsy Were The Borogoves", "The Proud Robot", "Time Locker", "The Townky", these are just a few of the outstanding stories of Henry Kuttner & possible C.L.Moore, they were husband and wife and would some times collaborate on stories but publish them under Henrys name.
"Window" by Bob Lehman (think I've got the name right), this is SF with a very strong Horror element, very creepy and memorable.
These are just a few for now, I'll try to think of some more.
It's nice to see a thread devoted to short stories, they seem to get ignored a lot of the time in favour of novels.
But to my way of thinking a good s/s is as memorable as any epic novel.
And they stay in the memory just as long.

REF: MontyCircus
"Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon.
Excellent chose, also one of my favorites, I liked The Simpsons version of this in one of there Halloween Specials.
With Lisa as the God.
They also did an outstanding version of Poe's "The Raven".

BigBadBob141 said:

"Window" by Bob Lehman (think I've got the name right), this is SF with a very strong Horror element, very creepy and memorable.

Click to expand...

Actually, it was Bob Leman. I remember the story well. Great story. It was nominated for a Nebula Award and I think it was even adapted for an episode of the TV series Night Visions, though I never saw it.

"Oblivion: A Journey" by Vandana Singh (Clockwork Phoenix, an anthology of original stories) -- This is a galaxy-ranging, extreme far future tale of revenge, influenced in part by themes from the author's Indian background. It might be best described as an introspective space opera, alternating scenes of violent action with meditations of the narrator's past and on the nature of evil and justice/vengeance.

"The House Left Empty" by Robert Reed (Asimov's, April/May 2008) -- In a future USA which has been balkanized into small city-states, a mysterious package arrives for a fellow who moved away some time ago. This quiet opening leads to a awe-inspiring vision, and mourning for lost possibilities.

"The Scarecrow's Boy" by Michael Swanwick (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October/November 2008) -- Brief tale which seems to start off like a fairy tale, as a scarecrow helps a little boy. But the scarecrow is a robot, and the dangers he and the boy face are hardly fantasy. Narrated in a deceptively simple style.

"N-Words" by Ted Kosmatka (Seeds of Change, an anthology of original stories) -- Takes place in a near future where Neanderthals have been clones, leading to a new form of racism. Wisely, the author chooses to tell this story on a very personal, individual level.

"Fury" by Alastair Reynolds (Eclipse Two) -- Set in a vast galactic empire in the extreme far future, this story deals with the Emperor's personal security expert investigating the "assassination" of the Emperor (which was really only a minor inconvenience which made him move his consciousness from one artificial body to another.) His galaxy-spanning journey leads him to confront his own past, a crime committed tens of thousands of years ago, and his relationship with his employer. Manages to combine the gigantic scale of space opera with personal emotions.

"Cheats" by "Ann Halam" (Gwyneth Jones; apparently this is the name she uses for her young adult fiction) (The Starry Rift) -- A young girl and her even younger brother who spend a lot of time exploring virtual reality worlds discover three people who seem to be able to change the rules of the worlds, and follow them into an unexpected place. The conclusion goes far beyond the usual virtual reality themes.

"The Ships Like Clouds, Risen by Their Rain" by Jason Sanford (Interzone, August 2008) -- Creates a very strange reality in which people live on a world made of the stuff which is dropped on them by the huge number of spaceships which fly above them, but which also sometimes cause massive destruction by dropping water and causing huge floods. Then it gets weirder. Original, if nothing else.

"The Egg Man" by Mary Rosenblum (Asimov's, February 2008) -- In the near future, certain areas of the United States near the Mexican border have become "unserviced regions," where people eke out a living from the desert without government support. The protagonist is a Mexican citizen who travels to this region to bring them bioengineered eggs to treat their diseases. With all this background, the story actually deals with the woman that the protagonist lost long ago, and how his past comes to haunt him. An effective story.

I read a great story by Henry Kuttner in the black magic collection I am reading entitled "Threshold". A man things he can outwit a demon by utilising logic and psychology to have his cake and eat it but of course, he comes a cropper.

"Glass" by Daryl Gregory (MIT Technology Review, October 20, 2008) -- Brief story dealing with an experimental drug which induces empathy in sociopaths. Things don't go as expected. The author makes the neurochemistry sound very convincing. You can read it here:

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/411026/glass/

"Fixing Hanover" by Jeff VanderMeer (Extraordinary Engines, an anthology of original steampunk stories.) -- A brilliant engineer, living among seafaring folk, finds an old, damaged robot and tries to repair it. As in so many of these stories, he has to confront his past as he does so. This doesn't have the pseudo-Victorian feel of some steampunk, but it has the same feeling of technological fantasy.

"Message Found in a Gravity Wave" by Rudy Rucker (Nature Physics, August 2008) -- One of several very short stories published by the science journal Nature as part of its "Futures" series. This one is a comic tale about a fellow who moves big rocks in order to communicate via gravity waves. Drool, in an apocalyptic way. Read it here:

http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v4/n8/pdf/nphys1049.pdf

"Mitigation" by Karl Schroeder and Tobias S. Buckell (Fast Forward 2, one of a series of anthologies of original stories) -- Set in a near future facing the global warming crisis, this story follows the adventures of a fellow who is hired by a shady type to copy the genetic sequences of rare seeds kept locked in a vault in the Arctic, before the real bad guys can seize them first. With its fast pace and criminal background, it might be called "ecopunk." There's a hopeful ending, too.

"Spiders" by Sue Burke (Asimov's, March 2008) -- Brief story about a man showing his young son all the strange, sometimes dangerous, life in a forest on a colony planet. The author does a good job imagining an alien ecology, and the story has a kicker at the end.