Alex Shvartsman's "The epistolary history" (flash fiction, time travel, humor, free)

While the idea is like any number of old time travel stories - a man travels to make a "minor" tweak to past to make a better present, it made me smile more than once.

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 25 April 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Alex Shvartsman.

Conor Powers-Smith's "For your information" (flash fiction, humor, free): The future of social networks

Is it so far fetched to expect everyone's genome as standard component of their online profile, just like photos are? Not entirely funny things happen when a lover decides to check her potential partner's profile...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 4 April 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

C J Cherryh's "The Pride Of Chanur" (novel, space opera): What if lions evolved into intelligence?

I won't call it a bad read, but I seem to no longer enjoy most space opera now-a-days. But this may be the first space opera I've seen that is almost entirely from aliens' point of view; humans play a very minor & junior role.

Story summary.

There is something called Compact - a region of space somewhere on the edge of human space. Many alien space traveling species live here, cooperating & fighting. One of the more villainous of them, "kif", had got hold of some human spacemen, whom they tortured to presumably get the coordinates of human homeworld. Three prisoners died, one escaped. The escaped one found sanctuary in a "hani" ship. Much of the story is the chase & fights across star systems to get hold of this human prisoner, sucking in other alien races in the fight too.

Hani look like intelligent lions. Through the story, I got an impression this was a feminist work because gender roles among Hani are reversed relative humans - females do outside work & earning, men keep homes. But a discussion at ClassicScienceFiction points out similarity of Hani culture with that of lions. In fact, the "Pride" of title might be a pun on pride of lions; "Chanur" is the hani clan to which the heroine, Pyanfar, belongs. Officially, "Pride of Chanur" is the name of the hani spaceship in the story.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1982.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Hugo Award 1983 in novel category.

Stanley Mullen's "Fool Killer" (short story, justice, free): Do you _really_ want impartial & logical justice?

While it has a mundane start, it changes gears in a completely unexpected way part way through. Much of the story is about the implications of this twist, but almost anything I say about it will spoil the most interesting moment in the story.

Notes.

Author clarifies the title near end: "The Fool Killer never has to kill; it is enough if the fools know he is present, ready to strike, to keep them on their toes, make good citizens of bad, or at least careful citizens of those inclined to heedless cruelty or stupidity."

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, May 1958.
Download full text as part of the scans of Astounding (British ed), August 1958.
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.

Frank Herbert's "You Take the High Road" (short story, detective, free)

Here is a peaceful place, its peacefulness asserted by its natives. Natives that were told beforehand that they'll get a significant prize if they're peaceful! And there are no obvious signs that suggest they're not peaceful.

But a detective's got a hunch they're putting up a false show...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, May 1958.
Download full text as part of the scans of Astounding (British ed), August 1958.
This is the first of the four stories that went into the making of author's fixup novel "The Godmakers".
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Frank Herbert.

"Astounding Science Fiction" (British edition), August 1958 (magazine, free) (ed John W Campbell): Annotated table of contents

Links on author fetch more fiction by author. Where I've read the story, my rating appears in brackets. If I have a separate post on a story, link on its title goes there.

Table of contents (best first, unread last).

1. [novel - 1/3] Hal Clement's "Close to Critical" (A): "Meet Tenebra, the planet where raindrops are fifty feet through ... & hard quartz rocks dissolve away like salt. Under three gravities, & a monstrously deep atmosphere, with oily seas of sulphuric acid, two children touch off a political situation that is ... close to critical".
2. [ss] Frank Herbert's "You Take the High Road" (A); detective: Is this village really of peaceful people?
3. [ss] Stanley Mullen's "Fool Killer" (A): What if law allowed you one murder!
4. [ss] John Rackham's "One-Eye" (B): A man has an unusual gift - he "sees" bad things happen just before they do happen. And figuring out the nature of this "gift" gets him in trouble.
   
   Title is from the story about a one-eyed man among the blind ones. As is the man with the gift among the ordinary humans.
5. [novelette] Charles V de Vet's "Special Feature": "What constitutes public entertainment changes with the mores of a society. The Romans liked the circuses ... but the feline devil loose in their city might have been a bit too stimulating for them..."
6. [ss] Gordon R Dickson's "The Question": "It wasn't too surprising that aliens couldn't answer the Question. After all, we've been trying for millenia ourselves!"

Fact sheet.

Labeled: Vol XIV No 8.
Download scans as a CBR file. [via Bob@pulpscans]
Note: Link points to a RAR file that contains target CBR, probably to work around some hosting service file naming constraints.
Related: Stories from the Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell, old "pulps", 1950s.

Free fiction: Universe, #1 (June 1953)

Someone posted scans of this issue as pdf via a torrent.

Includes a then controversial story of Theodore Sturgeon, & one of the minor stories of Murray Leinster (assuming I'm recollecting the right story of Leinster!) Other notable authors include Mack Reynolds & Mark Clifton.

Related: Old pulps; fiction from 1950s.