Some recent B-fiction (16 May 2010)

I've dropped very crappy stuff, but there is nothing excellent here either; all B-stories, & on the lower side of my B-pile. Better reads tend to come early in list below.

1. Dagoberto Gilb's "Uncle Rock"; download; The New Yorker, 10 May 2010; non-genre: A poor Mexican woman in US receives passes from all kinds of men. Told from the perspective of her 11 year old son.
2. Denise McCune's "Shuffle Up and Deal"; download; JBU, #23 (February 2010); humor: This plot probably has been done 10,000 times in various garbs.
   
   Aliens have landed & one of them requested the government to let him play an about to begin
   
   Poker tournament. Someone overhears an alien delegate as saying the winner takes Earth! So panic sets in, & everyone must ensure the alien loses the tournament!
3. [ff] Duncan Shields' "Shuffler"; download; 365tomorrows, 10 May 2010: Using a teleporting device to make humanity more tolerant of interracial differences!
4. Steven Popkes' "Crocodiles"; download (online only for a couple of months); F&SF, May/June 2010; zombie: Germans, during World War II, have created zombie soldiers that can turn enemy into zombies by biting.
   
   Very nasty & dark story. European & US readers might identify with it in ways I cannot.
   
   Also included are standard prejudices of many US sources: Americans are smart, Germans are evil, Russians couldn't care less for their own.
5. Jacqueline Rochow's "The Truth Will Out"; download; 365tomorrows, 5 May 2010; fanfic: Effectively retells an episode from Pierre Poulle's "Planet of the Apes", but without explicitly naming the original: A few scientists have evidence that their ancestors were merely lab animals of humans, & are debating the social implications of making the information public.

Related: Fiction from 2010.