Indrapramit Das' "Kolkata Sea" (flash fiction, global warming, free)

Description of a Calcutta claimed by the sea, as an effect of global warming.

See also.

1. Kim Stanley Robinson's "Venice Drawned" (download): Similar concept, but a lot more drama. Doomed city is Venice here.

Fact sheet.

First published: Flash Fiction Online, July 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site, The World SF Blog. [via QuasarDragon]
Rating: B.

S Spencer Baker's "Slabscape:Reset" (novel)

Joe Bailey, of Blip Publishing, asked me if I would plug one of their novels here. I'm always game. So he sent me a copy of this novel.

I haven't read the book yet, but when I looked up its website, Slabscape, just now, I'm inclined to pick it up. Expect a more complete note on the book sometimes during next couple of months, provided it's as good as the homepage promises.

@Amazon: US/UK.
@B&N.
@Apple's ebook store.
@Sony's ebook store.
@Publisher's site.

Hugo Awards 2011: Winners announced

Official announcement.

Short fiction winners:

1. [novella] Ted Chiang's "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" (A); download; Subterranean Press (2010): Training AIs takes a lot of time & commitment.
2. [novelette] Allen M Steel's "The Emperor of Mars"; download; Asimov's, June 2010: A man copes with tragedy by escaping into fantasy.
3. [ss] Mary Robinette Kowal's "For Want of a Nail"; download; Asimov's, September 2010: A retiring computer operator bugs spaceship's AI to save himself from recycling. Everyone "useless" must be recycled (destroyed) to save ship's resources!

Sean McMullen's "Eight Miles" (novelette, free): Helping a Martian(?) warrior stranded on earth!

While there is not much new about the plot, I liked it for reasons I cannot explain - perhaps simply because it's a fast moving story that doesn't bore?

Story is set in 19th century London.

Story summary.

There are 3 main characters:

1. Angelica: A "deformed" "human" from "perhaps" a very high altitude unexplored place in Himalayas. She was on display as a freak in a circus from which Lord Gainsley purchased her.
2. Lord Cedric Gainsley: A very wealthy & ruthless individual who's learned a great secret about Angelica.
3. Harold Parkes: Narrator of the story. A balloonist hired by Gainsley to build machines that can ascent to unbelievable heights - heights where Angelica will be comfortable.

Parks will learn the intrigues of Gainsley, foil them, & hopes to have unbelievable adventures.

See also.

1. A E van Vogt's "Cataaa" (download): Intelligent alien exhibited as a freak in a human circus.
2. Eric Frank Russell & Maurice Hugi 's "Mechanical Mice": A man has found a way to tap the minds of those far more technologically advanced, so he can built their machines even if he doesn't understand first thing about those machines.

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, September 2010.
Download full text from author's site.
Rating: A.
Nominated for Hugo Award 2010 in novelette category.

Allen M Steele's "The Emperor of Mars" (novelette, free): A man copes with tragedy by escaping into fantasy

It's occasionally humorous & generally quite readable story of young man on a Martian colony who's had to face extreme loss back on earth. He will escape into Martian science fiction & get hallucinations where he's the Emperor of a declining martian empire...

Fact sheet.

First published: Asimov's, June 2010.
Download full text from author's site.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Hugo Award 2011 in novelette category.

Eric James Stone's 'That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made' (novelette, religion, free)

In a very colorful background, a Christian missionary priest convinces a "god" to an elder star-traveling alien race to let its followers switch allegiance to Christian god.

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, September 2010.
Download full text from author's site.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Hugo Award 2010 in novelette category.

Geoffrey A Landis' "The Sultan of the Clouds" (novella, adventure, free): Ordinary man foils genocide conspiracy

Actually, you've probably read this story before; it's just umpteenth retelling of the same story. Interesting thing is: it's one of the few Nebula nominees this year in novella category that I could actually finish. There is constant action, so no boredom.

Story summary.

Dr Leah Hamakawa & David Tinkerman, because of their experience studying Martian ecology, are invited by Carlos Fernando, the heir who will own practically all of the 1000s of orbiting human habitats of Venus. Only, several habitats don't owe him allegiance, & he's hatching a genocide conspiracy that David will foil.

Fact sheet.

First published: Asimov's, September 2010.
Download full text from author's site.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Nebula Award 2010 in novella category.

Nebula Awards 2010: Short stories - nominees & my rankings

Official nominees announcement is at SFWA.

7 stories, all first published during 2010. If you like a shocker, "Arvies" might work. Two others are at least readable - "Conditional Love" & "How Interesting: A Tiny Man". One I've not read. Rest aren't worth noting.

If I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there. Link on author or publisher fetches more matching fiction. All stories are online, & download links are included. My rating is in brackets.

List below is in order of my preference, best first, unread last.

1. Adam-Troy Castro's "Arvies" (B); download; Lightspeed, August 2010: An extreme form of slavery.
   
   Caution: This is a very dark story, intended primarily to shock, with extreme cruelty.
2. Harlan Ellison's "How Interesting: A Tiny Man" (B); download; Realms of Fantasy, February 2010; fanfic: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" retold, with a twist.
3. Felicity Shoulders' "Conditional Love" (B); download; Asimov's, January 2010: Caring for deformed & abandoned children. Deformities introduced by parents because of their quest for genetically tweaked "perfect" babies, a process that sometimes has horrific side effects.
   Related: Judith Merril's "That Only a Mother" far more effectively addresses the same general theme.
4. Vylar Kaftan's "I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno" (B); download; Lightspeed, June 2010: A love story that's a bit too science fictional for my taste.
   A man & a woman. Next door neighbors. Forever in love, never really meeting. A lot of cosmic & relativity adjectives thrown in in the descriptions. In some ways, it's just a review of many popular sf tropes.
5. Amal El-Mohtar's "The Green Book" (C); download; Apex Magazine, 1 November 2010: Cannot make out the head or tail of it.
   There is a magical impossible-to-destroy notebook ("The Green Book") that can be used to chat with some dead - you write something, they write back! And some sort of sinister organization called "Sisters" that apparantly killed the dead you chat via the notebook & ominous implication they'll get to you too for having read their secret.
6. Kij Johnson's "Ponies" (C); download; Tor.com, 17 November 2010: Little (or is it teenage?) girls competing for status & belonging. It's for fans of unicorns, & of unnecessary gory violence.
7. Jennifer Pelland's "Ghosts of New York; download; Dark Faith: Not read. Going by some comments I've read about it, it has something to do with 9/11 terrorist attack in New York.

Related.

1. Other short fiction categories of Nebula Awards 2010: [novelette], [novella].
2. Previous Nebula Awards for short stories: 2009, 2008, 2007.
3. All Nebula Award winners & nominees.
4. Competing awards for "best" short stories of 2010: BSFA, [Hugo].
5. Anthologies collecting "best" short fiction of 2010: [Dozois'], Horton's, Strahan's, Hartwell/Cramer's.
6. Fiction originally published during 2010 (search "Rating: A" for my selections of "good" stories).
7. My "best of 2010" list.
8. "Best of" lists. 

John Trevillian's "The A-Men" (2010) & its sequel "A-Men Return" (2011) (novels)

Author sent me review copies the two novels perhaps a fortnight back; I'd promised to mention them here even if I didn't read them. I haven't yet read them; so no idea what the books are about.

In the pdf copies I got, no covers were included. More information is available, including covers, at author's site.

Larry Niven's "The Artists" (short story, free)

This is more for fans of author's Draco Tavern series. I personally find the stories in the series minor ones, but, well, Niven no longer writes short fiction often! And here is a relatively recent story.

Story summary.

A group of aliens have set up an art exhibition at Draco Tavern. Where the Tavern owner, Rick Schumann, will meet an "alien" from a very unexpected place.

Fact sheet.

First published: Larry Niven's "Strange Light" (coll, 2010).
Download full text from Subterranean Online.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Larry Niven.

Felicity Shoulders' "Conditional Love" (short story, genetic engineering, free)

This one is for readers who like emotional stories.

It's set in a hospital that cares for abandoned children. Abandoned by their parents because of their physical deformities. Physical deformities introduced in the first place by parents themselves, by genetic modifications of the unborn to create "perfect" kids - an illegal process that sometimes has horrific side effects.

Fact sheet.

First published: Asimov's, January 2010.
Download full text/audio from author's site.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Nebula Award 2010 in short story category.

David G Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (eds)' "Year’s Best SF 16" (anthology, 2011): Annotated table of contents & review

Kathryn Cramer posted the ToC earlier this week. The volume collects editors' choice of fiction originally published during 2010, & will likely "be out from HarperCollins in May" 2011.

Legend: ff = flash fiction; ss = short story.

Table of contents (21 stories, best first, unread last).

Links on author, publisher, or editor fetch more matching fiction. Where I'm aware of an online copy, download link is included. My rating for read stories appears in brackets.

1. Nina Kiriki Hoffman's "Futures in the Memory Market" (B); download text/MP3; Clarkesworld, June 2010: A recording device like in Arthur Clarke's "Patent Pending" - record your entire experience, not just audio & video; sell it in units like DVDs, so anyone can play back the experience.
   
   This is the story of a young woman conned into a slavery-like contract with a corporation that trades in her experiences.
2. Jack McDevitt's "The Cassandra Project" (B); download; Lightspeed, June 2010: Discovery of an alien artifact on moon.
3. [ff] Gregory Benford's "Penumbra" (B); download; Nature, 9 June 2010: Apocalypse brought about by earth getting caught in "a gamma-ray burster" somewhere in or out of our galaxy. These are supposed to be astronomical phenomenon that transform a star into a black hole, & are supposed to be intense enough to kill everything on earth if occuring within the galaxy!
   Title, "Penumbra", means "twilight zone"; some of earth was behind moon's twilight zone, leading to many survivors.
   
4. Joe Haldeman's "Sleeping Dogs"; Elizabeth Anne Hull (ed)'s "Gateways" (anthology): Not read.
5. Kay Kenyon's "Castoff World"; download podcast; Jetse de Vries (ed)'s "Shine" (anthology): Not read.
6. Benjamin Crowell's "Petopia"; Asimov's, June 2010: Not read.
7. Vernor Vinge's "A Preliminary Assessment of the Drake Equation, Being an Excerpt From the Memoirs of Star Captain Y.-T. Lee"; Elizabeth Anne Hull (ed)'s "Gateways" (anthology): Not read.
8. Terry Bisson's "About It"; F&SF, September/October 2010: Not read.
9. Vandana Singh's "Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra"; download; Strange Horizons, 29 March 2010: Not read.
10. Damien Broderick's "Under the Moons of Venus"; download; Subterranean Online, Spring 2010: Not read.
11. Cat Sparks' "All the Love in the World"; Alisa Krasnostein (ed)'s "Sprawl" (anthology): Not read.
12. Alastair Reynolds' "At Budokan"; Jetse de Vries (ed)'s "Shine" (anthology): Not read.
13. David Langford's "Graffiti in the Library of Babel"; download; Nick Gevers & Marty Halpern "Is Anybody Out There?" (anthology): Not read.
14. Michael Swanwick's "Steadfast Castle"; F&SF, Sptember/October 2010: Not read.
15. Catherynne M Valente's "How to Become a Mars Overlord"; download; Lightspeed, August 2010: Not read.
16. Karl Schroeder's "To Hie from Far Cilenia"; John Scalzi (ed)'s "Metatropolis" (anthology): Not read.
17. Brenda Cooper's "The Hebras And The Demons And The Damned"; Analog, December 2010: Not read.
18. Robert Reed's "The Good Hand"; Asimov's, January 2010: Not read.
19. Stephen Popkes' "Jackie’s Boy"; Asimov's, April/May 2010: Not read.
20. Sean McMullen's "Eight Miles"; Analog, September 2010: Not read.
21. [novella] Paul Park's "Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance (The Parke Family Scrapbook Number IV)"; download; F&SF, January/February 2010: Not read.

Related.

1. Previous volumes in this series.
2. Competing "best of 2010" anthologies: Dozois', Horton's, Strahan's.
3. Fiction originally published during 2010.
4. My "best of 2010" list (links others' lists at bottom).
5. "Best of" lists; "good" fiction; "good" online fiction. 
6. Works of  David G Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer.
7. Short fiction anthologies, collections, magazines (only old pulps); all short fiction.

Note: I normally update list posts like this when I read one of the stories, find a new online link, etc. This post was last updated on 6 March 2011.

Harlan Ellison's "How Interesting: A Tiny Man" (short story, fanfic, free): Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" retold, with a twist

This is, in a way, a satire on tendency of some people to poke their nose into things that are none of their business. But similarity with Shelley's "Frankenstein" is uncanny. But unlike Shelley's classic, this story doesn't have an irresponsible creator; it's the society that is the villain.

Story summary.

Narrator has created another man in a lab - a very tiny man, just 5 inches tall, but otherwise a normal man. All is well, the tiny man is welcomed everywhere ... until a woman begins spewing venom for no reason at all...

Fact sheet.

First published: Realms of Fantasy, February 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Nebula Award 2010 in short story category.
Related: Stories of Harlan Ellison.

"Bull Spec", #4 (December 2010 to February 2011) (magazine, free) (ed Samuel Montgomery-Blinn): Annotated table of contents & review

Editor mailed me a review copy perhaps a fortnight back; took me this long to read the first story. Sorry Samuel. Will add comments for other stories, if & when I read them.

This is a quarterly magazine, though quarters are oddly structured.

The magazine is available online via a tip jar that accepts $0 too (select "0" in red against "Gift" to bypass Paypal); other amounts go via Paypal. I personally haven't tried it, however; I got my copy in email.

Magazine includes a lot of stuff; I only include fiction below.

Table of contents (6 stories, best first, unread last).

1. [ss] Don Norum's "A Mathematician's Apology" (B): A physicist builds a quantum computer, & invites a mathematician to program it with a previously intractable problem: generate a formal mathematical proof of any conjecture fed it! Only, the mathematician had not foreseen what it will do to his profession...
2. Andrew Magowan's "Freedom Acres": Not read.
3. Nick Mamatas' "O, Harvard Square!": Not read.
4. David Tallerman's "The Burning Room": Not read.
5. Erin Hoffman's "City of Shadow & Glass": Not read.
6. James Maxey's "Tornado of Sparks": Not read.

Michael A Burstein's "Hope" (short story, free): Dilemma of a generation ship captain

While the plot is ordinary, it's a quick fast read.

Story summary.

Ballyshannon is a generation ship with thousands of colonists on board, is some centuries away from Earth, & a century still from its destination - a world orbiting the "New Beginnings star".

One fine morning, a stranger appears out of thin air in front of ship's captain, Samantha Jones. He claims to be from future, descended from a family on-board the ship. And tells the captain of disaster that awaits the ship once they reach their destination. What are the choices open to ship's captain?

Fact sheet.

First published: Z S Adani & Eric T Reynolds (eds)' "Destination: Future" (anthology, 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site. [via Jamie Todd Rubin]
Rating: A.

Mike Resnick's "Weekdays" (short story, non-genre, humor)

Lucifer Jones, the conman priest, saves 4 young ladies on a Pacific island from a bad man, & gets some enlightenment of his own in the process...

This story is part of the Lucifer Jones series set in the Pacific.

Collected in.

1. Mike Resnick's "Voyages".

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Fall 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Mike Resnick; Lucifer Jones series.

Carol Emshwiller's "No Time Like the Present" (short story, butterfly effect, free)

A light general read about "we" vs "them" - a town has received a lot of racially different-looking & wealthy immigrants recently, & we see the reactions of natives to newcomers. In between, we keep seeing hints of a couple of much hashed genre themes - environmental dystopia & butterfly effect.

Collected in.

1. Rich Horton (ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2011 Edition".

See also.

1. Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" (download text/MP3): Story that invented "butterfly effect". Or rather, had someone else coin the phrase based on events in the story. This Emshwiller story makes a specific reference to the Bradbury story ("It’s gotta be even worse than that butterfly back in the Jurassic era.")
2.  Murray Leinster's "Long Ago, Far Away" (download): Another story about immigrants from time, fleeing a disaster in their time.

Fact sheet.

First published: Lightspeed, July 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Rich Horton (ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2011 Edition" (anthology): Annotated table of contents & review

There is nothing still on it on Horton's own blog, but its ToC has been on internet since early this month. I was planning to write this after reading a good number of stories, but the rate at which I'm going suggests I'll find something else interesting long before I'm through!

The anthology collects editor's choice of short fiction originally published during 2010.

Table of contents (28 stories, best first, unread last).

Links on author, editor, or publisher fetches more matching fiction. If I am aware of an online copy of a story, I include it too. If I've read a story, my rating appears in brackets. If I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there.

Note the list is in order of my preference (where I've read the stories), rather than editor's ToC order (unread stories are in editor's order).

1. [ss] Peter Watts' "The Things" (A); download text/MP3; Clarkesworld, #40 (January 2010); fanfic: A retelling of John Campbell's "Who Goes There?" from the point of view of the alien.
   
   Also included in my "best of 2010" list. 
2. Carol Emshwiller's "No Time Like the Present" (B); download; Lightspeed, July 2010; butterfly effect: Immigrants have arrived from a dark future. 
3. [ss] Adam-Troy Castro's "Arvies" (B); download; Lightspeed, #3 (August 2010); horror: An extreme form of slavery. Very dark story.
4. [novelette] K J Parker's "Amor Vincit Omnia" (B); download; Subterranean Online, "Summer" (July-September) 2010; fantasy: What's most threatening to authority, government? A citizen who's beyond the government's power to hurt!
   
   Caution: Initial parts use far too much of ... is it Latin? I don't know the language, but almost gave up. Those funny words cease to be an issue once the story picks up.
5. Charles Yu's "Standard Loneliness Package" (B); download; Lightspeed, #6 (November 2010); brain dump: Outsource your pain, for a price!
6. Amal El-Mohtar's "The Green Book" (C); download; Apex Magazine, 1 November 2010; fantasy: Cannot make out the head or tail of it.
   There is a magical impossible-to-destroy notebook ("The Green Book") that can be used to chat with some dead - you write something, they write back! And some sort of sinister organization called "Sisters" that apparantly killed the dead you chat via the notebook & ominous implication they'll get to you too for having read their secret.
7. Charlie Jane Anders' "The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model"; download; Tor.com, 11 August 2010: Not read.
   Note: Tor.com site seems to be down today. 
8. Paul M Berger's "Stereogram of the Gray Fort, in the Days of Her Glory"; download; Fantasy Magazine, 21 June 2010: Not read.
9. Damien Broderick's "Under the Moons of Venus"; download; Subterranean, Spring 2010: Not read.
10. C S E Cooney's "Braiding the Ghosts"; Mike Allen (ed)'s "Clockwork Phoenix 3": Not read.
11. Alexandra Duncan's "Amor Fugit"; F&SF, March/April 2010: Not read.
12. Willow Fagan's "The Interior of Mr. Bumblethorn's Coat"; download; Fantasy Magazine, 11 October 2010: Not read.
13. Neil Gaiman's "The Thing About Cassandra"; George R R Martin (ed)'s "Songs of Love and Death": Not read.
14. Elizabeth Hand's "The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon"; Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio (eds)' "Stories: All New Tales" (read first 4 stories online): Not read.
15. Samantha Henderson's "The Red Bride"; download; Strange Horizons, 5 July 2010: Not read.
16. Matthew Johnson's "Holdfast"; download; Fantasy Magazine, 6 December 2010: Not read.
17. Alice Sola Kim's "The Other Graces"; Asimov's, July 2010: Not read.
18. Bill Kte'pi's "Merrythoughts"; download; Strange Horizons, 22 March 2010: Not read.
19. Geoffrey A Landis' "The Sultan of the Clouds"; Asimov's, September 2010: Not read.
20. Yoon Ha Lee's "Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain"; download; Lightspeed, #4 (September 2010): Not read.
21. An Omowoyela's "Abandonware"; download; Fantasy Magazine, 28 June 2010: Not read.
22. Paul Park's "Ghosts Doing the Orange Dance"; F&SF, January/February 2010: Not read.
23. Robert Reed's "Dead Man's Run"; F&SF, November/December 2010: Not read.
24. Rachel Swirsky's "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window"; download; Subterranean, Summer 2010: Not read.
25. Matthew David Surridge's "The Word of Azrael"; Black Gate, #14 (February 2010): Not read.
26. Steve Rasnic Tem's "A Letter from the Emperor"; Asimov's, January 2010: Not read.
27. Gene Wolfe's "Bloodsport"; Jonathan Strahan & Lou Anders (eds)' "Swords and Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery": Not read.
28. Christie Yant's "The Magician and the Maid and Other Stories"; download; John Joseph Adams (ed)'s "The Way of the Wizard": Not read.

Related.

1. Previous volumes in this series: 2010 Edition, 2009 Edition. Next volume: 2012 Edition.
2. Competing "best of 2010" anthologies: Dozois', Hartwell/Cramer's, Strahan's.
3. Fiction originally published during 2010.
4. My "best of 2010" list (links others' lists at bottom).
5. "Best of" lists; "good" fiction; "good" online fiction. 
6. Works of Rich Horton.
7. Short fiction anthologies, collections, magazines (only old pulps); all short fiction.

Credits: ToC here was seeded from oldcharliebrown; then expanded by me.

Note: I normally update list posts like this when I read one of the stories, find a new online link, etc. This post was last updated on 20 December 2011.

Adam-Troy Castro's "Arvies" (short story, horror, free): An extreme form of slavery

Caution: This is a very dark story, intended primarily to shock, with extreme cruelty - in line with Piers Anthony's "In the Barn" (download) & Arthur Clarke's "The Parasite" (Clarke's is a much milder variant but in the same spirit).

From the two or three other stories I've read of the author so far, I've been carrying the impression that his stories are too targeted to US readers, & will likely have a very different effect on readers from elsewhere - sometimes leaving them indifferent. This one doesn't use anything obviously US-specific, but from comments on the story elsewhere, I get a feeling it satirizes the subject matter of some current debate there.

Story summary.

Humanity is divided into two groups - masters will forever physically live as fetuses (who wants to go through the trauma of being born!), slaves are the hosts implanted with master fetuses! And we see extreme abuse of slaves.

Fact sheet.

First published: Lightspeed, #3 (August 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site.
[via Rich Horton]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Adam-Troy Castro.

Charles Yu's "Standard Loneliness Package" (short story, brain dump, free): Outsource your pain, for a price!

Old trope, reasonably well done, but not exactly a story to cheer you up. Mostly has sad mood.

Describes the life of a call center employee - an unusual call center. About to have root canal? For a fee, a call center employee will feel your pain (via a chip implant in brain!) Cheated on your spouse & want to confess? Let the call center guy feel the guilt. Grief of a loved one's death, boredom of a chore, guilt of a murder - it's all for sale, for a price.

Fact sheet.

First published: Lightspeed, #6 (November 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site.
[via Rich Horton]
Rating: B.

Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Five" (anthology, 2011): Annotated table of contents & review

Jonathan Strahan has posted the ToC of the volume, due out in March 2011 from Night Shade Books. Book collects editor's choice of short fiction originally published during 2010.

I do wish he would mark the stories that are clearly science fiction or clearly fantasy, for those of us with limited tastes. No luck here. Some cases are obvious from publisher, author or title; others aren't. My immediate impression is: anthology is highly biased towards fantasy.

Also, I'm now-a-days a lot less enthusiastic about these "best of the year" volumes than I was some years ago. Ones I've tried reading in the last couple of years appear to be full of fillers, with just one or two good stories - if that.

Table of contents (29 stories, best first, unread last).

Links on author, editor, or publisher fetches more matching fiction. If I am aware of an online copy of a story, I include it too. If I've read a story, my rating appears in brackets. If I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there.

Note the list is in order of my preference (where I've read the stories), rather than editor's ToC order (unread stories are in editor's order).

1. [ss] Peter Watts' "The Things" (A); download text/MP3; Clarkesworld, #40 (January 2010); fanfic: A retelling of John Campbell's "Who Goes There?" from the point of view of the alien.
   
   Also included in my "best of 2010" list.
   
2. [novelette] K J Parker's "Amor Vincit Omnia" (B); download; Subterranean Online, "Summer" (July-September) 2010; magic: What's most threatening to authority, government? A citizen who's beyond the government's power to hurt!
   
   Caution: Initial parts use far too much of ... is it Latin? I don't know the language, but almost gave up. Those funny words cease to be an issue once the story picks up.
3. Hannu Rajaniemi's "Elegy for a Young Elk"; download; Subterranean Online, Spring 2010: Not read.
4. Neil Gaiman's "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains"; download; Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio (eds)' "Stories: All New Tales" (read first 4 stories online): Not read.
5. Sandra McDonald's "Seven Sexy Cowboy Robots"; download; Strange Horizons, 4 October 2010: Not read.
6. Sarah Rees Brennan's "The Spy Who Never Grew Up"; Trisha Telep (ed)'s "Kiss Me Deadly: 13 Tales of Paranormal Love": Not read.
7. Holly Black's "The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue"; Darrell Schweitzer & Martin H Greenberg (eds)' "Full Moon City": Not read.
8. Damien Broderick's "Under the Moons of Venus"; download; Subterranean Online, Spring 2010: Not read.
9. Joe Abercrombie's "The Fool Jobs"; Jonathan Strahan & Lou Anders (eds)' "Swords and Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery": Not read.
10. Robert Reed's "Alone"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Godlike Machines": Not read.
11. Kij Johnson's "Names for Water"; Asimov's, October/November 2010: Not read.
12. Theodora Goss' "Fair Ladies"; download; Apex magazine, 2 August 2010: Not read.
13. James Patrick Kelly's "Plus or Minus"; Asimov's, December 2010: Not read.
14. Ellen Kushner's "The Man With the Knives"; download; first published as a "chapbook from Temporary Culture" on 3 May 2010: Not read.
15. Cory Doctorow's "The Jammie Dodgers and the Adventure of the Leicester Square Screening"; download; Shareable, 25 May 2010: Not read.
16. Elizabeth Hand's "The Maiden Flight of McAuley's Bellerophon"; Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio (eds)' "Stories: All New Tales" (read first 4 stories online - not including this one): Not read.
17. Margo Lanagan's "The Miracle Aquilina"; Jonathan Strahan & Marianne S Jablon (eds)' "Wings of Fire": Not read.
18. Pat Cadigan's "The Taste of Night"; download in three parts; Nick Gevers & Marty Halpern (eds)' "Is Anybody Out There?": Not read.
19. Bruce Sterling's "The Exterminator's Want-Ad"; download; Shareable, 22 June 2010: Not read.
20. Christopher Barzak's "Map of Seventeen"; Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (eds)' "The Beastly Bride and Other Tales of the Animal People": Not read.
21. Maureen McHugh's "The Naturalist"; download; Subterranean Online, Spring 2010: Not read.
22. Sara Genge's "Sins of the Father"; Asimov's, December 2010: Not read.
23. Geoffrey A Landis' "The Sultan of the Clouds"; Asimov's, September 2010: Not read.
24. John Kessel's "Iteration"; download; Strange Horizons, 13 September 2010: Not read.
25. Diana Peterfreund's "The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn"; Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier (eds)' "Zombies vs Unicorns": Not read.
26. Lavie Tidhar's "The Night Train"; download; Strange Horizons, 14 June 2010: I think I've read it; but I don't remember anything of it now.
27. Ian Tregillis' "Still Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)"; download; Apex magazine, 4 October 2010: Not read.
28. Genevieve Valentine's "The Zeppelin Conductors' Society Annual Gentlemen's Ball"; download; Lightspeed, July 2010: Not read.
29. Rachel Swirsky's "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window"; download; Subterranean Online, Summer 2010: Not read. 

Related.

1. Previous volumes in this series: Vol 4 (2010), Vol 3 (2009).
2. Competing "best of 2010" anthologies: Dozois', Hartwell/Cramer's, Horton's.
3. Fiction originally published during 2010.
4. My "best of 2010" list (links others' lists at bottom).
5. "Best of" lists; "good" fiction; "good" online fiction.
6. Works of Jonathan Strahan.
7. Short fiction anthologies, collections, magazines (only old pulps); all short fiction.
8. Pre-order at Amazon.com.

Note: I normally update list posts like this when I read one of the stories, find a new online link, etc. This post was last updated on 4 December 2010.

Ramon Rozas III - "Micro-Transactions" (flash fiction, war, free): A piece of "Ender's Game" fanfic

This military general has figured out a way of making children do the front-line military fighting...

Fact sheet.

First published: Every Day Fiction, 7 January 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" (this novel's ending is the seed for this fanfic); download full text of the original short story version of "Ender's Game".

Bhavin Jankharia's "A new tiger roars!" (flash fiction, political fable, free)

This one is for Bombay residents - they should instantly recognize the political subject. A few others in India might, too. For the rest, it probably will be a far less interesting fable - because political context would be missing.

For the target audience, title should be a pretty complete story summary.

Fact sheet.

First published: Mumbai Mirror, 30 October 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.

Eric James Stone's "The greatest science-fiction story ever written" (flash fiction, humor, free)

An aspiring sf writer working for a quantum computing company is sick of rejection slips. During a discussion with a company engineer, later proposes a brilliant solution - a story that adapts itself automatically to reader, becoming the best story for that reader!

As we will learn, even this great a technology has issues...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, #467 (28 October 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site. [via artyw2@rasfw]
Rating: A.

Giri Vijayakumar's "Genome" (flash fiction, humor, free): Capitalism at work to contain mosquito breeding!

There is a very funny Hindi movie lampooning Indira Gandhi's administration of mid 1970s, I think directed or produced by I S Johar; I cannot recollect the title (it's set in an imaginary country called Jana Gana Mana Pradesh!) It has a very funny episode involving incentives for rat-catchers. This story is in similar vein.

One very obvious criticism: does author seriously imagine Rs 1 & Rs 50 will mean much in the year 2052? But that's minor point in an otherwise good story.

Story summary.

Mayor of Madras city in the year 2052 has decided to up his chances for reelection by solving a major problem of the city: getting rid of mosquitoes! A perfect plan using great technology. What he hasn't accounted for is human nature...

Fact sheet.

First published: Storywheel, 19 October 2010.
Download full text from author's site.
Rating: A.

John Gilbey's "Corrective action" (flash fiction, fatal software bug, free)

Untested upgrade of software controlling an airlock at some sort of private facility on moon killed a government safety inspector. Administration of the facility has been covering up the incident by doctoring records.

Another safety inspector catches the administration at its act, but gets only a smirk from facility's chief; what the hell can inspector do, apart from imposing a minor fine? What the chief doesn't know is that dead inspector was the "partner" of the visitor, & visitor is not about to let the facility get away with it...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, #464 (22 April 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Subterranean Online, Summer (July-September) 2010 (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents & review

Whole magazine is online here - fiction & non-fiction. I only cover fiction below.

Table of contents (7 stories, best first, unread last).

Links on author fetch more of author's fiction. My rating is in brackets.

1. [novelette] K J Parker's "Amor Vincit Omnia" (B); download; magic: What's most threatening to authority, government? A citizen who's beyond the government's power to hurt. This story is of a government going after a man who's beyond hurt, not resting till he's destroyed. Man himself is a monster, but that's not why the government will destroy him.
   
   Humanity is divided into two: mostly normal humans, & some wizards. Wizards have an institution - Studium, where fresh blood with talent is educated. Studium, or a larger body it's part of, is also the wizard government. They've just found out about an untrained wizard equipped with the ultimate defense against every form of attack. That's why he needs to be destroyed.
   
   Caution: Initial parts use far too much of ... is it Latin? I don't know the language, but almost gave up. Those funny words cease to be an issue once the story picks up.
2. [novella] Mike Resnick's "Six Blind Men and an Alien" (B); download: This is really a collection of half dozen independent alien visitation stories. Mostly mundane, but two may be worth a look: "What the Sound Man Saw" & "What Nobody Saw".
3. [ff] Lawrence Block's "A Burglar's-Eye View of Greed" (C); download; non-genre: A rant on why money is bad.
4. Lucius Shepard's "The Taborin Scale"; download: Not read.
5. Jay Lake's "Dream of the Arrow"; download: Not read.
6. Cory Doctorow's "Ghosts In My Head"; download: Not read.
7. Rachel Swirsky's "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window"; download: Not read.

Related: Fiction from Subterranean Online.

"Robot" (Hindi, English) aka "Enthiran" (Tamil) aka "Robo" (Telugu) (movie, 2010): A review of various robot & monster tropes

I liked the first half - a variety of classic robot fiction tropes, Indianized & sometimes modernized. Later half was ok but is too Hollywoodish; near end, it turns into a monster movie, borrowing a lot of monster imagery from Hollywood.

Story summary.

Dr Vasi has created a hominid robot, Chitti, targeted eventually for battle role in military. We see a variety of bugs in its software, as well has some funny & lovable scenes, as he's introduced into human society: ask him to hit you, & he will; his lack of human mores (saves a woman from fire - only she was in bathroom & it didn't occur to him to cover her before depositing her among the crowds). He'll eventually be given the emotional ability, & will quickly fall in love with his creator's girlfriend!

That's first half. Second half is Chitti's transformation into a monster when evil Dr Vohra introduces malicious code into his software. This point on, it's a variety of visual effects borrowed from multiple Hollywood movies.

Fact sheet.

Released: Setember 2010.
Director: S Shankar.
Cast: Aishwarya Rai (Vasi's girlfriend); Rajnikanth (Dr Vasi, Chitti, & many other robots & monsters in later half); Danny (Dr Vohra).
This post is based on Hindi version of the movie.

Ted Chiang's "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" (novella, free): Training AIs takes a lot of time & commitment

Two things here that I'd not noticed in Chiang's fiction so far:

1. Bits of it, I think somewhere near the middle, made me smile. Humor is something I don't normally associate with Chiang's work.
2. Telling style is so much like those supremely annoying serials Star One shows at prime time: mostly characters talking to themselves & thinking things out loud. Some people have called the style of this story "descriptive" or "concept driven". May be I'd not noticed it in his fiction so far; may be I've seen too much bad TV recently. I won't call it boring - in fact, it quite interesting at many places; but it took me over a dozen sittings to finish.

Also, the story idea is a familiar one, though more detailed than versions I've seen before. See, e.g., Eando Binder's "I, Robot" (view comic book or TV adaptations) or Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God" (download comic book adaptation).

Story summary.

A company called Blue Gamma has invented potentially super-intelligent software AIs ("digients"). They're like human babies living in Data Earth, a virtual world (eventually, their alien cousins will also exist on Data Mars).

They're like souls; they need to wear a body to interact with their environment. Normally as an avatar in Data Earth; can also move to a physical robot.

This is the story of deep attachment Ana Alvarado & Derek Brooks develop for these digitants; Ana is a former zoo keeper hired to train digitants, Derek builds their digital avatars. They'll keep caring for their pet digitants over many years, long after Blue Gamma has folded up & their original software platform is obsolete.

Fact sheet.

First published: as an independent book by Subterranean Press in 2010.
Download full text from Subterranean Online.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Ted Chiang.

Eric Brown's "Laying the Ghost" (short story, grief, free)

Katerina Reverte was bereaved in a massacre 25 years ago, only member of the family that survived. Now, she wants to visit where her family is buried, to grieve & to ...

Fact sheet.

First published: Clarkesworld, #49 (October 2010).
Download full text/audio from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2010" list.

Vaughan Stanger's "Dark they were, and strange inside" (flash fiction, weird physics, free): Dangers of blind dating

When Large Hadron Collider showed way to uncharted places in the universe, dating got interesting. And very dangerous. Here we see narrator's experiences dating a "dark" guy, & her friend's dating an "energetic" one...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, #467 (9 September 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

"Clarkesworld", #48 (September 2010) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents & review

Whole magazine is available here. I've ignored stuff other than fiction.

Table of contents.

Neither story is particularly remarkable. Link on author fetches more fiction by author.

1. [ss] Robert Reed's "The Cull" (B); download text/audio; horror: A future uninhabitable earth with tiny closed "stations" spread thinly around; these stations are the only human habitats existing. The unnamed slum-like habitat in the story has happiness as its chief goal; an android "doctor" monitoring the brains of all people via implants & tweaking their brain chemicals to make people "happy"!
   14-year Orlando is too energetic & non-conformist. And this society has no place for those who don't conform; he must be culled.
   
2. [ss] Stephen Gaskell's "Paper Cradle" (B); download text/audio: An antiwar protester sabotages a space weapon's test in a suicide mission, temporarily delaying the weapon making effort.

Related: Fiction from Clarkesword; 2010 fiction; best of 2010.

Hugo awards 2010: winners announced

Nothing yet on official page, but here is the twitter stream.

Links on category go to all category nominees. Links on author or publisher find matching stories.

1. [ss] Will McIntosh's "Bridesicle" (B); download text/audio; Asimov's, January 2009.
2. [novelette] Peter Watts' "The Island"; download; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "The New Space Opera 2".
3. [novella] Charles Stross' "Palimpsest" (B); download (available for the duration of Hugo voting in 2010); Wireless (collection?).
4. [novel] Tie between Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Windup Girl" (download) & China Miéville's "The City & The City".

Related: Past Hugo winners & nominees.

JR Hume's "Self Promotion" (flash fiction, horror, free)

This society practices compulsory euthanasia for the old: you reach the age of 60, you're promptly put in gas chambers. Day has finally caught up with Simeon Selkirk, one of the professional executors. Good for him that he bothered learning another skill & that he still has his wits intact...

Fact sheet.

First published: Every Day Fiction, 8 July 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Duncan Shields' "Swimming" (flash fiction, free)

Inventing one of the most powerful viruses attacking humans needs very very low tech...

Fact sheet.

First published: 365tomorrows, 26 July 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Duncan Shields.

Sean McMullen's "The Precedent" (novelette, environmental dystopia, free): "Victims" of global warming witch-hunt its culprits

It's an easy read, but is very dark. Modeled after any number of class-persecutions in history.

Story summary.

In the year 2035, the world has turned green, everyone born before 2000 is automatically a "climate criminal", those born after the tipping year are the "victims" & current rulers. To keep their conscience clear, the current rulers don't summarily execute the older folk; they instead hold monkey courts that sentence most to death with trials sometimes lasting just a minute.

This story is narrated by Dr Jason Hall, an 80 year old climatologist facing such a court. Through his eyes, we will see the horror of concentration camps. He will be the first individual pardoned by such a court, but will discover that this is not a happy outcome...

Fact sheet.

First published: F&SF, July/August 2010.
Download full text from Suvudu.
Caution: Recent F&SF fiction tends to be online only for a couple of months. Save it to a local file if you want to read it later.
Rating: B.