Eric Cline's "Red Star Falling, in Multimedia" (short story, free): "True" story of the first man in space

I'm not sure what to think of it - it's an unusual story with an unusual structure.

There is a back story - Yuri Gagarin wasn't the first man in space; a year before him, another Russian named Viktor was the first man. But he died up there & event was hushed by a secretive Soviet authority.

This story is about telling the "true" story of Viktor now, using various media.

Fact sheet.

First published: Cosmos, 6 June 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Lee Michael Ash's "A Darling Situation" (short story, humor, free)

A woman conceives a baby through a new genetic engineering process, with many all-new genes. After birth, the freak everyone was expecting turns out to be a normal adorable baby, & extremely well behaves one.

But there are freak genes in this lovely baby, as they begin manifesting a year down the line...

Fact sheet.

First published: Cosmos, 18 April 2013.
Download full text from publisher's website.
Rating: B.

Brian Trent's "Titans of Camp Four" (short story, moon travel, free)

Air travel & moon travel aren't twentieth century inventions. They were already achieved by Romans!

Fact sheet.

First published: Cosmos, #47 (October 2012).
Download full text from publisher's site. [via QuasarDragon]
Rating: B.

Sheila Adamson's "Stumpy" (short story, humor, free): Don't cry wolf in jest...

An old & lonely woman resenting her helplessness brought by age gets help, in the form of a robot. Lot of fun as she finds a use for robot...

Fact sheet.

First published: Cosmos, 23 November 2012.
Download full text from publisher's website.
Rating: A.

Joe Pitkin's "Houseflies" (short story, free)

This is the second story I've seen this week dealing with man vs animals-as-food; other one, E O Wilson's novel "Anthill", promises to develop into much broader ecological issues (but I'm barely a few chapters in yet). More on "Anthill" after I finish that.

While I cannot say I loved this story, the last one third held me in fascination - repulsive sort of fascination. Tissues of the last life-vault specimen of an extinct bird species are brought to life to...

First two thirds is a generally mundane post-apocalypse story.

Fact sheet.

First published: Cosmos, 8 May 2012.
Download full text from publisher's web site.
Rating: B.

Jay Lake's "The Dead Man's Child" (short story, star travel, free)

This is one of the innumerable variations of Heinlein's very well known "Universe" (download MP3 of radio adaptation): huge spaceship on its centuries spanning voyage to somewhere among the stars at a slower than light speed, where most residents have forgotten the purpose of the voyage & take the ship for the world. And someone is about to get enlightened.

Fact sheet.

First published: Cosmos. When?
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Jay Lake.

Stephen Ross' "The Trouble With QWERTY" (short story, humor, free): Be polite to your computer!

Light fun read, though based on well-trodden tropes.

A man's computer has gained sentience, & begins expecting certain things from him & the world...

Fact sheet.

First published: Cosmos. When?
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Greg Mellor's "Defense of the Realm" (short story, post-humanism, free): Human software avatars fighting their alien counterparts

Actually not my kind of story - am posting this only because it features in an award list. Someone with a taste for "uploaded consciousnesses fighting in cyberspace" kind of stories might respond more positively.

Story summary.

Humans fought a war with aliens some decades back. Intruders were destroyed - at great cost to humanity. But they've left behind hardware nodes spread throughout Sol that are running a cyberspace that the alien software artifacts inhabit.

And it's now fashionable among the newer generation of humanity to let your body go & live rest of your life in cyberspace as an uploaded consciousness - an upload that can manifest in physical world via a kind of physical effigy.

This is the story of war between this new breed of humans in their cyberspace & the alien software entities in theirs. And each side's attempt to penetrate the other. A parallel story is of the emotional conflict between a dad who's still physical & his son who's uploaded consciousness - dad doesn't think well of uploaded existence.

Fact sheet.

First published: Cosmos, #25 (February/March (2009).
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: C.
Nominated for Aurealis Award 2009 in short science fiction category.

Vylar Kaftan's "Pointing at the Moon" (short story, problem solving, free)

Key to problem solving technique in the story is:
"There is a Zen saying – part of a koan. Don't confuse the pointing finger with the Moon."
...
"It's a koan about koans themselves – about enlightenment. A teacher can point at the Moon, but that is not the same as the student seeing the Moon. Many students see the pointing finger and think it is the Moon itself."

Title too, of course, comes from this.

Story summary.

Narrator, David aka Taro-sama, faced with an intractable problem in physics, has gone to visit Jiji-san, his 98 year old grandfather - hoping his once genius grandfather will be able to help him somehow. By the time he returns, he will get an insight, but not the way he had imagined.

Fact sheet.

First published: COSMOS, December 2007/January 2008.
Rating: A.
Download full text from publisher's site. [via QuasarDragon]