Free fiction: 3 stories from Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan's "The New Space Opera 2"

Read at HarperCollins (no download):

1. Robert Charles Wilson's "Utriusqui Cosmi"
2. Peter Watts' "The Island"
3. John Kessel's "Events Preceding the Helvetican Renainassance"

[via SF Signal]

A note on John Kessel's "Pride and Prometheus"

I just finished Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", & I now realize that all speculative elements in this Kessel story are actually copied from "Frankenstein"!

John Kessel's "Pride and Prometheus" (novelette, resurrecting the dead, free): Zombie wants a wife!

While I've not read Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein", I'll be very surprised if this story is not greatly inspired by it. There are even characters called Mary & Frankenstein, though in roles different from what I know of Shelly's classic.
18 February 2009: I've now read "Frankenstein" & can say with confidence that all its speculative elements are borrowed from there.

Great thing about the story is telling style. Very accessible. But someone interested in England of a few hundred years back would likely enjoy it more - it's mostly a literary story of life in that England. Speculative elements are just garnishings.

Story summary.

Distraught after the death of his mother, Victor Frankenstein has invented a lab process to resurrect the dead. And he has brought a dead man to life. Only this unnamed zombie doesn't have a friend in this world, & Victor wants to get rid of him (but cannot). Zombie wants Victor to find him a wife - of his own kind, failing which he will kill anyone dear to Victor!

So now Victor is out robbing graves of recently dead women, so he can resurrect one as zombie's wife!

All this is told in the backdrop of the main story - which is of the wealthy Bennets family - man, woman, & their five daughters (including 3 married ones). Mostly about the family's efforts to find husbands for the remaining daughters.

Collected in.

1. John Kessel's collection "Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories", Small Beer Press, 15 April 2008. Download collection from publisher's website.
2. Jonathan Strahan (Ed)'s "Best SF and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 3" (2009). To be published.

Fact sheet.

First published: F&SF, January 2008.
Rating: B.
For download link, see "Collected in" section above. Or download from F&SF site.
Nominated for Hugo Award 2009 in novelette category.
Winner of Nebula Award 2008 in novelette category.
Related: Stories about resurrecting the dead.