4 newly filled up entries in Hartwell & Cramer (Ed)'s "Year's Best SF 14" (2009)

Main post.

1. Ted Kosmatka's "N-Words" (B); podcast (including downloadable MP3), alternate link for MP3; John Joseph Adams' Seeds of Change (2008); What if a few Neanderthal kids were left stranded in our world?
   
   This is an old trope, with many stories. Best known I'm aware of are Isaac Asimov's "The Ugly Little Boy" & L Sprague de Camp's "The Gnarly Man".
2. Sue Burke's "Spiders" (B); Asimov's, March 2008: A man takes a walk through a forest with his 5 year old son, pointing out jungle life to him.
   
   Its only claim to being science fiction is because the author says story is set on an unnamed world that is not earth. I consider it non-genre, but a decent read.
3. Robert Reed's "The House Left Empty"; Asimov's, April/May 2008: (B): Description of a post-disaster world where communities are tiny & self sufficient, no one travels beyond their little local community area that one can walk around, & where strangers are generally suspect.
   
   Title comes from regret of one of the characters near end: Instead of being in "an asteroid or comet with us safe in the middle, starting a ten thousand year voyage to whichever sun we want our descendants to see first", their universe has shrunk to these tiny neighborhoods.
4. Neil Gaiman's "Orange" (C); read online (no download); video of author reading the story; Jonathan Strahan's The Starry Rift: Tales of New Tomorrows (2008); fantasy: Jemima Ramsey, 17, is describing how her sister Nerys, 15, turned into "a giant orange glow & was controlling our minds" as a result of using some sort of body lotion! And that then aliens came & took her away!
   
   Unusual presentation - a series of answers to a questionnaire, but without questions.

Free fiction: Two stories from recently released "best of 2008" anthology of Hartwell & Cramer

HarperCollins lets you read online (no download), through their proprietary interface called "Browse Inside", 2 stories from Hartwell/Cramer's "Year's Best SF 14" (2009):
Caution: Their page-downs are very slow.

1. Carolyn Ives Gilman's "Arkfall".
2. Neil Gaiman's "Orange".

[via Jason Sanford]

Online MP3 audio of Neil Gaiman's "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"

SF Signal links this MP3 audio at clonepod of Neil Gaiman's "How to Talk to Girls at Parties". Text of this story has been online for over a year.

Concept is not new; I've seen it in more stories than one - Arthur Clarke's "The Parasite" appears to be the closest I can recall.

This short story was a Hugo Award nominee last year. Good story, but not as interesting as its title.

Neil Gaiman's "How to talk to girls at parties": Weird aliens

This story is apparently inspired by Arthur Clarke's "The Possessed", & is quite readable.

Full text of story is available online.

Story summary.
Vic & Enn are two adolescent boys in London - Vic quite comfortable with girls, Enn on the shy side. Enn is at Vic's home, & Vic takes him to a party. Only they land at the wrong home.

No problem. It's an all girls party, & Vic easily gets himself welcomed.

As the story unfolds, we learn these girls are not normal, but possessed by alien beings. The nature of these alien beings, reason for their taking over other beings, & their method is quite similar to Clarke's "The Possessed".

We learn the aliens lived underwater on some world, & there was a catastrophe that made them leave the place. So they converted themselves into a "poem" or a "pattern", then broadcast it across galaxy as light. Now this poem is contagious; wherever it encounters sentient beings, it can take them over!

Fact sheet.
How to talk to girls at parties, short story, review
Rating: B
First published: 2006
Nominated for Hugo Awards 2007 in short story category

Related: All Hugo Award stories.