Stories from "Playboy" magazine, 2013 issues

Playboy occasionally publishes very good science fiction, but most of their fiction is non-genre & a rather large quantity of it unremarkable.

Quote alongside is from an excerpt, in October issue, from a very curious interview of Marshall Mcluhan that Eric Norden did on behalf of Playboy, & that was originally published in March 1969 issue. The interview itself appears to be a sort of classic & very science fictional; a much longer version of interview, & presumably closer to original, is online at UCDavis.

Stories below are from US edition, unless mentioned otherwise. List is in order of my preference, best first, unread last. My rating for read stories is in brackets.

1. March: Ludmilla Petrushevskaya's "The Goddess Parka" (trans from Russian by Anna Summers) (A); non-genre: A worldly wise old woman from Moscow is trying to catch an unmarried man in small town Russia for a girl she knows in Moscow.
2. October: Stu Dearnley's "Sparring Partners" (B); non-genre: Violent life inside a prison, told from the point of view of a prisoner who's a former boxer with a star sportsman son with whom he's not on talking terms.
3. January/February: Lawrence Block's "Keller at Sea" (B); non-genre, book excerpt: A hired killer is stalking his target on a cruise ship, & will eventually kill him.
4. June: Liesl Schillinger's "Getting My Baby Tanked" (B); download; non-genre: Readable but generally pointless love story of a married woman who is going to divorce her husband with someone.
5. April: ?
6. May: ?
7. July: ?
8. August: ?
9. September: ?
10. November: ?
11. December: ?

Related: Stories from Playboy magazine; year wise list.

Year-wise list of stories from "Playboy" magazine

This is only an anchor post - so I can link all my year-wise lists with a single link.

1. 2013.
2. 2012.
3. 2011.
4. 2010.
5. 2009.
6. 2008.
7. 2007.

Related: Stories from Playboy magazine.

Isaac Asimov's "Playboy and the Slime God" aka "What Is This Thing Called Love?" (short story, parody)

Skip it if the discussion of sex embarrasses you.

The moment I read the first line, I knew I'd read the story before. But it's been some years, so I read it again. And wasn't disappointed.

This is a hilarious parody of bug-eyed monsters from outer spaces coming to earth to kidnap girls to satisfy their sexual urges. Plus there is a ... sort of critique of Playboy magazine.

Story summary.

Slimy alien scientist from far off part of galaxy kidnaps a man & a woman to demonstrate to his boss that earth is a major danger to galaxy & must be destroyed. Danger because its creatures don't "bud" singly to produce the young as is the norm everywhere, but reproduce by combining genes from two separate individuals, thus significantly accelerating the evolution. Only problem is: his knowledge of human reproduction & anatomy is limited to Playboy magazine & bug-eyed monster kind of sf literature.

Hilarity ensues as the two aliens coax the man & the woman to couple & produce a child...

Notes.

From editor's introduction to this story in "Great Science Fiction from Amazing", #1:

'Several months ago a magazine named Playboy, which concentrates editorially on girls, books, girls, art, music, fashion, girls & girls, published an article about old-time science-fiction. Called "Girls for the Slime God," it was illustrated with synthetic covers of non-existent sf magazines, each replete with bug-eyed monster, mad scientist, & partially naked, nubile girl.'

'We commissioned one of sf's most sex-appealing writers to create a story especially for the insatiable Playboy, & to prove to him that sf has not forgotten that S-X is the most important thing in the Universe.'

Fact sheet.

First published: Amazing Stories, March 1961.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Isaac Asimov.

Ursula K Le Guin's "Nine Lives" (novelette): A feeling of loneliness

10-clones, 5 men & 5 women, all derived from the same man, act as a single individual, mutually dependent, but not noticing others. Even sex is within the group.

9 die in an earthquake. Story is of the survivor discovering life as an individual.

Collected in.

1. David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (Ed)'s "The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF".

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, November 1969.
Nominated for Nebula Award 1970 in novelette category.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Ursula K Le Guin.

Stories from Playboy magazine, 2012 issues

Note that while they sometimes publish very good genre stories, most of their fiction is non-genre.

My rating (ABC: A = time well spent; C = don't bother) is in brackets. Unless mentioned otherwise, stories are from US edition of the magazine.

5 Apr 2012: Of the 3 stories so far, 1 is a book excerpt & another probably is even if not so acknowledged. All 3 are non-genre, none particularly impressive, none crappy either.

1. January/February double issue: [ss] Elmore Leonard's "Raylan" (B): A police officer, investigating a gang that steals kidneys of unsuspecting men, almost loses his own kidneys ... but has a happy ending for himself. Title is the name of the cop - Raylan Givens.
   
   Note: There seem to be a novel of the same title by the author, with somewhat similar content. I wonder if this too is a book excerpt?
2. March: [book excerpt] Adam Johnson's "The Orphan Master's Son" (B): "Horrors" of North Korean boys' life, when seen with a US(?) lens. This excerpt describes life of the boy soldiers, & 3 incidents of them sneaking into Japan, & kidnapping a Japanese - one person kidnapped each trip. One of the kidnappings is of a woman that a Korean minister wants as a sex slave.
   
   Excerpted from author's novel of the same title.
3. April: [ss] Zakhar Prilepin's "A Russian Picnic" (B); translated by Peter Golub from Russian; no idea when or where original Russian was published: In a small underfed town in Russia, 3 men short on cash have a plan for a night out with 3 college girls - by offering them a feast of kebabs made from the meat of a stray dog they'll catch.
   
   From the tone of the story, it appears there is some sort of social taboo in Russia on eating dog meat.
4. May: ?
5. June: ?
6. July: ?
7. August: ?
8. September: ?
9. October: ?
10. November: ?
11. December: ?

Related: All Playboy stories. Or only from 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 or 2007 issues.

Stories from Playboy magazine, 2011 issues

Note that while they sometimes publish very good genre stories, most of their fiction is non-genre.

List below is by my preference - best first; unread stories come at end. My rating (ABC: A = time well spent; C = don't bother) is in brackets. Unless mentioned otherwise, stories are from US edition of the magazine.

1. January: Thom Jones' "Bomb Shelter Noel" (B); non-genre: A girl, a serious "type I diabetic",  hosts a radio show about survival.
   
   May be we need to read irony here - someone chronically sick showing a public face of someone very fit? I'm not sure. But in spite of being a story about someone very sick, it makes a light read.
2. February: Walter Mosley's "Untitled Crime Story" (B); non-genre: Three black men commit a $3m heist in New York city. Gang leader is seen by a witness; is hence killed by the other two. One of the other two is killed by cops after laying a trap. Now the sole survivor is living an anonymous life in fear ... when will he get a bullet?
   
   Story seems to emphasize that the three criminals are black. May be US readers will read more into its social background tidbits.
3. March: ?
4. April: ?
5. May: ?
6. June: ?
7. July: ?
8. August: ?
9. September: ?
10. October: ?
11. November: ?
12. December: ?

Related: All Playboy stories. Or only from 2012, 2010, 2009, 2008 or 2007 issues.

Joe Haldeman's "More Than the Sum of His Parts" (short story, free): A man's transformation into a cyborg, then monster

This story is ... sort of ... a very abrupt attachment of John Varley's "Bagatelle" (download) to the middle of C L Moore's "No Woman Born".

A serious accident victim is saved by transforming him into a cyborg. He begins to like the new body parts. Then he starts enjoying his new found power too much, & quickly becomes a monster. Monster is easily disposed off, of course, by a techno-gimmick.

Caution: Bits of the story have explicit sex scenes, & describe male anatomy in some detail.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, May 1985.
Download full text from Lightspeed.
Rating: B.

William Tenn's "The Ghost Standard" (short story, farce): Defining what is "human"

This is probably the last published story of Tenn.

Story summary.

This is set as legal dilemma resulting from a case of cannibalism aboard a lifeboat: Juan Kydd, a human, & Tuezuzim, "a sapient lobstermorph" alien, both equally skilled computer programmers, are stranded on a lifeboat after a deep space shipwreck. Without food. Only one of them can survive to rescue by eating the other.

To decide, they play the word game "Ghost", with ship's computer acting as referee & executor. Juan wins, & during trial later, the galactic legalese gets a new definition of when an intelligence - alien, machine, whatever - is legally "human": "Intelligence has always been extremely difficult to define precisely, but it will be here & henceforth understood to involve the capacity to understand & play the terrestrial game of Ghost."

See also.

1. Arthur Clarke's "Breaking Strain": Meteor hit has drained most oxygen off a spaceship, so only one of its two passengers (or is it 2 of 3?) can survive to rescue. Who is to die?

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, December 1994.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of William Tenn.

Arthur Clarke's interview with Ken Kelley for Playboy, July 1986

Link. [via Free SF Reader]

Interview spanned a fortnight the interviewer spent in Lanka.

1. From introduction to interview: "There are some places over the equator where the earth's gravity is so strong that satellites placed there don't need fuel, because they never drift out of position. It turns out that one of the most stable places on the planet is directly above the piece of property that Arthur bought in Sri Lanka. It makes you wonder where this man came from."
2. On Neil Armstrong's statement, "That's one small step for man, one giant step for mankind"?: 'I took him up on that statement afterward, because he dropped out the "A." It was supposed to be "That's one small step for a man." He just fluffed it. When I talked with him about it later, he said, "That's what I thought I said, and that's what I meant to say."'
3. "I write science fiction only about things I know are reasonably true, even though the extrapolations may not be known."
4. "I like to think of the monolith as a sort of cosmic Swiss army knife—it does whatever it wants to do."
5. On space elevators:
   
   "Is anything as outlandish as that even remotely possible?"
   
   "Almost anything you can imagine that's feasible that is likely to be done is going to happen."
6. 'In several of your books—Childhood's End comes to mind—you bring up the idea of "nonmaterial minds"——'
   
   'That comes from William Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men. He's a science-fiction writer from the Thirties who's most influenced all my writing, when you come down to it.'
7. "One of my problems now is that I'm not just a private citizen anymore. I have to keep up certain standards, or at least pretend to, so that I don't shock too many people."

Related: Stories of Arthur Clarke; from Playboy magazine.

Stories from Playboy magazine, 2010 issues

Note that while they sometimes publish very good genre stories, most of their fiction is non-genre.

List below is by my preference - best first; unread stories come at end. My rating (ABC: A = time well spent; C = don't bother) is in brackets. Unless mentioned otherwise, stories are from US edition of the magazine.

1. January/February: Dennis Lehane's "Animal Rescue" (B); non-genre: A local tough is beginning to blackmail a rather nice man - give me money or I'll hurt your dog or girlfriend. So the victim has to act...
   
   This is actually a reprint from an anthology called "Boston Noir", edited by author himself.
   
   I don't recall having seen many double-issues of Playboy. They usually have monthly issues. This issue appears abnormal.
2. March: ?
3. April: ?
4. May: ?
5. June: ?
6. July: ?
7. August ?
8. September: ?
9. October: ?
10. November: ?
11. December: ?
    

Related: All Playboy stories. Or only from 2012, 2011, 2009, 2008 or 2007 issues.

Free fiction: Couple of recent stories of Stephen King

Neither particularly noteworthy, but well ... it's Stephen King. Of the two, I personally prefer "Premium Harmony".

1. "Premium Harmony"; download; The New Yorker, 9 November 2009; non genre: A man unhappy with his marriage that seems to be coming apart gets a far worse emotional shock.
2. "The Bone Church"; download; Playboy (US), November 2009: This is actually presented as verse, but reads well enough as prose too.
   
   An old man is describing an adventure of his younger years - when a group of more than 2 dozen traveled over the dangerous "greenroof" to some sort of gorge at the bottom of which lie a lot of bones of those long dead. Ghosts & sundry other dangers killed everyone except narrator.

Related: Stories of Stephen King.

Christopher Feliciano Arnold's "Light, Sweet Crude" (short story): Two ways of creating wealth are contrasted

How is wealth created? By creating physical assets, or by manipulating numbers in a database? This story, obviously inspired by last year's credit freeze, contrasts the two.

Story summary.

Hunter (narrator), 32 year old millionaire financial trader speculating in future crude prices for Centaur Global Energy Resources Fund, vs his dad, a man of modest means who has spent a lifetime maintaining physical infrastructure of oil industry in Texas, US.

A specific trade of Hunter is at the heart of the story, & brings up the issues with database-based wealth creation: he will make a lot of money for his employer in this transaction (that might get him in trouble with law) because he has advance information about what the US cops will call a terrorist strike in Nigeria - a hit that will affect world's crude supply over at least the short term.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy (US), October 2009.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of the year 2009" list.
Related: Stories from 2009 issues of Playboy magazine; all Playboy stories.

Margaret Atwood's "The Bad News" (short story, alternate history): A cynic's reaction to daily dose of bad news in morning papers

God reading while it lasted, but familiarity with French & Roman history will may be add to comprehension of subtleties.

Story summary.

Story is a cynic's reaction to bad news the morning newspapers are harbingers of; narrator is the woman partner of an old couple.

Midway through the story, narration shifts to Glanum, France - "before it was destroyed in the third century". Same couple - we don't know if they were planted in this France via a time machine or just in their imagination. Husband there is a retired Roman soldier. And, of course, bad news arrives in the mornings here too - in this time & place. Like "The barbarians are invading. They've crossed the Rhine." Reader presumably knows these "barbarians" will destroy Glanum, but reaction of the couple is still typical: "Even if they manage to cross the Rhine... they won't get here for a long time. Not in our lifetime, perhaps. Glanum is in no danger, not yet."

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy (US), July 2006.
Rating: B.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr's "Confido" (short story): Now no one need be lonely!

According to US Playboy, September 2009 issue, this is a never before published story of Vonnegut, making its first appearance in this magazine now. Story, however, was written early in the carrier of Vonnegut.

Story summary.

Bowers - Henry, his wife Ellen, daughter Susan (7), & son Paul (8) - have been leading a happy contented middle class life.

Now Henry - a "tinker, maker, & mender who had a touch close to magic with materials & machines" - has invented a gadget that promises to make them super rich. A tiny device that you keep in your pocket, connect it to earpiece with wire - like a modern pocket MP3 player. Only it's way beyond even our modern devices.

What does the gadget - dubbed "Confido" by Ellen - do? It helps you gossip with someone - someone mysterious, someone who's neither a god nor a man. When the device is switched on, this someone has access to your thoughts & can sense your environment; & it can speak to you - speech that is picked up by a tiny mike set in earpiece which plays back the sound.

When testing the device in the family, the family will discover something very ugly about the "voice"...

Collected in.

1. Kurt Vonnegut's Look at the Birdie (coll), due out November 2009 from Delacorte Press.

Fact sheet.

First published: US Playboy, September 2009.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of the year 2009" list.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut; Stories from 2009 issues of Playboy.

Two new entries in Playboy 2009 fiction list (both non-genre)

Ref: Playboy 2009 fiction list.

New entries:

1. May: Jim Shepard' "Minotaur" (B); non-genre: Troubled personal lives of those working on secret military projects.
   
   In this case, a couple of US military men working on a weapons program dubbed "Minotaur" - a kind of airborne surveillance & attack machine. Because of extreme secrecy that requires them to lie about their work even to their wives, their home lives are unhappy ones.
2. June: Maile Meloy's "Lovely Rita" (B): non-genre: Complicated story of maladjusted people & wrecked lives in the background of local environment disaster brought by a nuclear power plant & a housing development project.

William Tenn's "Bernie the Faust" (novelette): Oh God! What kind of mess I've got into?

Stylistically similar to joint works Henry Kuttner & C L Moore, except for ending. That itself is reason enough for me to look for more Tenn; that I've'nt seen anything bad from him yet is more motivation.

Concept is based on the German legend of "Faust" (a man makes a deal with the devil); more on it later in this post. Devil here is a vastly smarter alien; but by the end of the story, both man & alien will be licked.

Story summary.

When Bernie, a wheeler dealer in New York City, is offered easy money in obviously rigged deal by a man, he cannot resist: $20 for $5! Then his "share" in

1. "The Golden Gate Bridge", San Francisco for $125!
2. "The Sea of Azov" in Russia + "Kerch Strait" for $390!
3. All of earth for $2700!!

Only the seller insists on a duly notarized receipt for each transaction.

Bernie will later realize the kind of mess he'd got into - he'd given a legal door to aliens to invade earth because of some trading rights he held with UN.

Well - mistake will be eventually corrected, involving hard bargaining with the buyer. Only, Bernie will have to shell out may be twice the amount he made. This being a half century old story, that's huge money - Bernie is a very poor man post deal.

Some discussion with friends & a bit of investigating later will make Bernie realize he wasn't the only one licked; alien too is in a soup, though he probably doesn't realize it yet!

What is the "Faust"?

1. Story makes a reference to "Marlowe's Doctor Faustus".
2. This reference apparently is to a play titled "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" by Christopher Marlowe, available online at Project Gutenberg in two versions that I don't know how to distinguish - so I take the one posted later.
3. Project Gutenberg text includes the following subtitle: "From The Quarto Of 1616". Apparently, Marlowe borrowed material from a work called "The Quarto" originally published in 1616?
4. A Google search for "The Quarto" throws up references to a work of William Shakespeare. I didn't pursue it further - not sure what the relation is.
5. Wikipedia tells us "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is a play by Christopher Marlowe, based on the Faust story, in which a man sells his soul to the devil for power and knowledge."
6. This "Faust story" seems to have more than one variations, but all are apparently based on a German legend. Does anyone know a reference to an English text no bigger than the size of a short story that tells this legend in language comprehensible to non-Europeans with a very limited knowledge of Western literature? Thank you.

Collected in.

1. Isaac Asimov & Martin H Greenberg (Eds)' "Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories 25 (1963)" (anthology).
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, November 1963.
Rating: A.
Included in Ellen Datlow's Sci Fiction classics.
Related: Stories of William Tenn.

Playboy has put 53 back issues online: 1954-2007

At Playboy Archive. [via PC Magazine]

Requires installing Microsoft Silverlight viewer (their competition to Flash, some sort of browser plugin); so probably won't work on non-Windows platforms. Also, it's not full screen view, though pan is allowed. I assume these are US editions. I haven't seen yet, but at least I now have a good reason to install Silverlight.

This is not entirely off topic, since Playboy has also published some of the most interesting science fiction. I suppose there will be relevant fiction in those issues too, apart from its appeal to sinners.

This archive has been around nearly a month. I've known about it for a while, but forgot linking.

Stories from Playboy magazine, 2009 issues

Note that while they sometimes publish very good genre stories, most of their fiction is non-genre.

List below is by my preference - best first; unread stories come at end. My rating (ABC: A = time well spent; C = don't bother) is in brackets. Unless mentioned otherwise, stories are from US edition of the magazine.

Note: I actually have no preference between first two entries - Vonnegut's story & Arnold's. Vonnegut is economical - no word wasted, & deals with a timeless issue that has been done to death on TV & in movies. Arnold, by comparison, is wasteful of words, but deals with a contemporary subject.

1. September: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr's "Confido" (A); science fiction: Now no one need be lonely!
   
   While this story was written early in Vonnegut's career, it got published for the first time in 2009 only.
   
   Added to my "best of the year 2009" list.
2. October: Christopher Feliciano Arnold's "Light, Sweet Crude" (A); non genre: Wealth creation by creating physical assets vs by manipulating numbers in a database are contrasted.
   
   Added to my "best of the year 2009" list.
3. January: Scott Turow's "In His Own Woods" (A); non-genre: A man & his little daughter have adventure in the woods.
4. May: Jim Shepard' "Minotaur" (B); non-genre: Troubled personal lives of those working on secret military projects.
   
   In this case, a couple of US military men working on a weapons program dubbed "Minotaur" - a kind of airborne surveillance & attack machine. Because of extreme secrecy that requires them to lie about their work even to their wives, their home lives are unhappy ones.
5. June: Maile Meloy's "Lovely Rita" (B): non-genre: Complicated story of maladjusted people & wrecked lives in the background of local environment disaster brought by a nuclear power plant & a housing development project.
6. February: Jess Walter's "Helpless Little Things" (B); non-genre: Danny, a conman, drug runner, narrator, & generally a bad man, gets conned by Julie, a young vulnerable-looking girl working for & once abused by him.
   
   Too much swearing & slang for my taste.
7. March: ?
8. April: ?
9. July: ?
   

Related: All Playboy stories. Or only from 2012, 2011, 2010, 2008 or 2007 issues.

J Robert Lennon's "The Wraith" (short story, ghost)

Carl Blunt & his moody wife Lurene have been leading a boring married life for 10 years, when suddenly Lurene practically splits into two - a happy charming woman & a dead ghost full of misery! Until the ghost forces Carl to have sex with her, resulting in the return of old single, moody, & unhappy Lurene - because she's now pregnant & can no longer split!

Story, set in US, has repeated references to what characters call maladministration of George Bush regime. So may be there is symbolism here that escaped me?

Author tells us (& my Webster confirms) "wraith" of title means ghost of someone still alive.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy (US), November 2008.
Rating: B.
Related: Playboy stories; ghost stories.

Scott Turow's "In His Own Woods" (short story, non-genre)

Mueller, a city man, having brought 40 acres of heavily wooded property in the countryside, takes his first walk through the property with his 4 year old daughter Annie. This is a story of their adventures in the woods, including getting lost & enduring a storm.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy (US), January 2009.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories from Playboy magazine.