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.

Arthur C. Clarke's "Playback" (short story, science fiction): Reincarnation not possible with a corrupt mind dump

This is not the first mind dump story I've read of Clarke - there's much better known novel "The City and the Stars". "Patent Pending" has a device that lets specific experiences of one individual to be recorded to a storage device & played back directly into the mind of someone else! Even "The Lion of Comarre" has a variation of this.

But this is the first exclusively mind dump story I've seen from Clarke that has a modern feel. Ignore a single reference to tape as a storage device & a space-based theme, & this 1966 story can be confused with a 2007 or a 2008 story! And it's among the best mind dump stories I've seen.

There is a part of the story that has the terror like in Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream". But there is no sadistic external entity doing the torturing here; it's a natural part of the story.

Story summary.

40 year old William Vincent Neuberg, "a master pilot of the Galactic Survey... born in Port Lowell, Mars, on August 21, 2095", had an accident somewhere in deep space. His ship blown away, vaporizing him along with it. We don't know if there were any other crew or passengers.

But some aliens, obviously far off from the location of accident, did his mind dump during these last moments. They were competent enough to have created his body & complete with its memories from this dump, only they have no idea of what kind of body he had; nothing from the body was saved.

Story is narrated by a simulation ("playback") of William's mind dump record. He is initially trying to feel his body parts, panicky when cannot find, ... eventually realizing he's just a simulation!

He begins communicating with the aliens via the playback machine's interface, describing what his body looked like so they can reincarnate him. Only it's an incomplete recording - something vital seems to have been missed when they made the record - his memory is confused, fading...

Collected in.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
2. Arthur Clarke's "More Than One Universe"
3. Arthur Clarke's "The Wind From the Sun"

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, December 1966.
Rating: A

Arthur C. Clarke's "A Meeting With Medusa" (novella, hard sf): Exploring the upper atmosphere of Jupiter in a manned vehicle

In spite of some fantastic elements, I think it would be best described as a hard sf story. Balloons (eventually, hot hydrogen balloon on Jupiter), airships, & rockets - to eventually get to a vehicle suitable for exploring the upper atmosphere of Jupiter near its less violent equatorial regions.

Reading it brought out strong association with another story I read not too long back - David Moles' "Finisterra", one of the Hugo Award 2008 nominees. Cut the rigor out of Clarke's story & take only the more fantastic elements, & replace the cautious exploration story with a poachers' story - & you pretty much have the plot of "Finisterra".

While generally quite readable, it suffers from a flaw that keeps creeping into many Clarke stories - tendency to include many tangent threads (but less so than in some of his other stories).

1. We have an airship ("Queen Elizabeth IV") crash during its testing somewhere near Grand Canyon in US - it was "the largest single space ever enclosed by man": "three-tenths of a mile long". We will learn a lot of its design & operations details.
2. "Superchimps" serving as technical handymen.
3. Potential life-threatening effects of satellite communications' half-second time lag: Airship accident was triggered by its collision with a remote controlled flying "camera platform". A manoeuvre required entry of this smaller vehicle into the hold of airship, & it was turbulent weather. Around the time of mating, the remote controller was using satellite communications rather than radio - this affected in split-second response time required during mating.
4. The cyborg hero: The airship Commander, Howard Falcon, was among the badly hurt during the crash (a lot of others died). He was saved, but only as a cyborg. He will be the one physically exploring Jupiter's upper atmosphere later in the story: "He alone could travel unprotected on lunar surface. The life-support system inside the metal cylinder that had replaced his fragile body functioned equally well in space or under water. Gravity fields ten times that of Earth were an inconvenience, but nothing more."
5. A balloon trip across Gangetic plains in northern India.

Story summary.

Main story is about the Jupiter exploration mission sometime late twenty-first century (story spans a few years - about 150 years after the Hindenburg accident).

Mothership will park in the "radiation shadow" of Jupiter V (one of its tiny moons), while Howard goes down solo for a 3 (local) days adventure in Jupiter's upper atmosphere. He will be moving in a radiation-shielded vehicle ("Kon-Tiki")whose design draws inspiration from many kinds of air vehicles.

He will observe many kinds of phenomena - including effects of the atmospheric shock waves & massive electrical discharges triggered by the equivalent of volcanic eruption on its surface ("or whatever passed for a surface on Jupiter") lying far below the human accessible regions, & a massive whirlpool ("some six hundred miles across"). It's the second time I've seen Clarke dwell on the maelstrom theme; "Maelstrom II" didn't involve a whirlpool, but is inspired from Edgar Allan Poe's "A Descent in the Maelstrom".

He will also observe two kinds of local creatures - a bunch of pack hunters, & a supermassive hunted creature ("more than a mile across" & "with scores of dangling tentacles" - "about a hundred thousand times as large as the biggest whale"). He dubs the former "mantas", & later "Medusa". Among other things, Medusa have radio senses! We will see an unsuccessful local hunting event.

He will eventually escape in a hurry on the third day when a Medusa gets too curious about his vehicle - puny compared to size of Medusa.

Collected in.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
2. Arthur Clarke's "More Than One Universe"
3. Arthur Clarke's "The Sentinel"
4. Arthur Clarke's "The Wind From the Sun"
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, December 1971.
Rating: A
Winner of Nebula Award 1971 in novella category.

Ron Carlson's "In Old Moab" (short story, non-genre): Description of a robbery that never happened

Playboy stories tend to be generally better than this one! There is no sanity in its ending.

Story summary.

A man enters a bar called "The Canyan Club" alone late evening in a town called Moab somewhere in the US, with a pistol & with the intention to rob. As his bad luck would have it, instead of finding the bar deserted, some 50 women choose to enter it then - foiling his plans.

Story is narrated by a bystander who meets the would be robber in bar. In a bizarre ending, after telling the narrator about his failed plan, the would be robber shoots himself dead!

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy (US), May 2008.
Rating: C

Jane Smiley's "Paradigm Shift" (short story, science fiction, humor): Going green can spice up your married life!

This amusing story doesn't describe new technology. It's about human issues - an individual's trials when trying to become environment friendly at home - using currently available technology. I suppose the story is triggered by recent fuel price hikes - it's mostly about saving energy.

Indians among the audience will find some of the issues frivolous (because of hot sticky weather, & per capita consumption far below many other places), others impossibly expensive - but look at the overall message, please. And it's an interesting story even if you don't want to take the message.

Skip it if explicit talk of sex bothers you.

Story summary.

Mary Lou Harris-DeLong has decided to go green. Story is mostly about enrolling her husband, Dave, in various projects that will cut down her household's energy consumption.

Dave normally doesn't care. But she has worked out an incentive - sex, & playfulness related to it. By the time they are done, they would also have shed many kilos - sex can be energy consuming! And they are closer together - sex can be a relationship tonic!

Some of the projects include:

1. Energy saving light bulbs. Far more expensive than normal (in India at least) - reason they have low penetration here.
2. Wear cloths longer before washing. Many Indian will laugh at it, or at least feel uncomfortable with the idea - you mean in this dusty, hot & humid environment?
3. Cut down on water usage: don't leave tap open when not needed during toothbrushing; cut down on water consumed when bathing.
4. One shower a day if you take two. Author gives an interesting solution: if you use bathtub & hot water, how about joint husband/wife showers! Can have sex there too!
5. Bunch errands together; be more organized about stocking up.
6. Take bus, bicycle, walk a mile.
7. Solar panels - feed electricity to grid when possible. How I wish they were cheap enough? I get so much sunlight, & it not only goes waste but actually increases electricity bills in this hot weather!
8. LED lights. Only homes I've seen them used in Bombay are where they are installed to make a fashion statement. Very low energy consumption, but sooo expensive!

OK - Indians will see government propaganda here. But that is because we are fed so much of it - we stop listening out of sheer boredom.

There are actually funny reasons I see change happening. A relative, e.g., switched most lighting fixtures to energy efficient but expensive ones last year because the town he lives in has very bad electricity quality - newer gadgets can withstand wild voltage fluctuations better! A friend recently installed a lot of colorful LEDs as part of "mood lighting" - so at least part of the evening, it's only mood lighting that is lit!

Fact sheet.

First published: (US) Playboy, June 2008.
Rating: A
Added to my best of the year 2008 list.

Robert Stone's "Charm City" (short story, non-genre): Description of a house burglary

Story summary.

A woman criminal has learned about another woman's taste in antiques via a dealer. She seduces victim's husband, goes with him to his country house where all the family's antique possessions are kept, learns local security details, & robs later with the help of her daughter & daughter's boyfriend.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, April 2008.
Rating: B

Note: Why is this post so short?

F X Toole's "Holy Man" (short story, non-genre)

Ernie "Peachy" Pescetti is a good but not outstanding boxer. Early success went into his head - to quick doom. Now his elder sister Sophia Pescetti-Gottlieb wants him to recover, & they seek help of coach (narrator). Story tells us of coach's work with Ernie, Ernie's recovery on the ring, & eventual doom because he listens to wrong people.

Of special interest to Indian cricket fans will be the treatment of sledging, match fixing, & some reminders of Greg Chappel. And some insight into the cultural gap that ensures Indians & Australians look at sledging differently.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, February 2008.
Rating: B

* Sam Lipsyte's "The Gunderson Prophecy" (short story, non-genre, humor)

Senseless life-story of a playboy & charlatan with family name of Gunderson. He is sort of convinced the world is about to end in 6 years ... oops, in a few months, etc. Wants to use this prophecy racket to earn some money - via lectures, TV shows, etc. Just when he has managed the promise of some cash from a rich benefactor, sky falls - at least on him! There are occasional references to holographic avatars & outer planets, but is generally non-genre.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, November 2007.
Rating: C

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Denis Johnson's "The Starlight on Idaho" (short story, non-genre)

Description of a family of criminals & maladjusted characters. Narrator is Mark Cassandra - in a rehabilitation center because of alcohol addiction, & story is in the form of a series of often imaginary letters to various people (including to Pope, Satan, & I think god himself too!) Title of the story comes from the name of rehab center: Starlight Addiction Recovery Center, Idaho Avenue, Ukiah, California.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, February 2007.
Rating: C

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Nadine Gordimer's "The Third Sense" (short story, non-genre)

An entrepreneur in recently opened economy of a third world country has lost heart when forced to shut shop by changed government regulations. Story is of his fall & some half-hearted attempt to keep his dignity - told via the musings of his wife, & her sensing of his infidelity. And of their long marriage troubled by the event, but saved.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, April 2007.
Rating: C

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Woody Allen's "This Nib For Hire" (short story, non-genre, humor)

A charlatan claiming to be a big shot film producer entices a novelist with one published book to novelize his C-grade movie "about spending the night in a haunted house." Wastes author's time for a couple of days, then vanishes. Funny parts of the story are in the way producer approaches the project. Very short & light read.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, June 2007.
Rating: B

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Edward Falco's "Winter Storms" (short story, non-genre)

This is a dark political story about US occupation of Iraq. A US journalist who won't toe the official line of US Army is, in a way, handed over to jihadis. She saves herself by compromising the US spy who did her in, inadvertently also getting 3 little children killed. Now she's both nursing a guilt about killed children, & is fearful US authorities will consider her act treason.

That's about the first half of the story. Second half just drags on pointlessly, adding word count but not anything else to the story.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, May 2007.
Rating: B

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Stephen King's "Mute" (short story, non-genre)

A lonely woman in her 50s, married 24 years with a daughter in college & husband mostly on tour, gets into an affair. And into blowing money with this boyfriend, a man of 60 - on lotteries, lingerie, shoes, ... Funds for this activity come by stealing her office funds. She has stolen $120 thousand over a 2 year period, & is about to be caught. That is when her husband learns of affair & embezzlement.

Soon, the wife will be living with her boyfriend in a motel. The man relieves his pent up story to a deaf/mute hitchhiker bum now asleep in his car - since the guy cannot really hear. Only, he can. Bum has been in & out of mental institutions over the years. A while later, the man will learn the hitchhiker has murdered his wife & her boyfriend, apparently out of gratitude for the ride!

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, December 2007.
Rating: B

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Jess Walter's "We Live In Water" (short story, non-genre)

A crook about to be murdered by a gang of toughs has some emotional moments with his son before his death. You might like it if you like violent ghetto stories; it's not my kind.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, August 2007.
Rating: B

Note: Why is this post so short?

* David James Poissant's "Lizard Man" (short story, non-genre)

Not very uncommon rift between father & adolescent son that will lead to their never speaking in later life. Story has two cases - one where the rift is there till father's death; second where the dad is initiating patch up steps. Also included is a completely tangent subplot of rescuing an alligator.

Fact sheet.

First published: Playboy, October 2007.
Rating: A

Note: Why is this post so short?

J Robert Lennon's "Zombie Dan" (short story, science fiction: Is he a zombie, or is he a superman?

This is actually a bit longish - may be novelette length. I didn't do word count.

Story addresses dark subjects, but often in a light way - sometimes even in humorous ways. And there is liberal sex talk - not too much, but enough to annoy some; take care before looking it up.

Story summary.

Technology has recently become available to revive the dead - at least some of the dead. "To be eligible for revivification, you had to die a certain way. Drowning was the best. Suffocation. Anything that resulted in a minimum of the harm to the body, other than it's being dead. Freezing wasn't too bad, & a gunshot wound, if tidy, could be worked around. Electrocution was pushing it, as was poisoning. Car crash, cancer, decapitation, old age? Right out."

Only catch is - it's very expensive procedure, & available at very few places.

Zombie is a popular term applied to them; hence "Zombie Dan". Also because they never quite get the motor control right.

This is the story of Daniel "Dan" Larsen, 25, who died after falling off a yacht. Or rather, of his revival using this procedure. He had been dead 6 months.

His mom, Ruth, has enlisted the support of several of his childhood friends (including narrator) for the procedure. You see, after revival, you need to remind the patient of old times - for his memory to return (haven't we seen this in several movies?).

But the revived ones ("rivivs") "were definitely not quite right". They also came back very dumb - or rather, childish. Like truthfully telling, in front of a lot of people, that one of them once stole something. This is made even more complex because Dan now has telepathic ability - he can read other people's thoughts! Of course, people are uncomfortable around them.

Most of the humorous portions relate to this aspect of Dan's revival. In the background, we keep learning bits about various characters' past - pieces of memory long forgotten - the kind that is best left forgotten.

In the end, his mother is so fed up, she considers him a monster: "that thing is not my son... It is a monster, & it must be stopped. It can read my thoughts. It remembers things about me that I worked very, very hard to forget." Also, "It's true about zombies, you know. They do eat brains... Their souls are gone, so they want yours, & mine. They can steal them, right through thin air."

And hires narrator to kill her son!! Only, Dan can read the thoughts! Narrator will be disarmed on entry to Dan's apartment, & told this is not the first time Dan's mother has tried it. And Dan will learn something about his own past - read by Dan from his long forgotten subconscious. We clearly know Dan is not evil.

Fact sheet.

"Zombie Dan", short story, review
First published: Playboy magazine, March 2007.
Rating: B
All stories from Playboy magazine.

Stories from Playboy magazine, 2008 issues

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

List below is by quality - 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. March: Tony D'Souza's "The Cook" (A); non genre: Small town India, seen from the eyes of 3 Americans.
2. June: [ss] Jane Smiley's "Paradigm Shift" (A); science fiction, humor: Going green can spice up your married life! Added to my best of the year 2008 list.
3. February: F X Toole's "Holy Man" (B); non genre: A skilled boxer ends up destroying his career because he listens to the wrong people.
4. November: J Robert Lennon's "The Wraith" (B); ghosts: An unhappy woman suddenly discovers the ability to split into two - a happy one, & a miserable one!
   
5. April: Robert Stone's "Charm City" (B); non-genre: Description of a house burglary.
6. May: Ron Carlson's "In Old Moab" (C); non-genre: Description of a failed robbery.
7. January: John Updike's "Blue Light": Not read. Something about a new treatment of skin cancer involving exposure to blue light - so it might be a genre story.
8. July: [serial, part 1 of 4] Denis Johnson's "Nobody Move": Not read.
9. December: James Ellroy's "Blood's a Rover": Not read. It's an excerpt from one of author's novels.
   

Related: All Playboy stories. Or only from 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 or 2007 issues.

Arthur C. Clarke's "Transit of Earth" (short story, science fiction): Watching the transit of earth & moon across the disk of Sun - from Mars

Readable story, but with an unnecessarily sad ending & some irrelevant flashbacks.

Story summary.

Once every 100 years, earth, sun, & mars align. Such an event happened on 2 May, 1984, day of the story.

A team of 15 was sent to mars to synchronize with the event. Spacecraft Olympus landed on Phobos, a moon of mars. A team of 5 went to martian surface in lander Pegasus. An accident on mars has rendered the lander useless - the only one with the mission. The 5 men that came with it are doomed to die when their oxygen runs out - soon. No hope of rescue. Part way through the story, Olympus will blast off for earth from Phobos with its 10 men.

Of the 5 stranded men, 4 have died. Last one, the narrator, still has a day to live - others apparently died a bit early so one man can record the rare earth transit.

This record of transit is the main highlight of the story. Disk of earth contacts Sun's disk at 0432 hours, Ephemeris time (now outdated). 0450 hrs - earth is fully inside the disk. 1040 hrs - moon contacts the disk, earth is "half the width of the Sun" away. 1047 hrs - moon is fully inside. 1307, earth leaves the disk.

Collected in.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
2. "More Than One Universe"
3. "The Wind From the Sun"
   

Fact sheet.

"Transit of Earth", short story, review
First published: Playboy, January 1971.
Rating: B

Stories from Playboy magazine, 2007 issues

List below is by quality - best first. 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.

April author, Nadine Gordimer, is 1991 literature Nobel laureate.

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

1. September: Tobias Wolff's "A Mature Student" (A): Outstanding story on the psychology & environment that create torturing soldiers - of the kind that were in news some time back in US military's torture camps in Iraq & Afghanistan.
2. October: David James Poissant's "Lizard Man" (A): Not very uncommon rift between father & adolescent son that will lead to their never speaking in later life. Story has two cases - one where the rift is there till father's death; second where the dad is initiating patch up steps. Also included is a completely tangent subplot of rescuing an alligator.
3. May: Edward Falco's "Winter Storms" (B): This is a dark political story about US occupation of Iraq. A US journalist who won't toe the official line of US Army is, in a way, handed over to jihadis. She saves herself by compromising the US spy who did her in, inadvertently also getting 3 little children killed. Now she's both nursing a guilt about killed children, & is fearful US authorities will consider her act treason.
   
   That's about the first half of the story. Second half just drags on pointlessly, adding word count but not anything else to the story.
4. June: Woody Allen's "This Nib For Hire" (B); humor: A charlatan claiming to be a big shot film producer entices a novelist with one published book to novelize his C-grade movie "about spending the night in a haunted house." Wastes author's time for a couple of days, then vanishes. Funny parts of the story are in the way producer approaches the project. Very short & light read.
5. March: J Robert Lennon's "Zombie Dan" (B); science fiction: When technology to revive the dead became available, it had some side effects too!
   
6. December: Stephen King's "Mute" (B): A lonely woman in her 50s, married 24 years with a daughter in college & husband mostly on tour, gets into an affair. And into blowing money with this boyfriend, a man of 60 - on lotteries, lingerie, shoes, ... Funds for this activity come by stealing her office funds. She has stolen $120 thousand over a 2 year period, & is about to be caught. That is when her husband learns of affair & embezzlement.
   
   Soon, the wife will be living with her boyfriend in a motel. The man relieves his pent up story to a deaf/mute hitchhiker bum now asleep in his car - since the guy cannot really hear. Only, he can. Bum has been in & out of mental institutions over the years. A while later, the man will learn the hitchhiker has murdered his wife & her boyfriend, apparently out of gratitude for the ride!
7. August: Jess Walter's "We Live In Water" (B): A crook about to be murdered by a gang of toughs has some emotional moments with his son before his death. You might like it if you like violent ghetto stories; it's not my kind.
8. April: Nadine Gordimer's "The Third Sense" (C): An entrepreneur in recently opened economy of a third world country has lost heart when forced to shut shop by changed government regulations. Story is of his fall & some half-hearted attempt to keep his dignity - told via the musings of his wife, & her sensing of his infidelity. And of their long marriage troubled by the event, but saved.
9. November: Sam Lipsyte's "The Gunderson Prophecy" (C): humor. Senseless life-story of a playboy & charlatan with family name of Gunderson. He is sort of convinced the world is about to end in 6 years ... oops, in a few months, etc. Wants to use this prophecy racket to earn some money - via lectures, TV shows, etc. Just when he has managed the promise of some cash from a rich benefactor, sky falls - at least on him! There are occasional references to holographic avatars & outer planets, but is generally non-genre.
10. February: Denis Johnson's "The Starlight on Idaho" (C): Description of a family of criminals & maladjusted characters. Narrator is Mark Cassandra - in a rehabilitation center because of alcohol addiction, & story is in the form of a series of often imaginary letters to various people (including to Pope, Satan, & I think god himself too!) Title of the story comes from the name of rehab center: Starlight Addiction Recovery Center, Idaho Avenue, Ukiah, California.
    
11. July: Jamie Malanowski's "State of the Union": Not read.
12. January: Walter Mosley's "The Myth of Sisypha": Not read.

Related: All Playboy stories. Or only from 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, or 2008 issues.

Arthur C. Clarke's "Dial F For Frankenstein": A monster of an AI is accidentally born!

Key premise of this very entertaining story is obviously flawed: current internet more than fulfills the conditions, & we don't yet have the monster.

I am not an expert in neural networks or biology of cognition, but consciousness apparently requires something more than just an enormous number of interconnected switches. May be the right initial state - & a few million or billion years to accidentally reach that state, if at all? I don't know. But I enjoyed the story.

Story summary.

Story is set in London in 1975. "At 0150 GMT on December 1, 1975, every telephone in the world started to ring"! Next day will see chaos all over - radio stations shutting down, stock markets & banks shutting down, traffic signaling systems down, electricity grid behaving erratically, military weapons launched without human authorization, planes almost crashing, ...

But it all began with phones ringing. You pick up the receiver, & some funny non-human sounds appear for a few seconds before it hangs up. Rest of the chaos will take a while over the following day to manifest.

Much of the story is the discussion in a restaurant among some phone people of what could have caused the anomalous ringing event. With reports of other chaos slowly reaching - strengthening the initially insane theory put forward by Dr John Williams, Mathematics Division.

"human brain is a system of switches - neurons - interconnected in a very elaborate fashion by nerves. An automatic telephone exchange is also a system of switches - selectors & so forth - connected with wires..."

But there "are about fifteen billion neurons in the brain? That's a lot more than the number of switches in an autoexchange...

Fifteen billion sounds a large number, but it isn't. Round about the 1960s, there were about that number of individual switches in the world's autoexchanges. Today, there are approximately five times as many...

And as from yesterday, they've all become capable of full interconnection, now that the satellite links have gone into service."

You see, an AI was born automatically in this network. Phone event, a couple of hours after the satellite hookup, was its birth pangs. Now the baby is trying things out - and will likely break some as part of its normal growth!

Amid more reports of chaos, they conclude the newly operational satellites will have to be put out of action. Only, the baby has thought of it before the humans. Satellites no longer respond to commands from humans at ground control!

See also.

1. In this Part 4 of the 7 part interview about HAL, the AI in "2001 A Space Odyssey", Clarke talks about this story in one paragraph. Nothing new, but kind of puts this story in a larger context.
   

Collected in.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"
2. "More Than One Universe"
3. "The Wind from the Sun"

Fact sheet.

"Dial F For Frankenstein", short story, review
First published: Playboy, January 1964.
Rating: A

Tobias Wolff's "A Mature Student": Man becomes monster

I stumbled upon this outstanding non-genre story when going through stories in this year's issues of Playboy.

The story concerns the psychological & environmental factors that make the governmental torturers - both in authoritarian regimes, as well as in unchecked military torture camps of US - of the kind that were in news a while back in Iraq & Afghanistan.

Story summary.

In a discussion between a 41-year old student & her female teacher (in her 50s) at some US university, the teacher talks about her shame when she, aged 17, betrayed her friend in Prague to government torturers. And the student is musing about her young son, a newly hired US soldier, in Iraq:

"Not what might happen to him, but what he might become. Soon enough he would be among strange people who would hate him on sight. Any of them might be meaning to kill him. In the face of so much hatred & danger, how could he escape feeling hatred himself? For all of them. Theresa had seen how the young men looked after a few months in that place...

Her son was already learning the pleasure of being strong, & the special pleasure of being stronger than others... from six grade to seventh, the bullying had gotten so nasty that she'd had to go to the principle of his school... tonight she remembered the look on his face after one of the bad days - ... of his bitterness & shame. When he came into power now over those who hated him & frightened him, how would he resist putting them on their knees, making them squirm... What would happen in some little room where hatred & power & fear came together, & there was nobody to say no?"

Fact sheet.

"A Mature Student", short story, review
First published: Playboy, September 2007.
Rating: A

Larry Niven's "Smut Talk": Sentient bacteria of alien origin!

This is not among Niven's better stories.

Full story text can be downloaded here.

Story summary.
Draco Tavern, located somewhere in Siberia, is a kind of meeting place of sentient alien visitors to earth; entry of humans is heavily restricted by earth governments.

One fine day, you have the staff falling sick, & many aliens visitors suddenly going away. This happened a couple of days after an alien ship came.

Turns out human authorities have learned of a new species of sentient alien visitors unregistered till now. They are parasitic, in the form of fast multiplying bacterial colonies, & take control of the minds of hosts.

They were brought to earth via an alien male host bribed by bacteria of giving sexual pleasure through his long trip - presumably by directly simulating affected mind!

They have began spreading on earth at a speed that makes their hosts very sick.

Finally a treaty is worked out that they don't take over a host without his permission, & to restrict their colony size to something that doesn't threaten the host's life - in spite of the option to kill off the colonizers with antibiotics. In return, they will fix many life processes within host - basically improving the host! This was the part I found most difficult to believe - negotiations with parasites whose benefits are doubtful.

Final act is a female human volunteer asking to be infected. Via a human male host. And this infecting will happen through sexual intercourse between the two.

Fact sheet.
Smut Talk, short story, review
First published: Playboy (US), January 2000
Rating: C

Arthur C. Clarke's "Maelstrom II": A totally crazy but effective rescue operation

This would easily class as among Clarke's best. An outstanding shipwreck & rescue story in space.

As far as I know, there is no other Clarke story called "Maelstrom" or "Maelstrom I". "II" comes from looking at the plot as a space age variant or sequel of a very similar survival story at the sea - Edger Allen Poe's "A Descent into the Maelstrom".

Story summary.
Cliff Leyland is an African farmer trying his luck in a lunar colony, & is now returning back to earth. He buys a return ticket on an unusual flyer to save some money - a freight capsule launched by an electric catapult; he is the sole passenger on board.

Only there is a launch fault because of a 1 second electric supply failure on launch rail. Result is - his capsule doesn't get moon escape velocity. It will go to a certain height; then moon's gravitation will pull it back, & there will be a mighty crash!

There are small steering jets on capsule, but they are also destroyed. I could not follow how the accident destroyed them.

Anyway, now he is awaiting certain death. A lot of space is devoted to his ruminations on this.

Part way through his elliptic crash orbit, he gets a call from Van Kessel, Chief of Maintenance, Space Vehicles Division. Ground staff have worked out a totally crazy & frightening way to save him.

While a ship will eventually pick him up, it cannot get to him in time before impending crash. He is advised to don the space suite, & at the moment Launch Control will advice, to manually jump off the ship into space with all the force he can muster! This advice will be given when his capsule is at its highest point in orbit, & airlock is facing away from moon; hopefully, this will put him in a non-crash orbit - & give rescue ship, Callisto, time to finally fetch him.

Of course, the story has a happy ending.

Fact sheet.
Maelstrom II, short story, review
First published: Playboy, April 1962
Rating: A

See also.

1. A 3-minute movie showing the launch, its going wrong, & realization that things have gone wrong, but not the most interesting rescue routine. I saw this version; the version at YouTube appears identical but I haven't played it. Not very good quality, but not bad either. Makers of this movie also put together this slide show that explains the essentials of the story with pictures.
   
2. Arthur Clarke's novel "A Fall of Moondust": Very good shipwreck & rescue story on moon. But set on (or rather, in) lunar surface rather than in space.
3. Robert Heinlein's short story "Searchlight": Shipwreck at an isolated place on lunar surface, & an ingenious technique to locate the stranded during rescue.
4. Robert Heinlein's short story "Ordeal in Space": In some ways, similar to this story. A spaceman falls off ship, ends up spending sometime away from anything, & becomes a psychological wreck. Story is of his eventual rehabilitation. This same story is also found as a small subplot in Arthur Clarke's novel, "The Deep Range".
5. Arthur Clark's novel "2001 A Space Odyssey" has a space man ejected off a deep space ship because of sabotage. Another novel, "3001 The Final Odyssey" will have him recovered in a very improbable rescue operation 1000 years later! And with his sanity intact.
6. Robert Heinlein's novel "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" features electromagnetic catapults for normal freight delivery from moon to earth. In one episode, it also transports 2 passengers. It is also eventually used as a weapon on a war against earth.
7. Arthur Clarke's novel "Islands in the Sky" features a short subplot where an electric catapult based on rails is used for emergency launch - I think of people, don't recall well. The mechanism is very similar to that in current story.