2 stories of a new trend?

The stories with bot swarms are common. So are the stories where crawly creepy things move over the human bodies, to the disgust of victims. But adaptable bot swarms that are willingly allowed by humans to crawl all over their bodies to do specific things? I've seen two 2012 stories featuring this already, & I don't think I'd seen one of the kind before these.

First one makes a better read of the two.

1. [ss] Jessica Barber's "MonitorBot and the King of Pop" (B); download; Strange Horizons, 2 January 2012: A woman club dancer, under police surveillance because her brother is a "rebel", slowly makes friend with shape-shifting police robot assigned to watch her.
2. Aliette de Bodard's "Scatterd Along the River of Heaven" (B); download; Clarkesworld, January 2012: A freedom fighter who had to live in exile once the freedom came, seen at her funeral from the eyes of a granddaughter she never knew.

Shweta Narayan's "Nira and I" (short story, fantasy, free): Fighting deeply entrenched social taboos

I'm not sure how readers outside India will react to it. It's thinly allegorical about certain social taboos in India. Literal reading is likely to be less rewarding.

Indian readers will find it sticks to safe forms of discourse on the subject, avoiding the really hot & controversial issue of "king" actively encouraging & perpetuating the taboos.

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 16 March 2009.
Rating: B.
Download full text from publisher's site. [via Free SF Reader]

John Scalzi's "Alien Animal Encounters" (short story, humor, free)

A collection of short tales about human encounters with alien animals (plus one of an alien's encounter with an earth animal). Light reading.

Joke in the last one went over my head, & is probably comprehensible to only US folks.

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 15 October 2001.
Rating: B.
Download full text from publisher's site. [via Mary Anne Mohanraj]
Related: Stories of John Scalzi.

A M Dellamonica's "Five Good Things About Meghan Sheedy" (short story, science fiction, free): Aliens now own earth!

Well written & with colorful imagery, but I just could not feel anything about its plot. It's obviously a take on US occupation of Iraq.

Story is set in Seattle, Washington, US.

Story summary.

At an unspecified time in future, aliens called Kabu have overrun humanity, & now are effectively rulers of earth - though there is resistance, guerrilla style. Current human generation has always had them - so they've been around long.

This is the story of Dinah, a woman with two kids who has lost her husband apparently to resistance fighting. She lives in Seattle with her childhood friend Meghan Sheedy, also a widow - along with her own two kids. And it's a very hard life of poverty.

Dinah works in an office of Kabu. By the end of the story, she has been enrolled by an underground group resisting Kabu via acts of terrorism; they've just bombed a school full of human kids!

Title is actually arbitrary. Role of Meghan Sheedy is minor in the story, & she is in fact called just Meg. "Five Good Things" are also arbitrary & unimportant to story.

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 21 & 28 April 2008 as two part serial.
Rating: B
Download full text: part 1 & part 2.

* Tim Pratt's "Artifice & Intelligence" (short story, science fiction)

A bored AI creates a worthy adversary - another AI & a villain that is meant to wreck havoc to humanity so original AI can play a game with it to save humans!

Collected in.

1. David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (Ed)'s "Year's Best SF 13" (2008).
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 6 Aug 2007.
Rating: B
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Helen Keeble's "In Stone" (short story, fantasy)

You need a great deal of imagination to enjoy this fantasy. Since I lack it, it's not for me. Something to do with some kind of symbiosis between men, mountains, & fire.

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 10 September 2007.
Rating: C
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

* N K Jemisin's "The You Train" (short story, non-genre)

Two girl friends doing the girl talk. One of them - narrator - appears to be a bit maladjusted.

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 3 December 2007.
Rating: C
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Sonya Taaffe's "Teinds" (short story, non-genre)

A woman is grieving the loss of someone loved in a car crash - in the arms of her lover. Narrated by lover.

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 29 October 2007.
Rating: C
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Amy Sisson's "Minghun Unlikely Patron Saints, No 5" (short story)

(Probably) folklore - presented as a ghost story. A woman soon after death is offered salvation while she is in ghost world, but refuses - choosing instead to help aid the salvation of ghosts of young babies that everyone is ignoring. Kind of Mother Teresa of ghost world.

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 24 September 2007.
Rating: B
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

Corie Ralston's "Looking for Friendship, Maybe More" (short story, science fiction)

A rather light read about pleasure drugs. OK - not pleasure drugs but something with equivalent impact. There are also aliens. But I wasn't bored.

Story itself is in the form of electronic bulletin board messages. Several characters - some interesting.

Full text of this story is available for download.

Fact sheet.

"Looking for Friendship, Maybe More", short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 28 January 2008.
Rating: B

Genevieve Williams' "Kip, Running" (short story, science fiction)

Description of a race of urban kids' gang - no one must buy ticket to reach the destination several miles away; they will ride public transport but without tickets. Kip is the heroine - one of the runners; story is told from her perspective.

Story is set in an overpopulated future city with multiple levels of the city & many kinds of wonderful commuting options. This colorful detail takes space - it might have served as useful background in a larger work, but in a short story it just gets in the way. Not enough space to describe any individual thing, & there is an attempt to describe too many wonders.

Full text of this story is available for download.

Fact sheet.

"Kip, Running", short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 10 March 2008.
Rating: C

Ruthanna Emrys' "Ghosts and Simulations": a facility to manage "uploaded consciousness" of clients!

Full text of this story is available for download.

Story summary.

Story describes "Personality Support Center" (PSC), a facility that will manage your uploaded consciousness after your death - for a periodic fee I suppose, though it's not mentioned - so your ghost can live for as long as you are willing to pay for keep! They apparently also have a hospital attached - though I wonder why anyone would bother going to a hospital that probably makes more profit from your death than life! Narrated by Jim, an employee.

They can take your backup, & create a digital simulation ("ghost") from one of the backup copies. You are encouraged to take frequent backups for more faithful restore; it's also profitable for PSC since you have to go there to get backed up.

The computer simulation can live its own life, interact in the society of other simulations, interact with those still in flesh lives via appropriate computer interfaces. It can even earn money in the world of flesh - e.g., by lecturing.

While this is not quite my kind of story, I must say it's one of the more comprehensible ones of the kind. If you have a taste for the thing, you may even like it.

Fact sheet.

"Ghosts and Simulations", short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 12 November 2007.
Rating: C

Will McIntosh's "One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note": Love story that was doomed from the beginning

If you like poetry, you might like it more than me - that is how its prose sounded like. It's generally an ok read, but I don't like sad endings.

Full story text is available for download.

Story summary.

There are three parallel intertwined threads:

1. A woman's thoughts keep appearing in other people's work - aka Morley Roberts' "The Anticipator".
2. A town falls in love with confessions from its citizens in the form of graffiti.
3. A married woman falls in love with a man, but cannot leave her husband - so the love story is doomed.

Anna has had a fantastic experience since he mother died in bizarre circumstances. Her experiences keep getting replayed at her, e.g. via plots of the movies she sees! She finally decides to make them public herself - by writing very personal experiences as graffiti. Soon, the whole town of Chester falls in love with this mode of confessing.

When Samuel, the lover, discovers Anna's marital status, he walks out. She tries approaching, but Samual is adamant. She finally begins using graffiti as love letters.

End is where Anna figures it's time to let go of Samual - via the last graffiti letter. There is a vague hint near end that they might yet still meet!

Fact sheet.

"One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note", short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 22 Oct 2007.
Rating: B

Ellen Klages' "The Green Glass Sea": Picnic at the site of first test of the atom bomb

I found the casualness with which this story is told a bit difficult to bear.

A few weeks after testing the atom bomb, the family of Dr Phillip Gordon from Manhattan Project takes a trip to the test site - a place called Trinity.

Mostly told through a 10 year old girl, Dewey Kerrigan - who is barely comprehending the enormity of what is going on. The atmosphere at the Los Alamos establishment & later the physical state of the test site - the later a sea of green glass created by high temperature fusing of the sands at the test site.

Full text of this story is available for download.

Fact sheet.

"The Green Glass Sea", short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 6 September 2004.
Rating: B

Jason Stoddard's "Making Payments": Hopeless techno-babble

Among the may be a dozen stories I have read from Strange Horizons, this is the first science fiction story that just went over my head - completely incomprehensible techno-babble.

Much of the story can be read as either of a world inside a computer simulation, or of a human techno-world where I got totally lost. Only the end suggests it is the later - protagonist, completely dissatisfied with life in this techno-world, wants to migrate to some place simpler.

Full story text is available for download.

First published: Strange Horizons, 15 October 2007.
Rating: C

Theodora Goss' "Catherine and the Satyr": A slave is freed

Don't bother with this story unless you are familiar with English history & some mythology. If you qualify, & like snob stories with cruelty, you are still likely to find it a very ordinary one.

Full story text is available as a free download.

Story summary.

A group of snobs in colonial era England. One of them likes to collect exotic animals. Among his collection is a caged Satyr.

Webster tells me Satyr is either a mythological Greek god, or a man with rather excitable libido. As the story progresses, Satyr of this story appears very much human, though he is described as a savage; colonists had picked him up in some foreign land. He is pretty much a caged slave, kept for owner's amusement. You poke him with a stick when you want him to make sounds - e.g., when you show your visitors around!!

Catherine is a woman among these aristocrats & she is going through a bad patch with her husband. Feels empathy towards Satyr. Frees him, has sex with him, & gets pregnant. But this is a small part of the whole story - near end.

Fact sheet.

Length: short story
First published: Strange Horizons, 1 Oct 2007.
Rating: C

Lavie Tidhar's "The Master": An old man has seen better days

I found this novelette-size story extremely readable primarily on the strength of beautiful language. Plot is rather weak, end is pessimistic, & there is nothing sf about it.

Also much of the subject matter is politically very controversial. If your sympathies lie on the Arab side of Israel/Arab conflict, you might want to either skip this story, or mentally replace all occurrences of Israel with humans & Arab with aliens to make acceptable text! I sometimes wonder if politically controversial stories will have a larger market if presented as parables?

Full text of this story is available as a free download.

Story summary.

Shaul Canaan is an old man - once a very successful writer of political propaganda style children's adventure stories where Israeli kids beat bigger Arab villains. He stopped writing after the death of his wife Na'ama, & is now living the life of a recluse.

Much of the story is his ruminations on better days. Near end, he mingles with crowds for a while, & comes back disenchanted - wishing old days back.

See also.

1. Kevin Anderson & Rebecca Moesta's "Rough Draft": Another story about a fiction writer who has given up on writing. But there is a deliverance at end.

Fact sheet.

Length: short story
First published: Strange Horizons, 8 Oct 2007.
Rating: A

William Davis' "Waiting on Alexandre Dumas": A rich customer visits a restaurant

I found this story by searching fiction tagged "humor" in Strange Horizons archive search; I saw this search option only recently. But this story appears to be wrongly tagged; if there is humor here, I didn't get it.

It's a readable but very ordinary story about a dinner visit to Rosie's, a restaurant in Santa Fe, by an apparently rich customer, French speaking Alexandre Dumas, with his date.

Download full story text here.

Note.

13 November 2007: When I wrote this article, I did not know about the apparently well known in the west author named Alexandre Dumas - primarily as author of well known work "The Count of Monte Cristo". I had not even heard of Monte Cristo till a few days ago, & haven't read it.

So may be this story had some ghost or celebrity factor. But I don't feel like rereading just to clarify this point.

Fact sheet.

"Waiting on Alexandre Dumas", short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 26 June 2006.
Rating: C

Jerome Stueart's "Brazos": Matrimonial negotiations of a god & a human

Fantasy, not science fiction; full story text here.

Brazos, the river god, is in love with a human girl. Story is of the human girl's dad's tough negotiations with the god-dad of Brazos, when Brazo's dad brings on matrimonial proposal.

First published: Strange Horizons, 2nd July 2007.
Rating: B

Eliot Fintushel's "How the Little Rabbi Grew": Coming of a messiah

This generally readable tale is of the life & miracles of a messiah. Imagery is biblical & sometimes went over my head. Atheist in me doesn't see anything worth recommending, but pious might not be bored by it.

I only wish Strange Horizons will begin tagging stories as science fiction or otherwise - so the uninterested don't waste time.

Full text of the story can be downloaded here.

Strange Horizons, 17 September 2007
Rating: C

Katherine Maclaine's "All Kinds of Reasons": Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon" updated, improved, & shortened

This is a very good story based on the same premise as Robert Heinlein's "Beyond This Horizon": ability of a couple to choose the best among all possible babies they can have. Very plausible, & emotionally very distressing; see my opening remarks with "Beyond This Horizon" article about experience of an Indian state with a very simple application of this.

Because of shorter form, I find it a much better read than "Beyond This Horizon" - no space to chase tangents!

Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
A new technology for human baby making has recently become available: grow several embryos from the eggs/semen of a couple in lab. Then feed the genetic data of these embryos into a "prediction software". Software can then graphically simulate the way baby will look like at any stage till the age of 8; feed some more genetic data at birth, & range goes up to 20 years! Of course, apart from this physical display, you also get access to a lot of health & fitness data - but you need a doctor to interpret that; physique graphics are accessible even to couples involved.

Of the say 30 embryos you have growing in lab, doctor can advice on the best ones, but the couple is the ultimate judge. Choose 3 of the best; get them implanted in mother; hope some of them will grow inside mother. In case more than one start growing, you have the option to kill some among them.

Story is of the emotional turmoil of Tony, as he & Rhia go through this process of baby making. Rhia has no qualms about choosing the apparently fittest & best looking babies. Tony goes through extreme emotions w.r.t. Sirena, his private name for a physically deformed child that was not allowed to be born.

Fact sheet.
All Kinds of Reasons, short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 3 September 2007
Rating: A
This story made it to my "best of the year" picks for 2007.

See also.

1. All stories about technology assisted human baby making.
2. All stories from Strange Horizons.
3. This story ranked (by quality) among all stories.
   

Marc Schultz's "Practicing My Sad Face": Moving & plausible, if not original

It managed to evoke strong emotions near end, in spite of tired plot. And it's understandable, unlike much recent fiction from Strange Horizons that just went over my head.

On the negative side, nothing about the plot is original. And there is way too much jargon for my taste.

Full text of the story is available online.

Story summary.
Billy, the narrator, is the sole survivor of a terrorist strike, & is recuperating in a hospital. He has had his face patched up by plastic surgeons, & his eyes & ears are replaced with bionic implants. There is also much damage to brain - some implants have been fitted, but much of his old memory is gone. And he now behaves like a little child.

Story begins with loving care he is receiving from Dr Janice Anderson, & his live-in girlfriend, Joyce Farley. Until Joyce cannot take it anymore, & decides to part ways. Now she is coming for a last visit to announce breakup, & Dr Anderson wants Billy to practice sad expressions on his face & use them during Joyce's visit - so he won't be grinning when Joyce announces the parting.

End is another terrorist bombing on train bringing Joyce; tracks run near hospital. While hospital staff is busy attending to victims, Billy also goes out to accident side alone - with just a 50 minutes battery for his implants. He describes the gory scenes.

We are not told the final fate, but I presume he dies in innocence at accident side when battery runs out, while Joyce died in this second attack.

Fact sheet.
Practicing My Sad Face, short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 27 August 2007
Rating: B

Caroline Lockwood Nelson's "The Captain Is the Last to Leave": Probably a vampire story

I say probably & am not sure because I am not very familiar with vampire stories. But from what little I have read, this sounds like one. And not a particularly good one either.

Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
In some coastal town, Jessie Anson aka Jessamine has murdered her husband Jethro, & her kids in cold blood, & has vanished.

Story is told via 3 characters: Wade & Roamer - both of the same race as Jessie (humanoids but not quite human), & Annie - 17 year old babysitter at Jessie household. Apparently, Roamer was once a lover of Jessie.

Wade, Roamer & Jessie are of a race that was once human, but now they are immortals. Jessie keeps going into normal human lives, repeatedly marrying, having kids, & then killing them because she cannot overcome her instinct!

Wade & Roamer intend to stop her, but haven't yet been successful.

Fact sheet.
The Captain Is the Last to Leave, short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 9 July 2007
Rating: C

Joanne Merriam's "Little Ambushes": Stories a painting can tell

I am actually beginning to wonder why I bother with Strange Horizon stories - most are garbage, this included. Yet these very same people produced the lovely "Limits" by Donna Glee Williams last month! May be I will try a few more before giving up.

Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
Some race of sentient aliens have been known to humans for a while. Now there is an exchange program under which a male alien painter, named Shperidth, will live with a female human painter, Sarah, for a month on earth - learning our ways. Since Sarah cannot spell his name correctly, she names him Spider, because that is what he reminds her of.

Story is of their interactions, & his amazing (but undisclosed) sources of information about her. In the end, he leaves a masterpiece painting as parting gift that seamlessly includes the main actors in her life - mom, dad, ex-husband, ...

Quote in the sidebar of this article clarifies the title; it is spoken by alien to Sarah - she misses her ex-husband.

Fact sheet.
Little Ambushes, short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons, 20 Aug 2007
Rating: C

Leah Bobet's "The Girl From Another World": What is it about!!!

I just cannot make head or tail of this story. Full text is available here.

A 30 year old waitress, the narrator, who thinks she is kind of a failure in life meets "a girls from another world" who thinks the waitress is a princess needing deliverance. They live together a while, then part, & finally meet again.

I could see the waitress wants better life, & is perhaps fantasizing easy deliverance. But the story just left me bewildered.

Fact sheet.
The Girl From Another World, short story, review
First published: Strange Horizons magazine, 13 August 2007
Rating: C

Leslie Brown's "Wake-Up Call": Fairy tale for children

This is not quite a story for grown ups - you really need to suspend belief. But if you have story sessions at home with little kids, you should be able to spin an interesting yarn based on this.

Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
A pregnant woman has a stroke & goes into coma. It is in this state that she delivered the baby girl, Dagmar - unaware of delivery. She will be in this state decades - in a nursing home. But she will periodically wake up during these years, & behave strangely.

The story is a first person narrative by Dagmar when she is 16, describing her encounters with her mother when she was briefly awake - just a half dozen of them over the years.

Turns out - while the mother is in coma, she is in another world - perhaps a parallel universe where she is a sorceress, married to a magician, has a son 2 years younger than Dagmar - by magician, & is fighting off some kind of a war of witches & wizards! Her brief wake up periods are to demand some things she needs in the other world - when placed in her hands around the time of awakening, these things vanish from this world!

Fact sheet.
"Wake-Up Call", short story, review
Rating: B
First published: First published: Strange Horizons, 30 July 2007

See also.

1. All stories from Strange Horizons
2. All stories involving parallel universes
   

R J Astruc's "The Perfume Eater": Weird mythological creatures

This is a very ordinary story about life in a low-income neighborhood in some unnamed country. Prose is generally ok, but I didn't quite get the point of the story.

Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
sf component of story is provided by two almost-human-but-not-entirely mythological creatures from medieval Iran: Zeem, the narrator, & Deev - some kind of a demon. Both are long lived, & were soldiers in some was centuries back. Deev got stuck somewhere, & Zeem was leading an ordinary life in our neighborhood. That is when Deev appeared.

Apparantly, Zeem loves perfume, & Deev can be killed with it. In fact, that is how he is killed in the end, when he wanted to kill Zeem with a sword because of some ancient unspecified reason.

Fact sheet.
The Perfume Eater, short story, review
Rating: C
First published: Strange Horizons, 16 July 2007

Donna Glee Williams' "Limits": Outstanding short story

I discovered Strange Horizons magazine only recently, when going over the list of short stories nominated for this year's Hugo award - so I thought may be I should check out the magazine. They publish one story every Monday, & have some 400 odd ones in archives. "Limits" is this week's entry, & an outstanding one.

This story actually is not sf, but a generic motivational one - told in an interesting setting. It's is about discovering the limits of your ability, irrespective of social expectations that often make you settle for less.

Full text of the story is available online.

Story summary.
We don't know if the story is set on earth or elsewhere. We are introduced to a tribal community living up a massive mountain. Mountain is so big that most people think of traveling as in the direction of up or down, rather than horizontal!

Actors are from Home Village. Every individual has limits on how far up/down he/she can go; beyond limit, they find the environment too hot or cold. Len has a range of 7 villages in either direction. The story is about her son, Cam.

As Cam grows up, he attempts to discover his limits the way other children do. As he grows older, his friends discover their limits & settle down. Only he & his girlfriend Fox seem to not find it. Eventually, Fox finds her up limit.

End is where Cam goes all the way up alone to the top of the mountain, discovers a plateau, & then descend on the other side. And Fox goes all the way down alone to mountain floor that is at the edge of the ocean.

Beautifully told.

Fact sheet.
Limits, short story, review
Rating: A
First published: Strange Horizons, 23 July 2007
This story made it to my "best of the year" picks for 2007.

Benjamin Rosenbaum's "The House Beyond Your Sky": Tedious story on religion

This story has too much religion & jargon for my taste. But may appeal to more devout souls - if you can withstand its contrived paths!

Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
I wish I could summarize it! This is about a computer simulation, plus Hindu mythology of creation, presented in the style you find towards the end of Gentry Lee & Arthur Clarke's "Rama Revealed" - only it is far more complex. The story is of Creation - where we came from, & a wish to discover who created us.

There was one intriguing point in the story that made me ponder: God as a pattern embedded in one of the hidden dimensions of every particle in the Universe. I have heard the notion that God is to be found in every particle - sentient or not - for as long as I remember, but I have never read a description this concrete!

Fact sheet.
The House Beyond Your Sky, short story, review
Rating: C
First published: Strange Horizons, 4 September 2006
Nominated for Hugo Awards 2007 in short story category

See also.

1. All Hugo Award stories.
2. All stories with religion as a theme.

Stories from Strange Horizons

I list the ones I have read in order of publication - most recent first. A listing by quality is also available - where I've posted a separate article on the story.

Science fiction stories are clearly marked.

1. 5 May 2008: Alan Campbell's "The Gadgey" (B); download; science fiction: When an alien spaceship crashed in England.
2. 21 & 28 April 2008 (two part serial): A M Dellamonica's "Five Good Things About Meghan Sheedy" (B); download part 1 & part 2; science fiction: Aliens now own earth, though there are some human groups resisting guerrilla-style.
   
3. 3 December 2007: N K Jemisin's "The You Train" (C); download: Non-genre. Two girl friends doing the girl talk. One of them - narrator - appears to be a bit maladjusted.
   
4. 12 November 2007: Ruthanna Emrys' "Ghosts and Simulations" (C); download: Science fiction. Description of a facility to manage "uploaded consciousness" of clients!
   
5. 5 November 2007: Leah Bobet's "Bears"; download: Not read.
   
6. 29 October 2007: Sonya Taaffe's "Teinds" (C); download: Non-genre. A woman is grieving the loss of someone loved in a car crash - in the arms of her lover. Narrated by lover.
   
7. 22 October 2007: Will McIntosh's "One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note" (B); download: Fantasy. A doomed loved story.
   
8. 15 October 2007: Jason Stoddard's "Making Payments" (C): Science fiction. Hopeless techno-babble.
   
9. 8 October 2007: Lavie Tidhar's "The Master" (A): Non-genre. Great prose but weak plot - an author has given up on good things in life. Avoid if you have strong opinions on Israel/Arab conflict, & favor the Arabs.
10. 1 October 2007: Theodora Goss's "Catherine and the Satyr" (C): Fantasy. A slave gains his freedom.
    
11. 24 September 2007: Amy Sisson's "Minghun Unlikely Patron Saints, No 5" (B): Not sf. (Probably) folklore - presented as a ghost story. A woman soon after death is offered salvation while she is in ghost world, but refuses - choosing instead to help aid the salvation of ghosts of young babies that everyone is ignoring. Kind of Mother Teresa of ghost world.
    
12. 17 September 2007: Eliot Fintushel's "How the Little Rabbi Grew" (C): Not sf. A religious story with biblical leanings about the coming of a messiah.
    
13. 10 September 2007: Helen Keeble's "In Stone" (C): Not sf. You need a great deal of imagination to enjoy this fantasy. Since I lack it, it's not for me. Something to do with some kind of symbiosis between men, mountains, & fire.
14. 3 September 2007: Katherine Maclaine's "All Kinds of Reasons" (A): Science fiction. Ability to choose the best baby among many possible ones leads to extreme emotional turmoil for a man.
15. 27 August 2007: Marc Schultz's "Practicing My Sad Face" (B): Science fiction. Terrorist attack has ruined a couple's life.
    
16. 20 August 2007: Joanne Merriam's "Little Ambushes" (C): Fantasy. An alien makes a painting for a human lady that reminds her of little ambushes awaiting her at home - in the form of little things, like an unused bag, that remind her of her ex-husband.
    
17. 13 August 2007: Leah Bobet's "The Girl From Another World" (C): Fantasy. I cannot even figure of what the story is about!
18. 6 Aug 2007: Tim Pratt's "Artifice & Intelligence" (B); download: Science fiction. A bored AI creates a worthy adversary - another AI & a villain that is meant to wreck havoc to humanity so original AI can play a game with it to save humans!
19. 30 July 2007: Leslie Brown's "Wake-Up Call" (B): Fantasy. A woman in coma is living a full life in another parallel universe! Well told story, but for kids.
20. 23 July 2007: Donna Glee Williams' "Limits" (A): Fantasy. A beautifully told motivational story about discovering limits of your ability without reference to social expectations.
21. 16 July 2007: R J Astruc's "The Perfume Eater"(C): Fantasy. Good prose but I could not quite get the point of the story - something to do with almost-human mythological creatures from Iranian folklore of medieval times.
22. 9 July 2007: Caroline Lockwood Nelson's "The Captain Is the Last to Leave" (C): Fantasy. An immortal non-human humanoid woman keeps starting life in human world, & always ends up killing her husband & kids!
23. 2 July 2007: Jerome Stueart's "Brazos" (B): Fantasy. Matrimonial negotiations of a male god & a female human.
    
24. 4 September 2006: Benjamin Rosenbaum's "The House Beyond Your Sky" (C): A complicated religious tale on what is god & where we came from.
25. 26 June 2006: William Davis' "Waiting on Alexandre Dumas"; download: Not sf. A rich customer visits a restaurant.
26. 6 September 2004: Ellen Klages' "The Green Glass Sea"; download: Science fiction. A somewhat casual telling of the first atom bomb test.