Ted Chiang's "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" (novelette, auxiliary memory, free): On the fallibility of human memory

Just how reliable is our memory? How much of it is fabricated to make us feel good about ourselves? These & implications of confronting the documentation that contradicts our feel-good memories are the topic of this beautiful story.

It looks at two documentation technologies - written word because we understand it well, & "Remem", an imaginary video search engine of the lifelogs created by the equivalents of Google Glass. In two different settings - European colonization of imaginary(?) Tivland, & a modern man reacting to Remem.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean, Fall 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2013" list.
Related: Stories of Ted Chiang.

Some short fiction

I haven't been posting often recently because there haven't been too many good stories I've read recently. Here are 3 I read this week:

1. [ss] Mike Resnick's "Treasure Island" (B); download; Subterranean Online, Spring 2011; non-genre, humor: Conman priest, Lucifer Jones, "helps" sea pirates recover treasure hidden on a Pacific island by one of their own.
2. [novelette] Winston K Marks' "Backlash" (B); download; Galaxy, January 1954: A rather contrived alien invasion.
3. [ss] Alan Cogan's "In the Cards" (B); download; Galaxy, June 1956: Future-viewer kill free will.

Robert Silverberg's "The Tomb of the Pontifex Dvorn" (novelette, free): Bringing history to life

I haven't read a lot of Silverberg, but what I've read so far has been grim. This, by contrast, is a very light read - latest in author's "Majipoor" series. Appears to move slowly, but actually is moving pretty fast.

Story summary.

On a world called Majipoor, colonized thousands of years ago by humans when it already had its "aboriginals", & over the years supplanted by other space faring alien colonists, two young university teachers get a job of a life time: Simmilgord, the historian, to authenticate that a mythical hero of antiquity actually lived in a certain town, & his friend Lutiel Vengifrons, an archaeologist, to excavate the artifacts allegedly associated with this hero.

We get to see the contrasting characters of the two, plus some other realistic characters.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Winter 2011.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2011" list.
Related: Stories of Robert Silverberg.

Mike Resnick's "King and Mrs Kong" (novelette, non-genre, humor, free)

Lucifer Jones, the conman priest, "helps" trap a giant gorilla on a Pacific island...

Collected in.

1. Mike Resnick's "Voyages".

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Winter 2011.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Mike Resnick; Lucifer Jones series.

Mike Resnick's "Weekdays" (short story, non-genre, humor)

Lucifer Jones, the conman priest, saves 4 young ladies on a Pacific island from a bad man, & gets some enlightenment of his own in the process...

This story is part of the Lucifer Jones series set in the Pacific.

Collected in.

1. Mike Resnick's "Voyages".

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Fall 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Mike Resnick; Lucifer Jones series.

Subterranean Online, Summer (July-September) 2010 (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents & review

Whole magazine is online here - fiction & non-fiction. I only cover fiction below.

Table of contents (7 stories, best first, unread last).

Links on author fetch more of author's fiction. My rating is in brackets.

1. [novelette] K J Parker's "Amor Vincit Omnia" (B); download; magic: What's most threatening to authority, government? A citizen who's beyond the government's power to hurt. This story is of a government going after a man who's beyond hurt, not resting till he's destroyed. Man himself is a monster, but that's not why the government will destroy him.
   
   Humanity is divided into two: mostly normal humans, & some wizards. Wizards have an institution - Studium, where fresh blood with talent is educated. Studium, or a larger body it's part of, is also the wizard government. They've just found out about an untrained wizard equipped with the ultimate defense against every form of attack. That's why he needs to be destroyed.
   
   Caution: Initial parts use far too much of ... is it Latin? I don't know the language, but almost gave up. Those funny words cease to be an issue once the story picks up.
2. [novella] Mike Resnick's "Six Blind Men and an Alien" (B); download: This is really a collection of half dozen independent alien visitation stories. Mostly mundane, but two may be worth a look: "What the Sound Man Saw" & "What Nobody Saw".
3. [ff] Lawrence Block's "A Burglar's-Eye View of Greed" (C); download; non-genre: A rant on why money is bad.
4. Lucius Shepard's "The Taborin Scale"; download: Not read.
5. Jay Lake's "Dream of the Arrow"; download: Not read.
6. Cory Doctorow's "Ghosts In My Head"; download: Not read.
7. Rachel Swirsky's "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window"; download: Not read.

Related: Fiction from Subterranean Online.

Kage Baker's "The Bohemian Astrobleme" (novelette, steampunk, free): Discovery of a new kind of battery

Fast moving & easy read.

Title comes from a meteor impact site ("Astrobleme" or "star wound") in Bohemia that plays a key role in the story.

Story summary.

Gentlemen's Speculative Society is an ancient secret society developing gadgets way ahead of its time. Now, in this year 1845, one of its London establishments has accidentally discovered a new way of making an electric battery - by bring in contact a gemstone, a kind of glass called tektite, with acetic acid.

They'll soon find that this specific kind of tektite is a very rare material, & comes from Budweis in Bohemia. So four agents set out to locate & secure their supply...

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Winter 2010 (January-March 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Kage Baker.

Mike Resnick's "Heads and Tails in Paradise" (short story, non-genre, humor, free): When Lucifer Jones was god!

As corrected by author, this is really the first story in the new Lucifer Jones series set in the Pacific rather than "Harboring Pearls". It's a variation of "The Lost Continent of Moo", but still a good read.

Lucifer Jones lands in Easter Island, & promptly sets him up as "Makemake", the local god, to counter the threats of the already established (& apparently-Western) local High Priest!

Collected in.

1. Mike Resnick's "Voyages" (coll).

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Fall 2009.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Related: Stories of Mike Resnick (only Lucifer Jones series).

Mike Resnick's "Harboring Pearls" (short story, non-genre, humor, free)

This appears to be the first in a new series featuring the conman priest Lucifer Jones. This story is set in Hawaii in 1939; series, I suppose, will be in the Pacific set over next 3 or 4 years.

Story summary.

To save the Pearl Museum in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, from robbers, Lucifer Jones robs it for himself! As usual, there is someone smarter than himself around...

Collected in.

1. Mike Resnick's "Voyages" (coll).

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Winter 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Related.

1. Stories of Mike Resnick (only Lucifer Jones series).
2. Several stories from "Hazards" (buy @Amazon.com), recently published Lucifer Jones collection set in South America, are online; check the "Hazards" post.

Subterranean Online, Spring 2009 (magazine, free)

This is a special issue of Subterranean, edited by Gardner Dozois. Less non-genre fiction & less fantasy than is usual here, though there are some.

Nothing really outstanding in the issue, though there are a few adequate stories, depending on personal tastes:

1. Resnick's is ok, but is among the weaker Lucifer Jones' stories.
2. Kosmatka's requires a taste for stories about petty gangs & slums.
3. McAuley's & MacLeod's might feel ok to space opera & cyberpunk junkies, respectively.
4. Lansdale's will probably make more sense to US readers than others.

Link on a story title goes to my post on story, if there is one. Link on author or series name fetches more matching fiction. My rating is in brackets.

Table of contents (fiction only, 8 stories, best first).

1. Mike Resnick's "Mother Scorpion's House of Fallen Flowers" (B); download; humor, non-genre: Lucifer Jones gets accidentally associated with a prostitution cum smuggling enterprise in Valparaiso, Chile.
   
   Ending indicates this is the last Lucifer Jones story set in South America, & that next ones will be set in Australia.
2. Ted Kosmatka's "The Ascendant" (B); download: Hard life in a society that is essentially an anarchy.
3. Paul McAuley's "Crimes and Glory" (B); download; space opera: Abrupt conclusion, often illogical, & crammed with jargon.
   
   Jackaroo are aliens that have made a deal with humans: in return for rights to occupy outer worlds of Sol, they gift us a network of wormholes containing a lot of worlds ready for occupation. As they were occupied in times past by other alien races of which there are remnants.
   
   Niles Sarkka, a human, keeps smelling something fishy, & suspects Jackaroo have agenda not exactly in humanity's interests. So he ends up falling on the wrong side of law & of Jackaroo, & is being chased by cops.
   
   He will eventually find a network of wormholes unknown to humanity, & will hopefully find something interesting there.
4. Ken MacLeod's "A Tulip for Lucretius" (B); download: Revolt of enhanced & reengineered humans who're treated as subnormal by normal humans in a society on Mars.
5. Joe R Lansdale's "Hide and Horns" (B); download; non-genre: A violent while man/black man story set a couple of hundred years back in Texas.
6. Lucius Shepard's "Sylgarmo's Proclamation" (C); download; fantasy: I'd read it when it first appeared a while back, & don't recollect a lot of details. Hero magician must recover something from evil magician - something that promises hope of escape to an alternate realm since the Sun is about to go nova & will kill earth.
   
   This story is set in supposedly well known "Dying Earth" universe of Jack Vance. I assume Vance's originals must have been stronger tales.
7. Carrie Vaughn's "Conquistador de la Noche" (C); download; dark fantasy: A magician is turning men into some sort of vampires; the hero will fight back his newly instilled vampire instincts for the good of humanity.
   
   The story also talks of some of the darkest things about the European conquest of Americas. And ideas that will be seen as double standards - native Americans aren't men, only the Europeans are. Some of the religious "virtues" also sounded like "convenient" to me.
   
   I've a feeling the take here might vary a bit by reader's affiliations & religion. Going by my own early reactions to this kind of fiction: If you haven't had some exposure to fiction that uses biblical idioms & some Western lore, you'll probably find parts very confusing.
8. Liz Williams' "Under the Honey" (C); download: I'd read it when it first appeared; don't recall a lot of details.
   
   Some humonoid mutants or made beings from an alien world or alternate universe have escaped from their alien prison to earth, one of them is training a (human?) child for some nefarious purpose on his world, & some of them fight an evil feudal lord of earth.

Mike Resnick's "Chartreuse Mansions" (short story, humor, free): Lucifer Jones in love, then not, with the "Bird Girls"

Note quite among the better Lucifer Jones stories, but still readable.

Story summary.

Lucifer Jones fall in love yet again, with option to choose between two beautiful sisters. Only they have a speech defect - so he wants to opt out, but their dad has a gun & insists he marry one or the other.

Of course, gods always smile at Jones eventually.

Collected in.

1. Mike Resnick's "Hazards".

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean, June 2007.
Rating: B.
Download full text from Webscription.

Ken MacLeod's "A Tulip for Lucretius" (novelette, free): Rebellion of the downtrodden

A colony on Mars - mostly normal humans, plus some enhanced humans engineered by some combination of mind upload & possibly genetic tweaking. Only the normals are citizens; supers are slaves. Revolution of slaves only needs a leader, which they will get in the story.

Has some incomprehensible jargon. Later half - after the hero arrives in the colony - is more interesting than early parts.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Spring 2009.
Rating: B.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Related: Stories of Ken MacLeod; Fiction set on Mars or its moons.

Ted Kosmatka's "The Ascendant" (novelette, anarchy, free): A less interesting variation of Heinlein's "Coventry"

Ruthless anarchy prevails in "prison", a part of the "world" cut off from civilized parts. This is the story of two children born in prison who survive to grow to their teen years & are tough enough to fight their way back through the gates to civilization.

"World" itself is an immense tower - part of many such in what must once have been a city. But that is ancient history - no one here has been through the bottom floors which are charred, let alone to ground.

Civilization is in upper floors where they grow food & have some sort of semi-tribal society. Below that are "prison" levels - a one-way street for convicts of civilization, convictions themselves apparently of an utterly degenerate society.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Spring 2009.
Rating: B.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Related: Stories of Ted Kosmatka.

Mike Resnick's "Spring Training" (short story, non-genre, humor, free): Lucifer Jones conquers Uruguay for Hitler's Germany!

In the year 1937, Lucifer gets himself recruited by a 3 man advanced guard of Hitler in Buenos Aires; 3 Germans are here to conquer South America with a rag tag "army" of 6 locals!

Of course, with his great ingenuity, Lucifer wins Uruguay on behalf of Germany, only there is a local group of Uruguans also out to win their country. So Lucifer will get himself recruited by them to help them win their country back from Germans...

Collected in.

1. Mike Resnick's "Hazards" (collection). Due sometime 2009, Subterranean Press.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Fall 2008.
Rating: A.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Related: Lucifer Jones series.

Mike Resnick's "A Four-Sided Triangle" (novelette, humor, non-genre, free): Lucifer in a multi-sided love relationship

Lucifer Jones falls in eternal love - oops, tries to fall in eternal love - with a millionaire heiress to a cocaine empire in Bolivia, South America. But there are other suitors too, & crooks.

Lucifer Jones in South America series seems to have picked up again recently - two most recent stories have been pretty good, after some forgettable ones.

Collected in.

1. Mike Resnick's "Hazards" (collection). Due sometime 2009, Subterranean Press.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Winter 2009.
Rating: A.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Related: Lucifer Jones series.

Mike Resnick's "Kilimanjaro: A Fable of Utopia" (novella, free): A primer on organizing a society afresh

What if a community were to be handed over a virgin world, & asked to build their ideal society? That's what this story is about.

This is really a collection of stories - some very short - that share common background & some characters. I read it in a single sitting, but may be it would feel less draggy if read a chapter at a time. Chapters are fairly independent - so serve as good markers; but must be read in order.

Stories themselves are about various aspects of social organization & citizen issues: women's rights, citizenship, immigration, interacting with other societies, democracy, reinventing a profession in the face of technological change, evolution of social customs, ...

There are few issues & solutions here that haven't been debated to death in most societies. I've a feeling I would have liked it more if I was in my early teens - less exposure & less cynicism.

Also, story addresses familiar issues often in a very simplistic way - mostly well meaning politicians (when did I last hear of one?), generally rational citizens, ... This is obviously done intentionally - or this would have become a good sized & very colorful novel!

Society is exotic - for me at least. Maasai tribe of Kenya, originally from the region of the mountain Kilimanjaro; their virgin world is also called Kilimanjaro.

Narrative is spread over the first decade of this world - a little before mid twenty third century. Story is narrated by David ole Saitoti, a historian.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean magazine, Summer 2008.
Rating: B
Download full text.
Related: All stories of Mike Resnick.

* John Scalzi's "Missives from Possible Futures no 1: Alternate History Search Results" (short story)

First half is a hard selling ad of a future paid search engine! Later half is a collection of several very tiny stories - ostensibly about how history would have been shaped had Hitler died in different ways; to me this felt like arbitrary alternate history scenarios. General mood is humorous, but I'm unfamiliar with some of the situations - those from West can probably enjoy it a little more.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Winter 2007.
Rating: B
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Michael Bishop's "The Pile" (short story, non-genre)

Generally readable description of the life in not well off housing society. Title refers to a location on society premises where households can dump junk that may be useful for someone else - like a TV set that doesn't work. This location serves as a kind of place to socialize.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean magazine, Winter 2008.
Rating: B
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

* David Prill's "Show of Hands" (short story, non-genre)

One of those unfathomable stories!

A farmer in US in mid twentieth century follows an annual ritual - of watching the annual passage of a circus train through his small community! Develops a fetish for clean hands. Loses one of his hand in an accident. Ends up envying everyone's hands.

Fact sheet.

First published: "Subterranean" magazine, Fall 2007.
Rating: C
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

* Jay Lake's "The Fly and Die Ticket" (short story, science fiction)

"Rajamurtha drive" aka "r-drive" is a spaceship engine that can move vessels faster than light - making interstellar travel possible for humans.

Only it sometimes does something to matter surrounding it - including the vessel itself & the human tissue. This something makes the affected matter extremely dangerous to normal matter - means all matter infected, including infected humans, needs to be dumped to some secret sterile world where no normal human will ever go.

Story is about the fate of Manny - a veteran of many voyages who has now caught this matter sickness. He is now isolated & banished from humanity forever - to die on this secret world.

I found the plot utterly flimsy, & narrative rather casual.

Fact sheet.

First published: "Subterranean" magazine, Fall 2007.
Rating: B
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?