Tavis Potts' "Eye-Pod" (flash fiction, cyberpunk, free, minor post)

Narrator gets a natural eye replaced with an "Eye-Pod" - "a bio-organic-silicon hybrid" device. "Instant information wired to my mind, immersive entertainment, peer-to-peer mind networking ... it even has an alarm directly wired into my body!"

While the concept of implants like this is nothing new in science fiction, thing that pushes this story to top league - in my book, anyway - is: the author manages to tell the story on this subject without a lot of jargon. Focus is on story - the only kind of cyberpunk I like.

Fact sheet.

First published: AntipodeanSF, #119 (April/May 2008).
Rating: A
Download full text.

* Tavis Potts' "True Love" (flash fiction, non-genre)

A man poisons his dear girlfriend (or wife) to save her from painful death; she's suffering from some kind of a fatal disease.

Fact sheet.

First published: AntipodeanSF magazine, #111 (August/September 2007).
Rating: B
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

AntipodeanSF magazine, #111 (August/September 2007): Annotated table of contents & review

10 tiny stories. See opening remarks of #116 for any non-obvious conventions in the listing below. Full issue #111 is available here.

Story list (best first).

1. Karen Maric's "Fighting For Peace" (A); download; science fiction, humor: A meeting of diplomats of a multi-species colony goes the way most meetings go... Colorful characters reminded me of Jack Vance's "Meet Miss Universe".
2. Townsend Walker's "Pretty Lady" (B); download; non-genre: Second of the two parts spoiled it for me. First part is a moving account of the burial of a man, narrated by his little boy who doesn't even know his daddy is dead.
3. Francis Conaty's "The Fatal Adventure" (B); download; science fiction: A gaming company into immersive virtual reality adventures has made the game so thrilling there have been 3 deaths in a year due to extreme fear. Now the company is under cops' scanner, & there is a real chance it will be shut down & operators will end up in jail.
4. Tom Williams' "Florescence" (B); download; science fiction: A man making pass at a woman in her magic garden with active plants receives a quick death at the hands of plants! Story reminded me of Arthur Clarke's "The Reluctant Orchid", but Clarke's version is infinitely more nuanced & entertaining.
5. Frank Roger's "Catch A Last Breath" (B); download; science fiction: An experiment "changing the nature of time. We are speeding up time by chopping off a bit of every minute" is too successful - with disastrous consequences.
6. Tavis Potts' "True Love" (B); download; non-genre: A man poisons his dear girlfriend (or wife) to save her from painful death; she's suffering from some kind of a fatal disease.
7. Craig Miles' "Greenhouse Gases" (B); download; science fiction: A panel of dinosaur scientists debating "the best solution to increasing greenhouse gases, or coping with the impact of rising temperatures". A worthy suggests it's natural due to undersea seismic activity, & heralds the down of a new ice age; he's promptly killed by panel chairman & served as dinner!
8. Liam Brennan's "The Space Between Us" (C); download; science fiction: A spaceman dies somewhere away from earth. We aren't told where but it's in darkness & due to his air running out. Story is of his last thoughts before death, later parents laying flowers at his grave on earth.
9. Shaun A Saunders' "What Else But War" (C); download; non-genre: A man lets a salesman sell him very expensive & unnecessary gadgets, instead of the specific thing he went to buy in the first place.
10. Steve Duffy's "Of Pairs And Straights" (C); download; non-genre: Description of a game of playing cards somewhere. I didn't follow all the nuances of the game, but I don't see what is worth reading here.

Related: All AntiSF stories.