Kurt Vonnegut's "Money Talks" (short story, love story, non-genre)

A young man's grocery store has gone bust. Creditors take charge tomorrow; he's about the close the store for the last time. That's when a young woman walks in - asking for directions & to buy some stuff.

The woman is the nurse who'd cared for a dying rich man in the town during his last days, & to whom the man left his fortune - $12m. Of course, the town thinks the nurse manipulated the man.

They get talking, & a difficult love story develops - they know they're in love, but is the broke man after the newly rich woman's fortune?

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut's "Mr Z" (short story, love story, non-genre)

A young man from a family of priests is studying criminology in college, among other subjects. As part of a project, he's sent to interview a very bitter but smart female convict in a local jail - convicted because stolen goods were found on her, though her thief & gangster husband is free for lack of evidence.

One thing leads to another & the two will end up in hospital with broken bones: young man beaten by friends of gangster husband, woman by the husband. And a romance begins... in the hospital.

Notes.

Title, "Mr Z", is a joke. During interview, the man is referring to woman's associates as "Mr A", "Mr B", etc - to protect their identity. So she begins referring to him as "Mr Z".

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut's "Tango" (short story, humor)

This is a funny coming of age story.

An exclusive highbrow town somewhere in the US where everyone behaves exactly as expected - in a gentlemanly or lady-like way. But a teenager has discovered fun dancing the wild "Tango" - an indiscretion that will lead to both hilarity & chaos!

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut's "Out, Brief Candle" (short story, love story, non-genre, free)

A lonely widow finds friendship & tender love in a pen pal, a pen pal who would rather not exchange pictures. When she learns the pal is sick, she'll make a real journey to see him, & we'll learn a little more about the pal than she does...

See also.

1. Eric Frank Russell's "P.S." (download scans as part of a larger package): Another fond pen pal story where at the other end of friendship lies something unimaginably ugly.

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Download full text from Sorin Despot@Facebook or Scribd.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

Kurt Vonnegut's "Jenny" (short story, robot): Sad love story of a romantic

A brilliant engineer builds "Jenny", a robot refrigerator - a fridge that can walk around, & with a woman's flexible face mask attached to the door with springs. It connects with its "brain", a big computer nearby, via radio; computer also connects to a controller in the form of over-sized shoes with control buttons under toes - an experienced wearer can use them to make Jenny say things & give appropriate expressions.

Then he begins finding his wife "imperfect" in ways Jenny need not be, & a love story with the unreal begins, ultimately leading to a sad ending.

See also.

1. Lester del Rey's "Helen O'Loy": A far more famous story of a human inventor falling in love with his feminine robot creation.

Quotes.

1. "A man who hasn't built up a certain immunity to love through constant exposure to it is in danger of all but killed by love when the first exposure comes."
2. "I wound up loving her as a human being, as a miraculous, one-of-a-kind, moody muddle of faults & virtues--part child, part woman, part goddess, & no more consistent than a putty slide-rule."

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

David D Levine's "Wavefronts of History and Memory" (short story)

There is an idea here that I've not seen before in this form: radioarcheology. Humanity's radio emissions leaking into space form an useful archeological resource in the hands of someone with the right technology.
PS: I'm not clear how telegraph transmissions leaked in this way, however. I thought they were mostly sent over physical wires.

Apart from this idea, however, it's a very ordinary read.

Story summary.

Thousands of years in future, earth is no longer habitable & only archeology possible is via remote controlled robots. But a radioarcheologist has discovered the WWII era Japan in vivid detail from the leaked emissions of that long gone era...

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, June 2013.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of David D Levine. 

Conor Powers-Smith's "For your information" (flash fiction, humor, free): The future of social networks

Is it so far fetched to expect everyone's genome as standard component of their online profile, just like photos are? Not entirely funny things happen when a lover decides to check her potential partner's profile...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 4 April 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Ludmilla Petrushevskaya's "The Goddess Parka" (short story, non-genre)

I loved the first half - a scheming worldly wise old woman from Moscow trying to catch an unmarried man in small town Russia for a girl she knows in Moscow.

Later half is rather ordinary in comparison - the old woman is actually very lonely, ...

Fact sheet.

First published: ?
This post is based on the English translation from Russian by Anna Summers in Playboy (US), March 2013.
Rating: A.

Herbert W Franke's "Paradise 3000" (short story, overpopulation dystopia)

While there are many overpopulation dystopias in fiction, there are two things here that I've not seen often (ok - I've seen some that can be called variants of the second but not in this form):

1. Why overpopulation? Well, in this future, you have a welfare society that won't let anyone die, & refuses to accept birth control. Because human life is sacred.
2. To cope with the overpopulation, the society practices "Reduction". Reduction in living space per person, reduction in allowed rations per person, reduction in normal life expectancy, ... And woe be on you ("OrdCit", short for ordinary citizen) if you're over 16 & you manage to get yourself hurt in an accident - you'll be "recalled". As is everyone over 30.
   
   What's "recall"? It's cold storage hibernation, in completely unreasonable hope that a future will discover how to cope with the huge population & revive those hibernating. I was a bit confused with the ending; may be nice dreams are piped directly into the brains of the hibernating?

It's told as a love story with a confused ending for protagonists who've been indoctrinated since childhood to not get emotionally involved with their partners.

Collected in.

1. Donald A Wollheim (ed)'s "The Best from the Rest of the World: European Science Fiction".

Fact sheet.

First published: 1975? (in German) (where?)
This post is based on the translation from German by Christine Priest.
Rating: B.

Robert Silverberg's "To Be Continued" (short story, immortality, free): Slow life is frustrating!

Immortality here is of a curious kind - your growth slows down. Like you'll develop physically & psychologically by a year when actual time lapsed in say 100 years! Author didn't elaborate how the hero survived infancy since parents aren't normally immortals & the immortals exist without society knowing about them; that's a weak point of the story.

The only immortals we meet in the story also have a curious super ability - they can morph into a different individual, in all observable ways. So, e.g., you can simultaneously romance two girls using your different personas, & no trouble even if one of them spots you with another.

This is the story of a 2000 year old man, Gaius Titus Menenius, who's now finally reached puberty! Story is mostly his search for a mate, with a funny ending.

See also.

1. Mohsen H Darabi's "Loyalty beyond seasons" (download): Another kind of biological impediment to romance...
2. Eric Frank Russell's "The Waitabits" (download as part of a larger package): When a fast life encounters a much slower one...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, May 1956.
Download full text as part of the scans of Astounding (British ed), April 1957.
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Robert Silverberg.

Jerry Oltion's "In the Moment" (short story): Romance in the backdrop of a celestial event

A comet is about to hit moon & many amateur astronomers with their telescopes have gathered a few miles from the city to watch the event. Story is of the impact event observed by two teenagers in love.

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, January/February 2013.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Jerry Oltion.

Stanley G Weinbaum's "Pygmalion's Spectacles" (short story, virtual reality, free): A man falls in love with a shadow

Reality recording device here is very unusual & I've never seen it discussed before. A kind of liquid compound holds the recording, instead of your DVD. Put a special mask on, with hollow lenses into which is poured the magic liquid. Electrolysis transforms the liquid, resulting in playback.

It's frame story, mostly a love story set in a utopia of primordial Eden.

Fact sheet.

First published: Wonder Stories, June 1935.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Project Gutenberg of Australia, Munseys.
Download audio from LibriVox.
Rating: A. 
Related: Stories of Stanley G Weinbaum.

Ken Liu's "The Five Elements of the Heart Mind" (short story, free): What's better - technology assisted living or natural one?

Most of it is very good read. Bits of later parts somewhat spoiled it for me, though - evil colonists introduced into a great fantasy.

Story summary.

A spaceshipwreck survivor somehow manages to land on an unexplored world. And discovers it's not exactly unexplored...

Fact sheet.

First published: Lightspeed, January 2012.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Ken Liu.

Mary Shelley's "The Invisible Girl" (short story, non-genre, love story, free)

Story itself is very simple & familiar: rich widowed man adopts an orphaned girl & raises her with his own son. Girl & boy fall in love. Dad disapproves. Lot of tears. Eventually, happy ending.

Reading it, however, required some effort. Very long paragraphs & some really old words. And while the story is clearly non-genre, presentation is ... sort of ... creepy - ghost story like.

Note: In spite of title, the story has nothing to do with invisibility, as is known to science fiction.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1832. Where?
Download full text from Horror Masters, Project Gutenberg of Australia, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Mary Shelley, fiction from 19th century.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr's "Long Walk to Forever" aka "Hell to Get Along With" (short story, love story, free): Funny way to say "I love you"

This very funny story is of Newt & Catharine. They grew up together as neighbors, never expressed love for each other, Newt went away to Army, Catharine got engaged. Now Newt has suddenly appeared at the door of Catharine, inviting her for a walk...

What is interesting is - it's atypical Vonnegut. In fact, it's a proper non-genre love story. I kept expecting the worst, & the simplicity of ending was a surprise.

Fact sheet.

First published: Ladies Home Journal, sometime in 1960.
Download full text from Loveblender or this unnamed site.
John A Gallagher directed a 20 minute movie based on this story. Movie is available at YouTube in three parts. (I haven't played yet)
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Couple of 2011 stories

Neither particularly impressive. None crappy either. Both dark.

Note that recent F&SF fiction tends to be online only for a couple of months. Save it locally if you want to read it later.

1. [ss] Chris Lawson's "Canterbury Hollow"; download; F&SF, January/February 2011: Love story of a "balloted" couple - in world with too much population & too few resources; so periodically, ballots are drawn to decide who is to be prematurely killed!
   
   Kurt Vonnegut's "2 B R 0 2 B" (download) is a much crisper variant on essentially the same theme.
2. [ff] JR Hume's "The Last Station"; download; Every Day Fiction, 18 January 2011: Humanity has achieved immortality by getting transformed in to androids. But some people remain the original organics ("folks"). This is the story of the last days of one of the last "folks".

Ray C Noll's "A Fine Fix" (short story, debugging, free): Reproducing a complex engineering bug

US Air Force has got a new kind of plane for patrolling the mesosphere - "single-manned fusion-propulsed rocketplane". Only, during the first few weeks of manned trials, 3 of these planes have simply vanished while up in the sky; occasionally, a few parts are recovered on the ground later. No one has a clue to reproduce the problem repeatably.

A woman officer, sent by Washington & resented by the boss of male-centric Air Force facility, will eventually debug the problem.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, March 1955.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks.
Rating: A.
Among the stories edited by John Campbell for Astounding/Analog.

George R R Martin's "... for a single yesterday" (novelette, free): Some choices can be so hard

This is an intensely emotional story - later half of it.

Story summary.

A small group of survivors in a post-apocalypse world has a small quantity of "chronine", a memory drug that makes you remember things with vividness not otherwise possible. Keith, who missed his girlfriend so much, had taken possession of the drug - to time trip to his Sandi. No one minded, seeing his condition.

Now the group has a new, practical, leader who sees a survival value in the drug: to access possibly useful but forgotten information in the heads of the group members. Which side would you vote for - leave it with Keith who obviously needs it so badly, or put it to more practical uses?

Fact sheet.

First published: Roger Elwood & Robert Silverberg (eds)' "Epoch" (anthology, 1975).
Download full text from Lightspeed.
Rating: A.

Robert H Wilson's "Out Around Rigel" (novelette, free): An adventure with relativity implications

It's not a bad read, but pick it up only on a day when you aren't in a mood to use your head.

Story summary.

There are actually multiple stories here, but woven into a single one:

1. When man becomes capable of flying to another world, where does he go out first? You might think moon would be a logical choice. But Lunarians don't think like us! Here two Lunarian friends, one of them a super-inventor, have their maiden space fight's target as the Rigel system some 500 lightyears away!
2. A love triangle - two men & a woman. Both men love the woman; she loves only one of them. One of the men thinks the issue should be settled with a duel. Where would the two go out to duel? A somewhat open place nearby? Wrong. Geniuses don't think like normal people!!
3. Third main thread is about the implications of traveling at relativistic speeds - implications from people's point of view.

See also.

1. Hal Clement's "Uncommon Sense": A variant of "duel" in a somewhat similar environment, but a much better thought out story.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding Stories, December 1931.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg. [via Butch Malahide @rasfw]
Rating: B.

Ian R MacLeod's "Recrossing the Styx" (short story, immortality, free): A machine that forces your partner to love you!

Mostly an average read, but gets more interesting & Kuttnerish near end.

Story summary.

Frank Onions is a tour operator aboard Glorious Nomad, a tourist ship currently sailing the Mediterranean. Guests are mostly zombies, rich old men resurrected from dead but still frail, along with their "minders".

Warren & Dottie Hastings are among the guests. Warren is the zombie who was seriously rich when living, & Dottie is his young, beautiful & still loving wife he married just a short while before his death.

As Frank gets attracted to Dottie, he will learn that she cannot love anyone while Warren is around - her mind was "imprinted" by a machine in the marriage deal she cut with Warren before he agreed to marry her.

So we get a murder motive. Together, Frank & Dottie will kill Warren & will happily ever after. Murder goes well, & they live happily ever after too - both of them, but ... here comes a Kuttnerish twist...

Fact sheet.

First published: F&SF, May/June 2010.
Download full text from Suvudu Free Library.
Caution:  Recent F&SF fiction tends to be online only for a couple of months. Save it to local disk if you want to read it later.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Ian R MacLeod.

Winston K Marks' "Mate in Two Moves" (novelette, plague, free): A highly infectious virus that makes people fall in love!

As the world is falling apart because everyone is falling in love, is jealous about the partner, cannot concentrate on anything else, etc, Dr Phyllis Sutton begins suspecting the cause might be biological.

She will isolate the new virus that increases the grandular activity, get infected herself, get fixed as cure is found, & finally get a relapse that isn't as dangerous...

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, May 1954.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Rating: A. 
Related: Stories of Winston K Marks.

William Knight's "Electric Smiles" (flash fiction, love story, free)

Well trodden tropes, but decent enough read. Reminded me, in particular, of Robert Heinlein's "Jerry is a Man" (download as part of a larger package).

A woman has fallen in love with an android, but her heart is about to be broken...

Fact sheet.

First published: Every Day Fiction, 10 April 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Robots/androids in fiction.

Judith Merril's "Exile from Space" (novelette, first contact, free): Human girl, raised by aliens, returns home

A very well done story, though with a familiar trope: lone, nearly human looking, alien stranded on earth. One of the better known stories of the kind is Murray Leinster's "The Strange Case of John Kingman".

Story summary.

Strictly speaking, it's not a first contact story; it's about the adventures of a human girl who's returned to earth for the first time since she was taken away by aliens as a baby. And raised lovingly by them. Aliens who'd accidentally killed her parents.

It's also commentary on our society - by using the device of seeing it through the girl with alien outlook. Sometimes quite humorous.

And there is a love story too. She falling in love with a normal man here, & their ambiguous happy ending.

Quotes.

1. On typical drivers on a crowded road: "You'd think anybody who could build an automobile—let alone an atom bomb--could drive one easily enough. Especially with a lifetime to learn in. Maybe they just like to live dangerously."
2. "a true metropolitan area" "means--on Earth--that it is dirtier, more crowded, far less pleasant to look at or live in, and a great deal more convenient and efficient to do business in."
3. "when dealing with humans, one must always allow for waste time."
4. Her problem with contraceptives: "The idea of pursuing a course of action whose sole motivation was the procreative urge, and simultaneously to decide by an act of will to refuse to procreate."

Fact sheet.

First published: Fantastic Universe, November 1956.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Judith Merril; First contact fiction; Fiction from 1950s.

Murray Leinster's "Sam, This is You" (short story, humor, free): Girlfriend trouble due to cross-time talking!

Sam Yoder, a telephone lineman, has been building a hacking gadget: to make private calls over a "party-line". While his gadget won't let him do this, it lets him do something else instead: it lets him talk to himself 10 days in future! Or in past!

That's useful ability, e.g., to make money from betting. That can also land him in trouble with girlfriend!

See also.

1.  C L Moore's "Greater Than Gods" also features a cross-time communicator. A man's two potential descendants from far future are each canvassing to make him marry a particular woman, one that will enable the respective descendant's existence! One of them is even prepared to kill this remote ancestor over the com link if he doesn't choose the right woman! (Hugo Gernsback's "The Killing Flash" (download) involves use of ordinary landline phone network as a murder weapon.)

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, May 1955.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks.
Download old XMinus radio adaptation from Internet Archive.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Murray Leinster, from 1950s.

Sruthi Thekkiam's "Friday Afternoons on Bus 51" (short story, non-genre free): A very Indian love story!

I'm not sure how much sense it will make outside of South Asia - it's a very Indian story. Kept me smiling most of the way.

It's a funny love- & life- story of a sari-salesman in Bangalore.

Fact sheet.

First published: Blackbird, Fall 2007.
Download full text from publisher's site. [via Jason Sanford]
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2007" list.

Henry Kuttner's "The Eyes Of Thar" (short story, first contact, free): A meeting of two universes

Among the less interesting stories of Kuttner. And there is a distinct feel of early C L Moore here.

Story is set on Mars. Title refers to two moons of Mars - the twin "Eyes of Thar", according to a local legend.

Story summary.

Samuel Dantan, a human, long hunting the "men" of Martian "Redhelm Tribe" as price of his revenge for killing of his (Martian?) girlfriend long back in a raid by Redhelms, is finally cornered - alone, unarmed, pursued by a group of Redhelms.

This is the situation in which he discovers the ancient buried lab of a Martian scientist named Sanfel, now dead for centuries. Lab has a device that opens a portal into a world called "Zha" in another universe - a universe with different laws of Physics, where even time behaves very differently.

Sanfel built this gateway to help Quiana, a "woman" there cornered by an "Enemy". Since Sanfel is long dead, Dantan will end up helping Quiana, & will in turn get help ridding of his own Redhelms pursuers.

See also.

1. C L Moore's "The Bright Illusion": Aliens who're unsafe to look at for humans because of the light patterns they make. A man must be especially armored to look at them.
   Aliens in this story are similarly unsafe to look at unarmored.

Fact sheet.

First published: Planet Stories, Fall 1944.
Download full text from Internet Archive or from this unnamed site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Children's Hour" (as by Lawrence O'Donnell) (novelette, love story, free): Earth as playpen for kids of super-aliens!

This is supposed to be one of the better known stories of authors, though I cannot see why. It's not a bad read, but the best works of these authors tend to be superlative.

Story summery.

A job qualification requirement made Sergeant James Lessing undergo psychoanalysis. And the good doctor, Lieutenant Dyke, discovers a major block in his mind - something that his unconscious keeps suppressing.

Slow work over many sessions with unravel what the unconscious doesn't want to see. His courtship of Clarissa - a very unusual girl, with an even more unusual "aunt"...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, March 1944.
Download full text.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John W Campbell, Jr.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner, C L Moore (as by Lawrence O'Donnell); Fiction from 1940s.

Arthur Pershing's "To love a machine" (flash fiction, robots, free)

In this age of robotic mannequins in store windows, a new female model has arrived with rather lifelike facial movements. While preparing "her", Abel Porter made the mistake of actually kissing her - with results he could not have unforeseen...

Fact sheet.

First published: 365tomorrows, 18 April 2010.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

W W Skupeldyckle's "The Romantic Analogue" (short story, humor, free): When a computer began making passes at its inventor!

OK - description of computers here is very old - this is a 1950s story. And for some additional fun, we're dealing with an analog computer here rather than digital one, because digital ones are "nearly as big as yachts, and cost more".

Story summary.

Norman Venner, a women-shy workaholic, has built this amazing new machine he thinks can get the company some government contracts. A machine that is very good at calculating curves. Only, during testing, the machine has began occasionally making romantic passes at him, using, you know, "curves" of the right kind...

Notes.

1. This story packs far too much information on a single punched card. I used to think a punched card could hold just 80 7-bit numbers? Can someone familiar with them enlighten? Thank you.
   

Fact sheet.

First published: If, September 1953.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Fiction about computers, from 1950s.

Rachel Swirsky's "Eros, Philia, Agape" (novelette, love story, free): This android must find its own identity

Good enough read, but it has been done before. Probably the closest read I can off-hand recollect is the third (I think) story in Adam Link series of Eando Binder: girl falls in love with robot, but robot must break her heart & go out to be alone to figure out his own identity & how he can fit in among the humans.

Background & environment of the story will likely resonate better in some cultures than with others. This is not a story for global audiences.

Story summary.

Adriana is a lonely woman. To fight loneliness, she's purchased a custom-made android, Lucian, as companion. They fall in love. She helps him gain human (& property?) rights.

He figures his true status is that of a slave. Since he's free, he exercises his right to go away to meditate & discover his own identity - with no assurance that he will ever return.

So we have Adriana lonely again, & with a broken heart. Their adopted 4 year old daughter, Rose, & a pet bird provide additional opportunity for sentimental scenes.

Notes.

1. Torque Control has a very long discussion of this story.
2. I'm not clear what the title means.
   
   "Eros" probably has something to do with love.
   
   "Philia" with sex? But there is no overt sex here.
   
   "Agape" - wonderment? Again I don't see how it relates to the story.
   
   Update 18 April 2010: Micah clarifies the title in comments below. Thanks Micah.
   

Collected in.

1. Rich Horton (ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2010 Edition".
2. Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 4" (2010).
   

Fact sheet.

First published: tor.com, 3 March 2009.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Hugo Award 2010 in novelette category.
Related: Stories of Rachel Swirsky.

Douglas Smith's "Radio Nowhere" (short story, love story, free): Manipulating time to ensure his sweetheart didn't die!

Good read, in spite of minor flaws: It's a bit naive story - with a hopeless administration running a big particle accelerator facility. And there is too much swearing.

Story summary.

Liam - a physicist on a university campus, involved in a particle accelerator just being commissioned. Still grieving over his wife, Jackie, who was run over by a car 15 years ago. And Ziggy, a woman in love with him, one he has been friends since longer than Jackie has been dead.

First run of particle accelerator seems to flicker time - now a past point, now now. So he gets hopes of going back to time where Jackie was running into car, & of saving her. In spite of warnings that he might end up really changing the universe.

Eventually, happy ending for all concerned, though not the one Liam was working towards.

Fact sheet.

First published: Mark Leslie (ed)'s Campus Chillls (anthology, 2009).
Download full text from author's website. Alternate link (probably redirects to same).
Rating: B.
Nominated for Prix/Aurora award 2010 in English "short-form" category.

Ian Watson & Roberto Quaglia's "The Beloved Time of Their Lives" (novelette, love story, free)

I think I would have liked it much more had I read it 2 years back, when I was just getting initiated into the genre. Now ... well ... there are so many stories of this kind. Still a generally light read, & might bring some smiles among readers from places where McDonald's restaurants are popular.

It's a love story - a man & a woman looking for one eternal true love, & finding it ... in an unusual way.

Fact sheet.

First published: Ian Watson & Roberto Quaglia's "The Beloved of My Beloved" (coll, 2009).
Download full text from one of the authors' site.
Rating: B.
Nominated for BSFA Award 2009 in short fiction category.
Related: Fiction about grandfather paradox.

Ian McEwan's "The Use of Poetry" (short story, love story, free)

I suppose you could call it marginally science fictional, though I won't do that. At least this class of stories aren't exactly unknown in genre venues. And it's a very well told one.

Story summary.

Main story is a love story - a very smart young man's somewhat filmy seduction of a girl who doesn't think highly of science students. Some interesting & funny tidbits here.

And in bits, we're exposed to gender issues, "science is better or arts" debate, loveless families, & a certain marriage that would certainly appear very Heinleinisque to at least readers from India.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 7 December 2009.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Related: Science fictional love stories.

Christopher Green's "A Hundredth Name" (short story, love story, free): A man is grieving for his dead wife

A man is grieving for his wife who committed suicide for reasons I couldn't figure out - probably society's pressure to bear children & her refusal to do so for some arcane religious reasons.

All this in the backdrop of supposedly colorful background that didn't really cut for me: set in a "station" on some world other than earth, a group of deeply religious muslims are doing some kind of (religious?) experiment.

Fact sheet.

First published: Abyss & Apex, #31 (Q3 2009).
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: C.
Nominated for Aurealis Award 2009 in short science fiction category.

Javier Marías' "While the Women Are Sleeping" (novelette, non-genre, free): Too much adoration considered harmful!

I guess "psychopath" is the right word for the central character in this story, though he behaves a bit different from traditional psychopaths.

Story summary.

Narrator & his wife, holidaying on some island, get into the habit of watching a curious couple that's also regular on the beach - beautiful self-centered woman & much older fat balding man madly in love with her. One night, narrator will get in conversation with the man, & what an unusual conversation it turns out to be...

Fact sheet.

First published: ? (in Spanish)
Rating: B.
Download full text of English translation by Margaret Jull Costa from The New Yorker.
Related: Fiction from The New Yorker.

Ross Rocklynne's "Quietus" (short story, first contact, free): "who we are creates a bias in how we view the world"

Concept is very similar to Eric Frank Russell's "Dear Devil": A post-apocalypse earth, with few remaining humans turned to primitive existence. Well intentioned aliens have come to help the local sentients.

But what a difference in the way the plot develops & ends!

Story summary.

Tommy, 21 year old, is the sole human remaining in a small green patch on an otherwise dead earth. At least he thinks so, till he learns of a very shy girl too. And there is Blacky - Tommy's pet talking crow! Blacky actually behaves like talking parrots we are familiar with, but author tells us it's a crow.

We have a love story here - both Tommy & girl are attracted to each other. But whenever they're about to meet, Backy's speech scares her away.

On a separate thread, we have two alien visitors: Tark & his mate, Vascar. From a world called Alcon. They see signs of existence of sentients once upon this now dead world, & feel sad. Land on the sole green patch with the intention of locating the local sentients, & helping them get back up their old glory.

The rub is: these visitors are sentient birds. There will be some drama, their near conclusion that Blacky is the sentient & Tommy is his draft animal (Blacky often rides on Tommy's shoulder)!

And sad ending - when Blacky has scared away the girl for umpteenth time & Tommy is in the rage & aliens decide to protect the sentient from his gone berserk beast of burden!

Collected in.

1. David Drake, Jim Baen, & Eric Flint (Ed)'s "The World Turned Upside Down".
2. Raymond J Healy & J Francis McComas (Eds)' "Adventures in Time and Space".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding Science Fiction, September 1940.
Rating: A
Download full text.

Kelly Link's "Most Of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water": An "unsuccessful" love story

I picked up Link's collection "Stranger Things Happen" after seeing a well known sf author mention her name in the same breath as Ted Chiang - two of the hottest names in modern short fiction. It's unfair to judge an author by a single story, but this specific story - the only one I've read yet by Link - doesn't even approach the best of Chiang.

It's great prose, & not-bad light reading of read-once-and-forget variety. You might have seen the plot in a dozen movies: two long time friends of opposite sex, keep claiming they are just friends & not lovers, & yet something is there below the surface. In movies, they usually accept their loverness near climax, here they don't.

This is a non-genre story, in spite of well-known sf authors' names thrown in, a mention of outer planets, & many mentions of aliens.

This is not your story if reading about sex bothers you. While it is not porn, it does sometimes get graphic.

Fact sheet.

"Most Of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water", short story, review
First published: Kelly's collection "Stranger Things Happen" in 2001.
Rating: B

Geoff Ryman's "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter": Love story with a political backdrop

While sold as fantasy, this is primarily a political story. Set in Cambodia - with a love affair, & some ghosts - to make it colorful.

Good thing about the story is its readability. This is single sitting reading material - though I took a couple of coffee breaks.

Bad points are:

1. Love story is pretty mundane.
2. Political story - the main point - is something I cannot quite take seriously. My experience with stories about India by Western authors is that they nearly always trivialize the important, & are based on half-baked knowledge & no understanding. In spite of rare exceptions, & occasional very welcome outsider's perspective. To learn about political situation in Cambodia, I would much rather read something by a Cambodian. Your mileage on this might vary - it's a personal thing - what sources to trust for what kind of information.
   

None of this comes in the way of story's readability. Very good enjoy & forget story.

Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
Saloth Sar aka Pol Pot was a dictator (or at least an important strong man - I didn't quite catch) of Cambodia, now dead. Sith is his daughter - the heroine of this story. She lives alone in a haunted house in Phnom Penh. Her mother lives with her people in Thailand, & mother/daughter don't get along well.

Sith is living a comfortable secluded life of luxury - thanks to bad money stashed by her dad in a Swiss bank account & a helpful government. She is 18, & the year is 2004. That is when she meets 24 year old Dara, a salesman at a cellphone shop called Hello Phones in a local mall. They fall in love. Fearing she will lose him, she lies to him about her birth. That helps drag love affair a bit to falling-apart & eventually-reuniting kind of happy ending.

Political part of the story is of the ghosts of the victims of her dad's atrocities that haunt her. And of her eventual reconciliation with them.

See also.

1. Apparently, Saloth Sar aka Pol Pot aka Tol Saut aka Pol Porth was a real historical person - roughly in the same role described in this story. And he had a daughter, "born, as she is in the story, in 1986, when her father was 60" & named Sitha. This review of the story by Matthew Cheney is longer, more literary, & contains new information. Here is a more succinct biography of Pol Pot.
   

Fact sheet.
Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter, short story, review
First published: Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct 2006
Rating: B
Nominated for Hugo Awards 2007 in novelette category
Nominated for World Fantasy Award 2007 in Short Fiction category
Passed the preliminary nominations stage of Nebula Awards 2007 in novelette category.

Related: All Hugo Award stories.