Robert Moore Williams' "The Sound of Bugles" (short story)

Adventure involving a well intentioned human researcher & a greedy human villain - both trying to figure out how Martians are able to literally create material things out of thin air. Villain will die trying; scientist will learn that their technique cannot be replicated by humans because it involves biological capability we lack, & that he's dealing with super-beings.

Collected in.

1. Donald A Wollheim (ed)'s "Adventures on Other Planets".

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, September 1949.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Robert Moore Williams.

Lester Del Rey's "The Faithful" (short story, doomsday, free)

Uplifted dogs are taking over the civilization, as the last of the Man is dying following a war & then a plague...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, April 1938.
Download full text from Chomikuj.pl (badly formatted HTML; I'd to edit it in a text editor on PC discarding entire HTML header & footer, & saving it as TXT file, before it would read correctly in Moon+ Reader on my tablet).
Rating: B.
Nominated for Retro Hugo Awards 1939 in short story category.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Lester del Rey.

Pierre Barbet's "A Problem in Bionics" (short story, detective)

A group of scientists are working on a bunch of green technologies inspired by the workings of animals & insects. To get noticed by a wider audience, they move to live on an island using only the green tech - no petroleum, no CO2, ... The idea is to demonstrate that living in an environmentally sane way is possible.

But a thief among them has been selling the technology to unscrupulous elements outside, who intend to patent them; hence hinder their widespread adoption.

So a detective is hired to catch the thief...

Notes.

I'm not convinced of the ending. I've never seen a microfilm, but can you attach one to a wing of a butterfly & have the poor thing still fly?

Collected in.

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

Fact sheet.

First published: Horizons du Fantastique (French), sometime in 1974. This post is based on an English translation by Stanley Hochman included in Wollheim's anthology.
Rating: B.

John R Pierce's "Period Piece" (as by J J Coupling) (short story)

A modern man finds himself in 31st century, with no recollection of how he got there. He's being treated very well & kindly, but he's smelling something fishy - why's is no one curious about the period he's come from, not even an eminent historian?

Very curious & unexpected ending.

Collected in.

1. Everett F Bleiler & T E Dikty (eds)' "The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1949".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, November 1948.
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of John R Pierce.

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" (short story, horror, free)

This is not science fiction. It's creepy horror. A mad man is telling us how he murdered an old man because the victim had blue eyes of a vulture!

Fact sheet.

First published: 1843.
Download full text.
Download MP3 from Internet Archive.
See a movie adaptation at YouTube.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Edgar Allan Poe; from 19th century.

Isaac Asimov's "No Connection" (short story, puzzle, free)

Millions of years into future, man is long extinct. The world has two dominant intelligent races:

1. Americas dominated with "Gurrows", intelligent descendents of bears;
2. Rest of the world dominated by "Eekahs", intelligent descendents of chimpanzees.

Eekahs are far more technologically advanced, are aware that Americas are sparsely populated, & are planning raids to claim that land.

This is the story from the point of view of a Gurrow archeologist who knows a bit about the long extinct man (the "Primate Primeval"). And of his seriously incomplete piecing together of the history of the continent & what lays ahead as they come into more frequent contact with Eekahs...

Collected in.

1. Everett F Bleiler & T E Dikty (eds)' "The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1949".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, June 1948.
Download full text from AlfaLib.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Isaac Asimov.

Fredric Brown's "Knock" (short story, alien invasion, free)

Going by the comments online, it appears to be among the better known stories of Brown. Not a very believable conclusion, but light fun read.

Story summary.

Aliens called "Zan" have raided earth. They took a few hundred animal specimen alive - among them a man & a woman, & killed off all other life on earth. These specimen, including the humans, have now been put as exhibits in a zoo on earth, & this advanced raiding party of aliens is preparing to claim earth as permanent residence.

The man will pull off a coup of sorts, scaring aliens enough with his
ingenuity to make them leave earth...

Collected in.

1. Everett F Bleiler & T E Dikty (eds)' "The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1949".

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1948.
Download full text.
Download audio of X Minus One radio adaptation of this story from Internet Archive. (alt MP3 link)
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Fredric Brown.

Donald B Day's "Jaephus" (short story, humor, free)

Adventures of a man with a "lobbly" named Jaephus - a naughty invisible, presumably intelligent, creature with wings, tentacles & other unusual anatomical features.

Fact sheet.

First published: Fanscient, Fall 1948.
Download full text as part of the magazine it originally appeared in, or read online as HTML.
Rating: B.

Henry Kuttner's "Extrapolation" (short story, satire, free): Science fiction vs fantasy wars in fandom

Author tells us why there won't be any science fiction or fantasy magazines after 1958, a decade after this story was published.

He's using some sort of prescience to find this, but no details are given. And there is suggestion it's not humans doing the editing in 1958, just before the end of the genre.

Fact sheet.

First published: Fanscient, Fall 1948.
Download full text as part of the magazine it originally appeared in, or read online as HTML.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep" (short story, Christmas, non-genre)

This is light hearted christmas story of a newspaper editor obsessed with his work & uninterested in fun things like christmas celebrations.

Circumstances put him on a committee that will judge the town's Annual Christmas Outdoor Lighting Contest. So we'll see him turning the job into a news making exercise...

Title comes from a Christmas song in the story (I don't know if the song is real or imaginary):
  For Christ is born of Mary,
  And gathered all above,
  While mortals sleep, the angels keep
  Their watch of wondering love.

Fact sheet.

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

Kenneth Schneyer's "Life of the Author Plus Seventy" (short story, humor): Legal implications of human hibernation

Three major themes here, often told in a hilarious way:

1. Customer service dysfunction.
2. A parody of US copyright law, particularly w.r.t. Disney case.
3. Legal implications of human hibernation.

Story summary.

A not very successful author has a novel published but it's not selling much. He bugs local library enough to make them buy a copy, but no one is borrowing it. So he himself borrows it, but forgets to return it.

He'll later get a job with a company in a creative role, & is made to sign a curiously twisted copyright clause in the employment contract that gives the company the copyright over his creations for hundreds of years rather than "just" 120 years: when he's about to die, the company will have a right to hibernate him for up to 500 years, so copyright rule of author's life + 70 years applies!

A decade after borrowing the book, library has handed over the overdue & fines collection to a debt collection agency, & he receives his first overdue & fines bill - a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Hilarity ensues as he gets into negotiations with the debt collector, & later tries evading it...

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, September 2013.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2013" list.

"Analog Science Fiction and Fact", September 2013 (ed Trevor Quachri) (magazine): Annotated table of contents & review

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

Table of contents (best first, unread last).

1. [ss] Kenneth Schneyer's "Life of the Author Plus Seventy" (A); humor: Legal implications of human hibernation... 
2. [novelette] Alec Nevala-Lee's "The Whale God" (B): Using subaudible sounds as a military weapon.
3. [ss] Joe Pitkin's "Full Fathom Five" (B): A woman astronaut alone in a submarine with a local creature at the bottom of the ice covered ocean of Europa. A creature that is very alien & has very peculiar way of communicating.
   
   This might have been a ok story but author unnecessarily kills off rest of the crew to create some forced sentimentality.
   
   Some reviewers see symbolism here: alien looks like a giant penis that has emissions at nights, emissions that follow dreams of the woman!
4. [ff] Arlan Andrews, Sr's "Wreck Support" (B); humor: An English translation of an ancient Greek scroll, signed by "Alexandros of Macedonia", complaining about a recently discovered but ancient mechanical geared computer he had brought. Alexander had apparently brought it to aid in his invasions, & but it kept throwing up things like "File not found" & "Insufficient memory"!
5. [ss] Liz J Andersen's "Creatures from a Blue Lagoon" (B); humor: Adventures of a human veterinary student, in a multi-species space federation, treating an alien "cow".
   
   Easy read but mostly nonsense.
6. [novella] Martin L Shoemaker's "Murder on the Aldrin Express": Not read.
7. [novelette] Lavie Tithar's "The Oracle": Not read.

Fact sheet.

Labeled: "Vol CXXXIII No 9".
Related: Stories from Analog (whole issues only); fiction from 2010s.

Alice Sheldon's "The Man Who Walked Home" (as by James Tiptree, Jr) (short story, post apocalypse, free)

Apocalypse here results as a side effect of a time travel experiment. While I found the time travel part positively incomprehensible & boring, the rest of it is very readable - a dead world in the process of rebuilding itself.

Story summary.

At the site of the time travel experiment, there was an explosion, a crater, & the side effects that killed much life of earth. But there is also a curious physical phenomenon that is a side effect of original experiment: once a day, every year, at the same time, at a place in the original crater, a "monster" appears for a few seconds - a monster that appears to be moving but is not, it leaves bad smell after it's gone, & any attempt to touch it tends to cost you your limbs.

Story is mostly a view of this curious phenomenon, & eventually an explanation, from the point of view of sundry people who'll watch it over the centuries as the dead place keeps slowly getting inhabited.

Fact sheet.

First published: Amazing Science Fiction, November 1972.
Download full text from Baen eBooks.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Alice Sheldon (as by James Tiptree, Jr).

Fritz Leiber's "The Bleak Shore" (short story, fantasy, free)

My first story from author's famous "Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser" series. And I'll say a disappointing introduction to the series.

Story summary.

In a world not yet well explored, two adventurer friends - Fafhrd & Mouser - have a reputation of defying death in difficult situations. And suddenly a curse is placed on them - to sail to a far off "Bleak Shore", where we'll witness a scene that will be filmed decades later in "Godzilla": the two are in the midst of hatching reptilian monster eggs...

Of course, there will be happy ending for our heroes.

Fact sheet.

First published: Unknown, November 1940.
Download full text from Baen eBooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Fritz Leiber.

Frederik Pohl's "The Kindly Isle" (short story, biological weapons, free)

A government agency in cold war era US is building biological weapons for possible use against Russians. One of its researchers has developed a virus that affects a part of the brain that's supposed to drive the infected person nuts, only the effect is a bit different - it makes the infected person irritable & nasty. On the day of his triumph, the scientist vanishes with all the data - so the government no longer has the weapon.

Years later, a colleague sights the scientist on an idle isle, & suspects he has been testing the virus for selling to highest bidder. But subsequent investigation with throw up a completely different direction of his research...

Fact sheet.

First published: Asimov's, November 1984.
Download full text from Baen eBooks.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Frederik Pohl.

Jack Vance's "Worlds of Origin" aka "Coup de Grace" (short story, murder mystery)

This is classic Vance - the kind of stories he's best remembered for. Very colorful.

Story summary.

In a private space station somewhere far away where men & aliens of many worlds pass through, a man has been murdered.

Ace detective Magnus Ridolph will help the station owner solve the crime. In the process, we meet many suspects of very colorful background each of which could have had a story dedicated to its own culture & customs.

Fact sheet.

First published: Super-Science Fiction, February 1958.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Jack Vance.

"Astounding Science Fiction", November 1943 (ed John W Campbell, Jr) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

Links on author fetch more fiction by author. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there. For read stories, my rating appears in brackets.

Table of contents.

1. [novelette] George O Smith's "Recoil": "The near impossibility of hitting a spaceship with a shell has been discussed. But even an electron gun would, curiously, tend to defeat itself! The weapon protects the target!"
2. [novelette] A E van Vogt's "The Beast": "Given time, even a fumblewitted Neanderthal could learn to be sly & deadly opponent. And The Beast had time--& was master over a long forgotten power--"
3. [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Gallegher Plus" (as by Lewis Padgett) (A); humor: "Galleger, as usual, was in  a jam. It wasn't his fault; It was due to Galleger-Plus, the highly successful, if sufficiently high!--other self."
4. [ss] Isaac Asimov's "Death Sentence": "Our psychologists of today have set up colonies of monkeys & other animals as experiments. On a larger scale, with larger means, a greater experiment could be undertaken--"
5. [ss] Murray Leinster's "--If You Can Get It": "The formula was was wonderful, & worked every time--unless someone said it couldn't! And working in that world was nice work--"

Fact sheet.

Labeled: "Vol XXXII No 3".
Download scans as a cbr file. [via David T @pulpscans]
Related: Stories from Astounding/Analog (only issues edited by John Campbell) (whole issues only); old "pulps"; 1940s.

Benjamin Rosenbaum's "Feature Development for Social Networking" (short story, free): A look at trending on social networks

This looks at trending on a social network when a new hot topic presents itself - from the point of view of both the users of it & of the software developers maintaining it. Hot topic in question is a new fast spreading contagious disease.

Fact sheet.

First published: Tor.com, 13 November 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Benjamin Rosenbaum.

Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Dream's End" (short story, recursive dreaming, free)

It has at least one episode of recursive dreaming - dream within a dream. I'm not sure of the other episodes - they're either independent hallucinations, or even deeper dream in a dream in a dream...

I'll put it among the less interesting stories of authors.

Story summary.

A doctor in a sanatorium has found what he thinks is a cure for most forms of insanity - what he call "empathy surrogate therapy". It involves a device whose electrodes are put on the head of the sane doctor & of insane patient. And something happens involving empathy. Only the first experiment seems to have gone seriously wrong - for the doctor, at least...

See also.

1. Henry Kuttner's "All is Illusion" (read online): A much better story about dreaming.

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, March 1947.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner, C L Moore.

Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "The Dark Angel" (short story, superman, free)

What happens when one member of a couple is a prodigy? In this case, the wife is superhuman - first of the new species of homo superior. Story is about the reactions of the couple to this realization.

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, March 1946.
Read online at UNZ: part 1 & part 2.
Note: Story begins several pages down on part 1; last page of part 1 is the same as first page of part 2.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner, C L Moore.

"Astounding Science Fiction", July 1955 (ed John W Campbell, Jr) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents & review

Most, but not all, stories here are the same as those in Astounding (British ed), December 1955. Even the cover is the same.

Where I've a separate post on a story, link on its title goes there. For read stories, my rating appears in brackets. Links on authors fetch more works of author.

Table of contents.

1. [novelette] Algis Budrys' "In Clouds of Glory": "Combat of Champions is an old method of settling disputes--but when hiring champions, there is a certain danger they aren't fighting for the goals you think..."
2. [novelette] Eric Frank Russell's "The Waitabits" (A): Different people run their lives at different pace. What happens when faster ones try to bring up the slower ones to their pace? 
3. [novelette] Frank Herbert's "Rat Race" (A): Rats are to men as men are to...
4. [ss] Robert Sheckley's "Earth, Air, Fire and Water": "The best way to use anything is the way it will do you the most good in the situation you happen to be in. Sometimes that's not all the way it was intended to be used..."
5. [ss] Eric Frank Russell's "Tieline" (as by Duncan H Munro) (B): "When you've got to put a lone man on a beacon-operator job, ten dozen solar syatems away from any other human--he needs an emotional tieline to Earth. But finding one isn't always easy."
6. [serial - part 4/4] Poul Anderson's "The Long Way Home": "Sooner or later, every adult human being makes a discovery--or lives dissatisfied, unhappy. That there never was, & never will be, a way to go home ... but there is always a way to make home."

Fact sheet.

Labeled: "Vol LV No 5".
Download scans as a cbr file. [via Alexander@pbscans]
Note: Download link points to a rar file that needs to be renamed cbr.
Related: Stories from Analog/Astounding (whole issues only) (only issues edited by John Campbell); old "pulps"; 1950s.

Couple of minor stories from two magazines

Link on magazine issue goes to main post & a brief summary.

1. [ss] Liesl Schillinger's "Getting My Baby Tanked" (B); download; Playboy, June 2013; non-genre: Readable but generally pointless love story of a married woman who is going to divorce her husband with someone. 
2. [ss] L Sprague de Camp's "The Contraband Cow" (C); Astounding, July 1942: "Hero" will get a politician to lift a cow slaughter ban (in US or Mexico, I'm not sure).

Alice Munro's "The Moons of Jupiter" (short story, non-genre)

I'd not heard the name of the author until a few days back - when the announcement that she'd won this year's Literature Nobel Prize came. When I looked around for her works, a short story collection with the title "The Moons of Jupiter" sounded like sf - so I picked it up. But at least this title story is not sf.

Story summary.

Story is mostly about a woman's relationship with her father & her two grown up daughters, but mostly father who's about to undergo heart surgery. Nice language & some very interesting observations on everyday life.

Title comes from some small talk she's having with her father in hospital about her visit to a local planetarium, a game where dad is going to name the moons of Jupiter.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 22 May 1978?
Rating: A.

Henry Kuttner's "Before I Wake..." (short story, dreaming, free)

What is more real - conscious or unconscious, waking state or dreaming state? In this story, the distinction is blurred.

Story summary.

A young boy, somewhere on Florida coast in the US, has read too many fairy tales & believes them in all innocence. He dreams of sailing to places with magical & colorful characters & things. Until his the world of imagination begins to appear far more desirable than the real world...

Fact sheet.

First published: Famous Fantastic Mysteries, March 1945.
Read online at UNZ.
Note: The text at the link above appears to end abruptly. Story appears complete, but the link has a lot more text beyond the end of the story, with no clear marker to end the story, leading to feeling of abrupt ending.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

"Infinity Science Fiction", April 1957 (ed Larry T Shaw) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

Where I have a separate post for a story, link on story title goes there. Link on author fetches more fiction by author.

Table of contents.

1. [novelette] Harlan Ellison's "Deeper than the Darkness": "Controlled, his weird power might have been a blessing--uncontrolled, it made his life a literal, flaming hell!"
2. [ss] Arthur C Clarke's "The Case of the Snoring Heir" aka "Sleeping Beauty" (A): "Sigmund's problem was simply stated: no sleep, no wife; no wife, no money! But how can a man control his snores?"
3. [ss] E C Tubb's "The Eyes of Silence": "The choice was his: a solitary cell on Earth, or a solitary cell in space--& both paths led only to madness!"
4. [ss] Fritz Leiber's "Friends & Enemies": "In a world blasted by super-bombs & run by super-thugs, Art vs Science can be a deadly debate!"
5. [ss] John Christopher's "The Noon's Repose": "To control genetics, you must control love--& if Cupid is human, will he enjoy slavery?"
6. [ss] Charles L Fontenay's "The Martian Shore": "Shaan made the longest crawl in history--to avoid crawling before tyrants!"
7. [ss] John Victor Peterson's "The Gently Orbiting Blonde": "Anti-gravity may be hard to handle--but a woman scorned is still harder!"
8. [ss] Richard Wilson's "Deny the Slake":
          "Those couplets held
             (unless they lied)
           The reason why
             a world had died!"

Fact sheet.

Labeled: "Vol 2 No 2".
Download the scans as a CBR file. [via Alexander@pbscans]
Note: Link fetches a RAR file that needs to be renamed CBR.
Related: Stories from Infinity SF; 1950s; old "pulps".

Lara Vapnyar's "Katania" (short story, non-genre, free): A woman cannot let go of her childhood longings

I think I liked it because it's both mundane & absurd. And nice language.

I'm not sure how accurate the political aspects of Soviet Union are: a neighborhood in Moscow of mostly women, men either dead, defected to West, or in labor camps of Siberia. But political aspects are just background; main story is simple enough.

Story summary.

It's the story of two girls - friends, neighbors & classmates, one envious of what the other has. And what the envious one grows up into in adulthood.

Title, "Katania" is an imaginary country thought up for their dolls, combing their own names - Katya & Tania.

Fact sheet.

First published: The New Yorker, 14 October 2013.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: A.

Henry Kuttner's "Music Hath Charms" (short story, detective, free)

An ace detective solves a complex murder attempt at Sky City, a city hollowed into an asteroid. A rather colorful murder attempt: some animals escape from a zoo, a virus on a far off world to which locals are immune, a business where one partner is trying to swindle the other, ...

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, December 1943.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

"Astounding Science-Fiction", July 1942 (ed John Campbell) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents & review

Link on an author fetches more fiction of the author. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there. For read stories, my rating appears in brackets.

Note: The flash fiction pieces don't have their own entry in ToC; they are all clubbed under the heading "Probability Zero". And nearly all of them are rather forgettable.

Table of contents (best first).

1. [novella] A E van Vogt's "Secret Unattainable" (A): Revenge of a scientist against Nazi establishment. 
2. [novelette] Malcolm Jameson's "Brimstone Bill" (A): Crooks are useful too! 
3. [novelette] Clifford D Simak's "Tools" (B): Introducing very weird radioactive gaseous aliens... 
4. [novella] David V Reed's "Penance Cruise" (B); space opera: A ragtag group goes out to catch a dangerous brigand...
5. [novella] Jack Williamson's "Collision Orbit" (as by Will Stewart) (B): Mad scientist tames antimatter.
   
   This story is supposed to have invented the term "terraforming", which really makes it a classic.
6. [ff] Ray Bradbury's "Eat, Drink, and Be Wary" (B); humor: How to eat librally without upsetting your stomach! 
7. [ff] Frank Holby's '"The Strange Case of the Missing Hero"' (B); grandfather paradox: A man traveling to past discovers he is his own father!
8. [ff] Wilson Tucker's "The Mysterious Bomb Raid" (as by Bob Tucker) (B); time travel: To remove Japan from equation in WWII, a couple of Americans have dropped a drum full of incendiary oil on Tokyo around the year 1900 using their time machine; but a delay in drop has put it in a later year - so now, in 1942, they're expecting Tokyo to go up in flames any time for reasons the world will see a mysterious.
9. [ff] Selden G Thomas' "The Floater"  (B): A group is discussing modern fighter aircraft vs vintage ones. One of them tells a tall tale of how he fought with a far superior vintage one & how it kept floating in ocean till he was rescued many days after crash, in spite of being riddled with bullet holes because of fighting, because "It was made of pure potassian, which is lighter than water."
10. [ff] R Creighton Buck's "The Querty of Hrothgar"(C): An extremely implausible hunting story. Querty, a huge beast with 4 foot thick armor, on its native world of Hrothgar, is chasing a man. Man survives & eventually kills the beast using a totally crazy device.
11. [ss] L Sprague de Camp's "The Contraband Cow" (C): One of the most forgettable stories of de Camp.
    
    In an international Federation, there is a ban on cow slaughter. I'm not sure where the story is set - in US or in Mexico?
    
    Some confrontation between artificial in-lab steak makers, smugglers, cops & politicians. Hero will eventually get the ban lifted by threatening with a politician with something totally silly.
12. [ss] L Ron Hubbard's "Space Can" (C); space opera: Description of a space battle where a lone US warship beats two better armed "saturnian" warships. Much of the text of the story went over my head.
13. [ff] Randall Hale's "De Gustibus" (C): A man on Mercury without food for 50 days, has survived on water & potassium cyanide!
14. [ff] John Pierce's "About Quarrels, About the Past" (C); time travel: "Quarrels" of title is the name of a person. He's gone time traveling to a past Egypt, & is currently is in some, but not ours, past Egypt.

Fact sheet.

Labeled: "Vol XXIX No 5".
Download the scans as a CBR file. [via David T @pulpscans]
Caution: This is a very large file - nearly 195 MB & without resume. I had the connection broken twice near 90% & could download it only on the third attempt.
ISFDB notes: 'Cover illustration, untitled, by William Timmins, not Rogers as credited in the table of contents. Correction "In Times to Come," September 1942.'
Same ISFDB page also corrects some of the novelette/ss classifications on the ToC page; I've preferred ISFDB label above, whenever it contracts ToC.
Related: Stories from Analog/Astounding (whole issues only) (only issues edited by John Campbell); old "pulps".

Henry Kuttner's "The Uncanny Power of Edwin Cobalt" (as by Noel Gardner) (short story, weird, free)

"It seemed if I doubted the existence of anything, that thing ceased to exist. And the power was retroactive. The thing never had existed."

That is the basic conceit of the story: when narrator begins to doubt the existence of something, that thing not only ceases to exist, but had never existed in the first place! This is the story of him realizing his power, & eventually beginning to doubt if he himself existed...

Fact sheet.

First published: Fantastic Adventures, October 1940.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Jack Vance's "The Men Return" (short story, weird physics)

This is unlike anything else I've seen of Vance. And pretty near amongst the weirdest stories I've seen.

Story summary.

Earth passes through a peculiar region of space where causelty no longer holds & physics is weird. Earth is not necessarily solid & can randomly change phases. You can pick up a chunk of air & eat it, or ride it! Etc.

Most men died out. Few survivors are in two groups: organisms are thoughtless with random spur of the moment action. Relicts are rational of the old but are fast dying out - since this world has not rationality & doesn't tolerate rationality.

That's when the universe inexplicably returns back to a state where the effect follow the cause & rational men can claim the world again.

Fact sheet.

First published: Infinity Science Fiction, July 1957.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Jack Vance.

Henry Kuttner's "The Elixir of Invisibility" (short story, free)

This is a mad adventure using invisibility & visibility potions. Drink from the red labeled vial, & you become invisible; drink from green, to become visible again.

A whole lot of crazy things happen. Reporters disbelieving the inventor receive parcels containing invisible frogs! A thief steals a couple of vials, uses it for a bank robbery. An invisible dog, & sundry other invisible people at public places cause chaos, etc.

Fact sheet.

First published: Fantastic Adventures, October 1940.
Read online at UNZ: part 1, part 2, & part 3.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

Henry Kuttner's "Pegasus" (short story, fantasy, free)

This is a very minor story.

A farm boy believes flying horses exist, & will find one with the help of a stranger dwarf. When his dad finds out, he wants to milk it for money - to clip its wings & use it as a race horse. Boy will eventually save horse.

Fact sheet.

First published: Famous Fantastic Mysteries, May/June 1940.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

"Analog Science Fiction and Fact", March 2013 (ed Stanley Schmidt) (magazine): Annotated table of contents & review

This is the last Analog issue edited by Stanley Schmidt - the longest serving editor of the magazine whose 34 year stint is longer than even John Campbell's, according to his editorial. Effective next month, the current Managing Editor, Trevor Quachri, becomes the editor.

Links on author fetch more works of author. For read stories, my rating appears in brackets. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there.

Table of contents (best first).

1. [ss] Harry Turtledove's "It's the End of the World As We Know It, And we Feel Fine" (A): Dog is to man as man is to...
2. [ss] Bud Sparhawk's "The Snack" (A); humor: App assisted healthy living...
3. [ss] Don D'Ammassa's "Pre-Pirates" (A); satire: Who's the loser & who's the winner if a preview of a work of fiction becomes available at a website ("prepubs.com") before the author has written it? Who owns rights to it?
   
   Old well hashed idea of simple casualty violation dating back to at least Asimov, but still quite a readable piece.
4. [novelette] Sean McMullen's "The Firewall & the Door" (B): Making a reluctant humanity go star exploring...
5. [novelette] Bond Elam's "Instinctive Response" (B): Two human superhero space scouts find a world with local aliens dying of an incurable disease. They'll help find a cure, & in the process learn something about human origins...
   
   Very classic style story with a lot of technobabble about DNA & cell dynamics. Cannot say I liked the story, but it was a fast easy read.
6. [ss] Andrew Barton's "The Paragaon of the Animals" (B): On  an alien world, a human women is working towards saving local low-tech sentients from human slavery.
7. [novelette] Marissa Lingen's "The Radioactive Etiquette Book" (B): A diplomat needs to deal with aliens with vary different value systems...
8. [ss] Barry Malzberg & Bill Pronzini's "High Concept" (B): "Harmless" & helpful aliens have arrived on earth, & after a few initial protests, people have become used to having them all over. That's when an author has idea for a novel where the plot has savage war involving these aliens. And will pay a heavy price for having thought such a demeaning idea...

Fact sheet.

Labeled: "No CXXXIII No 3".
Related: Stories from Analog/Astounding (whole issues only).

Bud Sparhawk's "The Snack" (short story, humor): App assisted healthy living

I found it easy to relate to because I'm in a similar quandary: years of attempts at shedding weight got me nowhere. An app based approach - food & exercise tracking using Simple Calorie Count on Android phone - seems to be working now, but is far from satisfactory - healthy meals aren't as satisfying when body is used to junk food & it seems to be working rather slowly - I've lost just 3 kg in may be 4 months.

Story summary.

A man, to impress his girlfriend, is pretending to be a health freak & has all sorts of apps watching him all the time in a world where network connected sensors are everywhere - bathroom tiles measure your weight, your underwear measures your waist, ...

I found the story sometimes quite funny.

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, March 2013.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Bud Sparhawk.

Kurt Vonnegut's "$10,000 a Year, Easy" (short story): Your mother doesn't always know what's best for you

A great singer died, & his widow keeps seeing his talent in their child. Child grows up thinking he has father's talent too - even if success has so far eluded him.

His music guru will gently & tactfully nudge him towards his true talent - without offending either mother or the pupil...

Fact sheet.

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

Kurt Vonnegut's "The Humbugs" (short story, humor, non-genre): My husband is better than yours!

Two painters - one old worldly wise, other young & idealistic. Younger one is poor, older one knows how to make money (will make a painting where the color of sunset matches your curtains, e.g.). Each thinks he's crappy & the other one has got all the talent. Each has a wife that adores her husband for his talent & thinks other is a humbug, a fraud.

One day, a wives' altercation results in a wager: each husband will make a painting in the style of the other, & we'll see who's more talented! Curious events follow...

Fact sheet.

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

Henry Kuttner's "When the Earth Lived" (short story, doomsday, free): When a mad scientist defeated God

This appears to be among the earliest science fiction stories of Kuttner.

Story summary.

Our universe is but an atom in a larger "super-universe". Alien scientists experimenting in one of their labs have been subjecting some matter to the "cosmic ray" generated by a device in their lab - the ray that creates life! "The power of the cosmic ray--the life ray--at first gave life to only those elements which could readily acquire it--organic entities, protoplasm, evolving to man. Now that the cosmic ray is stepped up, the mysterious life force is spreading to all things throughout the Universe."

So the universe has gone bonkers - with rock, sand, metal, & sundry artifacts acquiring a will of their own! Our mad scientist will debug the cause & build a machine to destroy the alien source of cosmic ray. Recently animated matter goes back to its animate state because it hasn't been alive long enough, so life can go on!

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, October 1937.
Read online at UNZ.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Henry Kuttner.

"Future Science Fiction", Fall 1957 (ed Robert A W Lowndes) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents

I haven't read any story yet. Links on author fetch more fiction by author.

Table of contents.

1. [novelette] Gordon R Dickson's "Cloak & Stagger": "It would have been hilarious if Earth's acceptance into the Federation hadn't depended on how Torm Lindsay carried out his mission--because no one, particularly Lindsay, had the faintest notion of what he was expected to do, or not do!"
2. [ss] Margaret St Clair's "Starobin": "They needed a hero like Starobin--but a hero like Starobin was just the kind who didn't care..."
3. [ss] Scott Nichols' "The Lonely Stars": "Would humanity ever be able to undo that worst of blunders?"
4. [ss] Robert Silverberg's "Force of Mortality": "The greatest boon can also be the deadliest curse..."
5. [ss] Thomas N Scortia's "Last Meeting Place": "Garth was one of the few who understood history--but could he avoid repeating it?"
6. [ss] Bruce Tucker & Irving Cox, Jr's "The Professor from Pyjm": 'Was Mytohell just another "crazy scientist" or ...?'
7. [ss] F M Busby's "A Gun for Grandfather": "So you have a time machine, so you can go back in time & shoot grandpa? But why bother? Barney had a reason..."
8. [ss] George R Hahn's "The Round Peg": "Basil Thorpe was the most bizarre of phonies..."

Fact sheet.

Labeled: "No 34". "Published quarterly".
Download scans as a cbr file. [via pulpbox@pulpscans]
Note: Link fetches a RAR file that needs to be renamed CBR.
Related: Old pulps; fiction from Future SF, 1950s.

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 "The Man Without No Kiddleys": (short story, non-genre): How many kidneys are there among 2 men?

This is a very simple story of chance meeting of two strangers in a park. Both very old. A lonely, very talkative, but simple-minded one who loves to talk of all things that ail him (I thought only India had such people!). Other a more sober one & a stranger to the town.

Talkative one will bug the stranger enough to make him lose his temper. But the kind hearted stranger will regret it & will come back to make amends.

Fact sheet.

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

Hugo awards 2013 winners

[via Twitter]. All stories originally published during 2012.

1. [ss] Ken Liu's "Mono No Aware"; download: A Japanese town reacts in a very orderly manner to news that earth is soon to be destroyed by an asteroid impact.
2. [novelette] Pat Cadigan's "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi".
3. [novella] Brandon Sanderson's "The Emperor's Soul".
4. [novel] John Scalzi's "Redshirts".

And among friends, SF Signal gets it for "Best Fanzine".

For other categories, see the twitter feed.

Related: Past & current nominees & winners.

Kurt Vonnegut's "Bomar" (short story, humor): When a practical joke in office boomeranged

Carmody & Sterling, working in part of the company that does book-keeping for shareholders, have created a myth about a certain Mr Bomar Fessenden III. They picked this name from the shareholders list - because the name looked heavy & interesting! From the name & address they have, they give him an imaginary personality - of a deranged & wealthy playboy friend of one of the duo.

Only their lady office colleague has taken the story seriously. With consequences the duo could not have foreseen...

Fact sheet.

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

H G Wells' "The Red Room" (short story, gothic horror, free)

This is a haunted house story. A large abandoned palace with three old caretakers has a "Red Room" that is haunted & feared. Narrator, apparently a traveler, will insist on staying there saying he doesn't fear ghosts, & will discover the fear first hand.

Notes.

Much of story is about setting the mood, but the key part went over my head. In the end, narrator tells us "there is no ghost there at all, but worse, far worse, something impalpable— ... The worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal men, ... and that is, in all its nakedness—'Fear!' Fear that will not have light nor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms." And yet the mysterious events of the
night before don't quite fit this conclusion.

Fact sheet.

First published: The Idler, March 1896.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg or eBooks@Adelaide.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of H G Wells.

Free fiction: New at Project Gutenberg (24 August 2013)

1. John Russell Russell's "Adventures in the Moon, and Other Worlds"; download.
2. [ss] H G Wells' "The Red Room" (1896); download.

H B Fyfe's "The Wedge" (short story, first contact, free)

A sole human exploring a far away world in his scout-ship is captured by local aliens. Aliens are interested in learning about the capabilities of humans, so our hero plays a dumb animal...

Fact sheet.

First published: If, September 1960.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks. [via Becky@ClassicScienceFiction]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of H B Fyfe.

"Fantastic Stories of Imagination", February 1965 (ed Cele G Lalli) (magazine): Annotated table of contents

Another one whose download link I seem to have lost.

While I haven't read any of the stories yet, descriptions suggest these are mostly fantasy.

Table of contents.

1. [novelet] Randall Garrett's "A Fortnight of Miracles": "It is hard on a man to have not one ... nor two ... but three vexish spells upon him. Such a man has need of a worthy mage & a goodly goblin ... & an author like this one who can get him out of black magic trouble without leaving any loose ends about."
2. [ss] Roger Zelazny's "Passage to Dilfar": "A day & a night had Dilvish ridden to warn of the coming slaughter, for all hope now rested with Dilfar--& with the horse that carried him there."
3. [ss] Ron Goulart's "Winterness": "When dealing with the spirit world, you can do things three ways: rarely, well-done, or medium. When a vanished judge & a buxom columnist are involved, it is perhaps better to settle for the medium."
4. [ss] Thomas M Disch's "The Vamp": "Once you marry a Transylvanian count, things are never what they used to be. Not even a good steak."
5. [serial - 2/2] John Brunner's "The Repairman of Cyclops".

Fact sheet.

Labeled: Vol 14 No 2.
Related: Fiction from old pulps; 1960s.

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 "Girl Pool" (short story): Life in a call center of a bygone era

Montezuma Forge & Foundry Company runs a call center for its products. Customers write letters to the company, a customer service center responds. This customer service center comprises of two wings - a men's area that handles the technical & content parts of the response to customers, & a stenographic area that types the men's dictations recorded into cassettes via "dictaphones" & posts the letters. This stenographic area comprises only of women & is called the "Girl Pool".

This is the story of a bored girl in the Girl Pool, one dying to have an adventure...

Fact sheet.

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

Robert F Young's "Collector's Item" (short story, free)

Hmmm... so even Galactic Historian can make minor omissions...

Fact sheet.

First published: Fantastic Universe, September 1956.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg or Manybooks. [via Becky@ClassicScienceFiction]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Robert F Young.

"Imaginative Tales", July 1957 (ed William M Hamling) (magazine): Annotated table of contents

Oops. I downloaded its CBR a while back but the link seems to have gone dead now. Will post the link separately if I can find it elsewhere.

I haven't read any story yet.

Table of contents.

1. [novella] Edmond Hamilton's "World of Never-Men": "Barker set out on a trail of vengeance that would lead him to retribution--or death. It would also, inevitably, bind him to Mars' dark secret..."
2. [ss] Robert Moore Williams' "The Red Rash Deaths": "There wasn't a cure for the sickness that struck humans down in horrible agony. And Keeton lacked any clues to follow in his race to stop..."
3. [ss] Randall Garrett's "Devil's World": "Every secret agent sent to Mercury turned up dead; now Courtney volunteered for the task of trapping Thurston, the man who ruled this--".
4. [ss] Robert Silverberg & Randall Garrett's "Hot Trip for Venus" (as by Ralph Burke): (ToC lists Ralph Burke as author; story lists Randall Garrett as author!). Alex Mayne knew somebody wanted to keep him out of the spacelanes. And that could only mean someone was afreaid he'd learn about the--"
5. [ss] Robert Silverberg & Randall Garrett's "Pirates of the Void" (as by Ivar Jorgensen): "Brant's job was to check the robot relays on tiny stations scattered through space. It was not his job to risk death after an attack from--"
6. [ss] Robert Silverberg's "The Assassin": "Bigelow had a grand idea; he would travel more than a hundred years through time to Ford's Theatre, see the President, & warn him about--"

Fact sheet.

Related: Old pulps.; fiction from 1950s.

Kurt Vonnegut's "With His Hand on the Throttle" (short story, obsession, non-genre)

A successful businessman has a weekend hobby - playing with model trains in his basement. Only, it's much more than a hobby - it's an obsession that is ruining his married life.

Story is about one of his days in the basement with his mother visiting, with the man constantly ignoring both wife & the mother. Until mother decides to do something about it. And nearly succeeds...

Fact sheet.

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