Tag: short story

Offloaders by Leah Cypess

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Offloaders by Leah Cypess (Asimov’s SF, March-April 2022) is a series of social media messages in a freecycle group which start with Liz giving away twenty bags of clothes, sourdough starter (“prefer to give to someone who will use it”), and a blue size 6 dress. Another member, Olwu, immediately asks why Liz is giving away the dress when she looked “awesome” in it at the gala last year. Olwu’s questions quickly become an accusation that Liz is “uploading”, and matters quickly spiral off-topic from there:

Matti: Look, I don’t want to sound preachy, but our planet can no longer sustain us physically. If those of us who can afford to upload don’t do it now, we’re basically consigning the rest of humanity to extinction. And humanity contains a disproportionate number of women and people of color. So here’s our choice: be selfish, wait until our world is uninhabitable and it’s too late for everyone else, and then upload and save ourselves. Or upload now and help everyone. It’s our moral and civic duty.
Olwu: *message deleted*
Matti: *message deleted*
Liz: Dress claimed! Sourdough starter still available.
Matti: Passing this book along: UPLOAD: Humanity’s New Stage and How It Can Benefit Us All.
Olwu: SERIOUSLY? @Moderator, please.
Matti: I’m sorry, are there rules about what we’re allowed to give away on this group?
Olwu: So if someone was trying to give away a gun, would you be okay with THAT?
Matti: *eye-roll 3D gif* Yeah, that’s exactly the same.
Steph: I’m sorry, but what would be the problem with giving away a gun? It’s probably illegal to not allow that.
Sima (moderator): Guns are not allowed, and let’s steer clear of anything having to do with uploading, too, please. I have a day job, you know. I can’t spend every second monitoring this group.  p. 161

Short and quite amusing to begin with, but it runs out of steam at the end.
** (Average). 1,500 words.

Achronos by Lee Killough

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Achronos by Lee Killough (F&SF, March 1980) opens with Neil Dorn—an unsuccessful, burnt-out artist—going to a faraway beach to get away from it all. There, after finding a tribolite (an unusual find in that location), he comes upon what he initially thinks is a group of children:

They circled him, looking at him with curious eyes. He stared back. He had been wrong. They were not children, though they were still very young, hardly past adolescence. They were as tall as he and slender as willows, with skin tight and smooth. Clear, lively eyes watched him from unlined faces. And they were completely nude, he discovered with a start. What he had taken to be scraps of bathing suit were only designs painted on their skin.  p. 117

Initially he struggles to understand their speech but, over the course of the next few hours, he discovers they are adults from the future, and learns that the beach they are on is an “achronos”, a timeless place connected to all other times.
The woman who tells him all this, Electra, eventually gets bored discussing the matter and insists that Dorn draws her, and then the others demand the same. After he finishes sketches of them all, Dorn and Electra spend the night together (or what passes for night in this place—the light levels never change).
Later, one of the other women, Hero, gets Dorn to paint an oil portrait of her, and he learns more about the group:

Hero was beginning to emerge from the canvas. She looked different than he intended. Instead of a Parrish subject, she looked more like something created by Toulouse-Lautrec, bright and gay on the surface but hard and sad beneath. He peered at her. To his surprise, he found the painting correct. His eyes had seen and his hands transmitted what his mind did not notice. He remembered her remark about boredom.
“Where would you rather be than here?” he asked.
Her sigh came from her soul. “Just about anywhere. I want to see different faces, experience new weather. I’d like to see the night sky again. I’ve always wanted to go to the stars. I was going to go to Zulac after school, but of course that trip was ruined along with the laser cannon on Pluto.” Her voice grew wistful. “I was just two years late to ever visit the stars. I’m trapped here instead.”  p. 124

Dorn realises that, unlike him (he has previously left the achronos to get his art materials) the group cannot go back to their own time as they left in the last few moments of safety.
The story concludes (spoiler) when Dorn and Hero are interrupted by the news that a dinosaur has stumbled in to the achronos. Dorn and the others watch as Clell baits and fights the creature before the group finally rush in for the kill. Immediately after the dinosaur’s death Electra wants Dorn to paint her with its blood, even though Hero is bleeding to death, untended, beside them. When Dorn refuses, Electra joins in the orgy that has started. Dorn’s unease intensifies and he realises that he may not be safe with these capricious and bored individuals. He retrieves his artwork and drives out of the achronos with a head full of artistic visions.
A fairly good piece about, essentially, jaded immortals.
*** (Good). 5,200 words.

“The Mindano Deep” by Robert F. Young

Posted on by Paul Fraser

“The Mindano Deep” by Robert F. Young (F&SF, March 1980) is one of the later stories in this writer’s Spacewhale series1 and opens with Jonathan on the asteroid-size leviathan Starfinder. He is watching various events from the American War of Independence concerning Nathan Hale, Colonel Prestcott, and Patrick Henry (during these episodes we learn that Starfinder the spacewhale has the ability to travel through space and time). We also learn that a young woman called Ciely Blue, who also lives on Starfinder, appears to be under the guardianship of Jonathan and is currently attending school on Earth.
Once this series housekeeping is dealt with Jonathan decides to use his solo time to “dive to the bottom of the Space-Time Sea” in Starfinder, i.e. go back to the creation of the Universe. At this point we see that Starfinder communicates with Jonathan using mental hieroglyphics:

The rest of the story is a strange account which sees reality dissolve around Jonathan when they get to the bottom of the Space-Time Sea, leaving him standing in a little room with two doors, a fireplace, and a picture window. Later he sees a model of the whale and, when he looks through the portholes, sees a miniature version of himself doing the same; this Mobius-reality effect is then repeated a couple times more, most strikingly when he goes through one of the doors of the room and, while looking over his shoulder, sees himself—and eternity’s worth behind him—doing exactly the same.
These weird events are accompanied by various philosophical observations, the last of which comes from Starfinder, which suggests that Jonathan himself has created this microcosmic reality as there is no macroscopic one at the beginning of Time. After this they climb up off the bottom of the Space-Time sea and return to 1978.
This non-story, its initial series-itis, and the (possibly cod-) philosophical musings may sound like an unpromising mix but I enjoyed it anyway, even though it doesn’t really work.
**+ (Average to Good). 4,900 words.

1. The ISFDB page for Robert F. Young’s ‘Spacewhale’ series. I note that the first story does not seem to be set in the same world as these (it has a Spacewhale, but there are substantial differences—see my review here).

“As a Color, Shade of Purple-Grey” by David Lubkin

Posted on by Paul Fraser

“As a Color, Shade of Purple-Grey” by David Lubkin (F&SF, March 1980) is a groan-worthy half-page Feghoot (pun story) which sees an astronaut return to a colourful welcoming party after a forty year trip to Tau Ceti. The punchline (spoiler) has him fainting because of “fuschia shock”.
** (Average). 120 words.

Before Willows Ever Walked by Tom Godwin

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Before Willows Ever Walked1 by Tom Godwin (F&SF, March 1980) begins with Jake Derken experiencing, not for the first time, the lash of a Joshua tree’s branch as he returns to his house from the mail box. He then goes in to tell the other occupant of the house, Joe Smith, that there isn’t a letter from his granddaughter. We subsequently learn that (a) Smith is the alcoholic, dying house guest of Derken, (b) Derken is attempting to inherit Smith’s estate by isolating him from his grand-daughter, and (c) Derken hates Joshua trees.
After the two men discuss whether plants have feelings, and whether the Joshua tree might have sensed Derken’s antipathy towards them, a letter falls out of the pile of circulars. Smith sees it is from his granddaughter, and quickly opens and reads it.
Derken then has to work fast to preserve his scam: he pretends to phone the daughter but tells Smith line isn’t working and that he’ll go into town to call her. When Derken later goes out he is given a letter and cheque to post to the granddaughter, but he stops in the desert and burns it. Then, as he walks back to the car, he gets hit by a falling Joshua tree branch. Derken rages at the tree and then stamps on a young offspring nearby.
The rest of the story works through various plot developments (spoiler): Smith stops drinking so Derken starts adulterating all Smith’s food and drink with vodka to hasten his demise; several days later, Smith dies (but not before realising what Derken has been doing); Derken then waits for the will to go through probate while avoiding the surrounding Joshau trees, which seem to be getting closer to the house; finally, another letter arrives from the granddaughter saying she has scraped together enough cash to send a PI to find out what has happened to Smith.
The climactic scene sees Derken rush to the bank to get the money and flee but, at the place he stamped on the young Joshua tree, he crashes his car and is trapped in the wreckage. Then the adult tree speaks to Derken “in his mind” while it summons a lightning storm (the fact that Joshua trees can do this has been suggested in an earlier conversation). The lightning then strikes the Joshua tree, which falls on Derken and kills him.
I don’t think that my disbelief was suspended for even a single moment by this story’s silly premise and, even if it had been, the car crash at the end is far too convenient.
* (Mediocre). 7,000 words.

1. The title comes from a superstition which suggests there was once a time when willow trees could walk at night.

Steele Wyoming by Ron Goulart

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Steele Wyoming by Ron Goulart (F&SF, March 1980) opens with a group of “Outside” down-and-outs roasting a dog for dinner (“Tastes pretty good” . . . “It’s the wild oregano gives it zing”). One the group, Otto, claims he invented Steele Wyoming, a revolutionary guardbot, and proceeds to tell his tale of riches to rags.
This account begins with him rescuing a female friend, Bev, the owner of a pest extermination company called Zapbug (a running joke is that her sonic repellents cause Otto continual problems) from a group of Poverty Commandos and Suicide Cadets who are attacking her mansion. When Otto later tries to convince her to give up her career for him, she says he’ll need to amass greater riches first.
This subsequently leads Otto to create Steele Wyoming, which he then demonstrates to Carlos, a contact at NRA (National Robot & Android):

Carlos chuckled. “He’s very impressive, amigo.”
“Designed to scare the crap out of any looter, rapist, housebreaker or other unwanted Outsider.”
“Steele Wyoming, huh? Catchy.”
“A cowboy name.” I’d gotten butsub on my fingers somehow. Wiping them on the plyocloth, I tossed it aside and one of my little servobots came scooting over to gather it up.
Carlos, slowly, circled Steele Wyoming. “I assume he’s lethal as well as frightening?”
“Tell him, Steele.”
“First off, let me say howdy, Mr. Trinidad, sir,” drawled the big android in his rumbling Old West voice. He reached a huge horny hand up to tip his highcrown stetson. “I kin be lethal or I kin merely stun varmints. Depends on how the nice folks who owns me wants the deal to go down.”
Carlos laughed, pleased. “He’s terrific, amigo.”
“What I figured,” I said while Carlos stood gazing up at the seven foot tall cowboy android, “is that to a great many people in America, even in this year of 2020, the cowboy remains a symbol of honesty, dedication, law and order.”
Steele adjusted his hat on his head.
“That is surely true.”  p. 86

The rest of the story (spoiler) sees the homicidal results of Wyoming’s trigger happy attitude1 (starting with a noisy subrock millionaire neighbour, and followed by the three policemen who see Wyoming dumping the body). Further complications result from Bev’s infidelity.
Amusing stuff.
*** (Good). 4,750 words. Story link.

1. One wonders if Wyoming’s lethality was modelled on Clint Eastwood’s movies of the time (the spaghetti Westerns and Dirty Harry series).

What of the Night by Manly Wade Wellman

Posted on by Paul Fraser

What of the Night by Manly Wade Wellman (F&SF, March 1980) opens with a man called Parr taking shelter in a disused Southern Highlands house when his car breaks down. After he eats he falls asleep on the dank and dirty sofa.
When he wakes he sees a glow of light, and a young woman called Tolie asks if he is alright. Parr is instantly smitten by her, and then he notices that the surroundings are clean and in good order. Tolie introduces Parr to the owner of the house, Mr Addis, and another man called Fenton. The latter serves them all a thimbleful of drink (they toast “unity and Sitrael”), and then Parr is invited to see Addis’s room. There, Parr sees Addis has books on magic (one is by John Dee, “the Queen’s Sorceror”) and also has a pentacle painted on his desk, “to help his work”.
After this the pair return to the living room for a second round of drinks and toasts, and then Parr visits Tolie and Fenton’s rooms. When Parr is in the latter’s room, he realises that Fenton is in love with Tolie and jealous of him.
During this experience Parr asks twice if he is dreaming, and also learns that the occupants of the house do not know what he means by “Korea” and “telephone”. He eventually asks them if they are haunting the house: Addis partially dodges the question and suggests they have their fifth drink. As they prepare to do so, Fenton declares his feelings for Tolie and knocks the drink out of Parr’s hands: he tells Parr if he has the fifth drink he will be trapped here. Parr flees.
Some time later Parr stumbles into to a local town, where he learns that the house has been deserted for ninety years. He also learns of Addis’s strange habits and death, and the deaths of Tolie and Fenton when they stayed overnight at the house.
Most haunted house tales would stop there, but there is an effective coda in this story where the local preacher takes Parr back to the house to recover his car (no-one else from the town will take him). When they go inside the gloomy house Parr asks the preacher to perform an exorcism. The preacher says that isn’t a ritual he knows, but he conducts a baptism, a communion (both for Parr), and then the rites for the dead: each of these acts unburdens and lightens the house:

Finally they both stood and Preacher Ricks repeated the service for the burial of the dead. The gloom seemed to thicken itself around them. But at last the hushed voice came to, “Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you.” Then light suddenly stole into the room. Parr, looking sidelong at the open door, saw sunshine in the yard that had been so shadowed.
Preacher Ricks cleared his throat. “Do you think it looks sort of different in here?” he asked Parr. “Like as if it had somehow cleared up?”
“In here and outside both,” replied Parr. “Maybe you’ve truly put those spirits to rest.”
“Let’s devoutly hope so.”
They walked out. No haze, no shadows.
“Bring your car along behind mine, back to Sky Notch,” said Preacher Ricks. “We’ll see if some kind soul there won’t let us have some breakfast.”  p. 64

A quietly effective and atmospheric piece.
*** (Good). 5,100 words.

The Last Truth by AnaMaria Curtis

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Last Truth by AnaMaria Curtis1 (Tor.com, 22nd February 2022) opens with Eri, a lockbreaker, opening a chest on a ship so it can be plundered later on:

The lock on the next chest glows red when she approaches it. It’s a standard truth-lock, spelled by Mr. Gilsen’s lockmaster to recognize its true owner. He’s a wealthy passenger unlucky enough to have hired Mareck’s whole ship for his travel, and he’ll be the last person Eri has to steal from.
“Open,” she says.
“I require a truth.”
“I am your rightful owner.” It never works on the locks she deals with, since it’s a lie, but she’s supposed to try, to test for weaknesses. This lock remains a stubborn red.
“I require a truth,” it repeats.
Eri reaches for her tiered truths and plucks out the one that seems least painful to lose. “The ship that brought me from Ekitri to Sild was overcrowded, and my bunkmate elbowed me in her sleep and bruised my jaw one night. It hurt to speak for weeks. I learned to make myself understood without speaking; this is why Mareck picked me to be a lockbreaker.”
The lock glows a soft, welcoming yellow. The ache in Eri’s chest deepens a bit. She wonders what she just gave up. It’s a tricky business, opening truth-locks. Only truths a lockbreaker has told nobody else can open a lock. As soon as a truth is spoken aloud to the lock, it disappears, unusable—and the memory that sparked it goes too.2

After the story’s gimmick has been laid out (Eri can burgle these locked chests at the cost of her memories) she realises that there is someone watching her. That person is a musician called Aena who, after they talk, convinces Eri to open a chest that contains sheet music that she wants to see before a forthcoming test of her musical skills. Eri, who is cautious of the musician (music is a potent and semi-magical force in this world), agrees, and a relationship is formed when Eri recovers a lost memory when later listening to Aena sing.
When Aena then asks Eri to get her violin the two become even more deeply entwined, and they then agree to run away together when they get onshore (Eri hopes that, with Aena’s music, she may be able to eventually recover all her lost memories).
Complications develop in the last part of the story (spoiler) when Eri encounters a particularly strong lock that the captain of the ship insists she open to gain her freedom. However, doing this will require the remainder of Eri’s memories, so she leaves herself a note saying to steal the violin and then contact Aena—and wonders if she will be able to understand her own instructions . . . .
Eri succeeds in an engrossing last section, and the last paragraph is suitably uplifting:

The woman bends down to take the violin from Eri’s hands and presses a soft kiss to Eri’s temple as she straightens up.
“We don’t have much time,” she says, opening the case, making sure the soundproofed door is sealed, “but what we have, I will give you.”
She puts the violin to her chin and begins to play.

The story’s gimmick of telling truths (sacrificing memories) to open locks is, to be honest, not the most convincing, but it is the only major credulity-stretcher in the story, and the rest of it is well told and plotted. If you like the sort of fiction that appears in Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine, you’ll like this.
*** (Good). 5,350 words. Story link.

1. This story won the “LeVar Burton Reads writing contest, as co-presented by FIYAH Literary Magazine and Tor.com!”

2. This passage is where the story should start—there are a couple of unnecessary and/or confusing paragraphs before this (the first should have been moved further into the story and the second deleted).

Synthetic Perennial by Vivianni Glass

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Synthetic Perennial1 by Vivianni Glass (Tor.com, 22nd February 2022) has K’Mori, the narrator, restrained in a hospital after undergoing surgery. We soon learn that:

I am the first person in modern history to have ever been scientifically resurrected. Excuse me: revitalized. “Resurrection” is a religious and political minefield. I don’t understand the specifics of the procedures; I just know that I have four different people’s organs in me, and my new pancreas allows me to proudly say that I am a cyborg.

A kind nurse, Lillian, arrives later and, the next day, she puts K’Mori in a wheelchair and they roam about the hospital. During this excursion Lillian asks K’mori if she is going to reply to a boy who has contacted her; we also get a dribble of backstory. At the end of their walk, they see K’Mori’s “followers” on the streets outside the hospital.
The rest of the story (spoiler) sees K’Mori dream about her cousin Kenny, who brings her something in a box and tells her that they won’t let her go. K’Mori awakes from this to discover (I think) that she is having a medical emergency during an attack on the hospital.
This is a fragmentary piece that is little more than a set-up and climax. There is no real plot, or development or examination of the story’s gimmick.
* (Mediocre). 4,750 words. Story link.

1. This placed third in the “LeVar Burton Reads writing contest, as co-presented by FIYAH Literary Magazine and Tor.com!”

Girl Oil by Grace P. Fong

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Girl Oil by Grace P. Fong (Tor.com,1 22nd February 2022) opens with the Asian narrator, Chelle, at the beach with her college student friend Preston and another woman called Wenquian. Chelle is romantically interested in Preston but he is interested in Wenqian.
Chelle later goes to an advertisement casting in the Valley and gets some uncomplimentary feedback from the Mandarin speaking (there is a cultural identity subtext to the story) producer (“let’s face it, you are a little fat”). On her way out she gets an experimental body oil from one of his assistants that may help with her problem.
When Chelle gets back to her room she finds that Preston is, much to her displeasure, with Wenqian. After the two of them leave to have dinner Chelle has a shower:

I dab beads of oil on my face and pat them with the balls of my fingers like I’ve seen Wenqian do. It goes on light and colorless but smells like sulfur and charcoal. It burns and turns my nerves to steam. The tingling continues long after I’ve dressed.
I check the mirror again and I’m shocked. My face is my face, but firmer, brighter, thinner. This might actually work. I massage more into my soft arms, jutting stomach, and radish calves. Sparks dance under my skin until I double over on the bathroom floor. I stumble through the ache and pull myself up to the mirror. The me that rises is brighter, lighter, slimmer. Maybe she can finally fit in.

The next day Chelle buys a new dress—she fits into a medium size for the first time—and then texts Preston while she is at the beach, asking for an audition with his movie-maker father. That night she applies more oil, even though the instructions say to stop if there is a burning sensation (which she has been experiencing).
The rest of the story (spoiler) sees more three-way romantic complications and Chelle’s overuse of the oil to the point that she almost drowns at the beach (for some reason the oil now makes her unable to swim). Then matters deteriorate even further when creates a hole in her body (“the flesh thins and parts, turning into yellow smoke”). When Chelle finally goes to a call back audition with Preston’s father, she discovers that no-one can see her: she has become invisible. Finally, Chelle returns to the beach and dissolves in the sea, becoming part of the ocean. The last line has her reconcile with her body/size, “I am so big, and it is so wonderful.”
The slimming oil metaphor/arc of this story may work for young women readers who have body image and boyfriend hook-up issues, but I’m not sure how much of the rest of the short SF reading field (whatever that is nowadays) will be interested.2 That said, even if the content isn’t of any interest, it is well enough written.
** (Average). 5,000 words. Story link.

1. This is the second place winner of the “LeVar Burton Reads writing contest, as co-presented by FIYAH Literary Magazine and Tor.com!”

2. The SF short fiction field has been metamorphosing into a literary small press for decades now; we have probably arrived at the end of that cul-de-sac.