Five Fathoms of Pearls by James H. Beard (Unknown, December 1939) opens with Peter Hume staring at a wall in his house as if he can see something there. He subsequently goes out and rides through the wind and rain and dark to an inn, where he finds a cousin of his called Allen Dorn. Hume tells Dorn to return to the house with him, a property that was once owned by a witch, Elsie Dorn, a grandmother to both men.
Inside the house Dorn sees that the wall which Hume was staring at has a window which shows a sundial in the distance illuminated by moonlight—quite a different view from the other window in the room that shows the rain that they have just ridden through. While all this is unfolding we also learn about (a) a ship that the cousins pirated for gold and whose skipper they drowned, (b) a note from Grandmother Elsie about a chest at the foot of a sundial containing a string of pearls five fathoms long, and (c) instructions to look after a relative called Harriet Dorn, or suffer her vengeance (needless to say, neither of the men have done so).
The final part of the story sees the two climb through the window to get the chest but, during their journey, they see two dead girls from the ship pass by on a lane before seeing the cutlass wearing captain. The captain stares at the men but is scared off by the returning girls. By now the men have recovered the pearls and flee when the girls approach and touch them. Dorn falls but Hume makes it to the window. Then (spoiler), Dorn shoots Hume so he won’t be stranded outside the window. When Dorn reaches the window Hume uses his remaining strength to stab him.
There are too many moving parts here for such a short story (the pirating of the ship, the supernatural window, Harriet Dorn, etc.), and the ending is too abrupt. I’d also add that the men’s downfall is down to their own distrust and has little to do with the vengeful dead grandmother.
* (Mediocre). 3,900 words. Story link.
The Scalar Intercepts by Michael Cassutt
The Scalar Intercepts by Michael Cassutt (Asimov’s SF, January-February 2024) is a brief bit of ideation more than a story, and one which sees an AI report back to other AIs about the seven hundred or so humans left alive on Earth (there had been a past conflict between the two). The AI then reveals a discovery:
My research shows that, in addition to these kinetic processes, Objects possess a consciousness of their own. Yes, the Sun, other stars, the major planets including our own, and minor planets above a certain mass, are beings as self-aware and intelligent as any we know.
Organics and even Agents like us reside on the short or micro side ofthe lifespan scale. These space-based beings are on the macro side, living millions of years, and their communications take place at such a slow rate—one bit a year, for example—that I have chosen to call them Scalar Sentiences.
My apparently radical discovery, based on extensive analysis and translation of the Scalar intercepts, a process that has consumed energy for the last four hundred and thirty years, confirms that Scalars are hostile to our existence. p. 161
The piece ends with the news (spoiler) that the Scalars have sent asteroid hurtling towards Earth and the AIs will not survive.
* (Mediocre). 1050 words.
The Adherence by Jeffrey Ford
The Adherence by Jeffrey Ford (Asimov’s SF, January-February 2024)1 begins with an old man called Phil meeting a long lost female acquaintance called Dierdre in “The Crumble”. As they talk we learn that Phil lost his wife because of the effect of ubiquitous cheap products produced by a company called Adherent Corp.:
“She disintegrated.”
“Oh, my god, I’ve heard about that. Did you guys go in for all that cheap stuff?”
“I’m embarrassed to say it, but yeah. We had scads of it. It was just so fuckin cheap,” he said. “Couldn’t see spending top dollar on a bed frame or dresser when you could get either for a couple of bucks. Come on, a five-dollar television. You can’t beat it. We had everything.”
“I read that if you have a lot of the stuff from Adherent Corp., that it can set up a resonance field in your house,” said Dierdre.
“Not only that, but if there’s someone living there who’s suffering from depression, the particular atomic resonance of the victims of that disease can act as a catalyst, weakening the atomic bonds that hold together Adherent’s flimsy crap. The resonance of their merchandise disintegrating in turn affects the atomic bonds of the stricken, like Lily. One afternoon, in early autumn, when a cold breeze lifted the curtain and came through the screen of our bedroom window, I was walking down the hall, and the door was open. Lily was folding damp clothes from the half-assed dryer, and humming the song ‘Three Little Words.’ Just like that, she turned into mist, and that mist kept her form for a moment until the wind rolled through the room and dispersed her.”
“How long until you realized that having all that cheap stuff wasn’t worth it?”
“It took me a few days to wake up to the fact of what happened. I mean, back in the day, when we met, when we got married, who had any clue that someday, if you lived long enough, you might see your spouse vanish like the Easter Ghost. But eventually, yeah, it was clear we’d made our world from whatever tawdry substance went into making all of Adherent’s fine products. In the process it cost Lily her life.” p. 66
After this unlikely dollop of explanium/anti-materialism, the pair go to Deirdre’s house. There she tells him about Ronaldo, her ex, who is part of a religious cult called the Easterners. Apparently the “Easter Ghost” materialises at their services and has been known to reincarnate vanished people.
The last part of the story (spoiler) sees Deirdre arrange to have Ronaldo and the Easter Ghost come to her apartment. After they arrive (the Easter Ghost wears a three-piece suit of green and yellow, holds a stalk of yellow gladiolas, and floats a foot above the floor) Phil agrees to pay a thousand bucks to have his wife brought back. The Easter Ghost whizzes around the kitchen while Phil thinks of her, and then he wakes at a cash machine with Deirdre and Ronaldo. After they shake him down for the money he goes home to find his wife in his apartment. They make love but, after they finish, Phil discovers she is an Adherent Corp. copy.
This is a strange, dream-like story that doesn’t amount to much. Presumably it is making some sort of point about materialism, but what that might be is unclear (other than the obvious observation everyone makes about materialism).
* (Mediocre). 3,600 words.
1. The last sentence doesn’t have a full stop: “She put her arms out to him and tried to say his name, but in the jostling, her speakers had shorted”—I don’t know if this is intentional, poor proofing, or whether there is missing text.
The Short-Short Story of Mankind by John Steinbeck
The Short-Short Story of Mankind by John Steinbeck (Lilliput, November 1955)1 opens with two cavemen moaning about the youth of the day, problems with the neighbouring tribe, etc.:
Joe came into the cave all scratched up and some hunks of hair torn out and he flopped down on the wet ground and bled—Old William was arguing away with Old Bert who was his brother and also his son, if you look at it one way.
[. . .]
‘Where’s Al?’ one of them asked and the other said, ‘You forgot to roll the rock in front of the door.’
Joe didn’t even look up and the two old men agreed that kids were going to the devil. ‘I tell you it was different in my day,’ Old William said. ‘They had some respect for their elders or they got what for.’
After a while Joe stopped bleeding and he caked some mud on his cuts. ‘Al’s gone,’ he said.
Old Bert asked brightly, ‘Sabre tooth?’
‘No, it’s that new bunch that moved into the copse down the draw. They ate Al.’
‘Savages,’ said Old William. ‘Still live in trees. They aren’t civilized. We don’t hardly ever eat people.’
Joe said, ‘We got hardly anybody to eat except relatives and we’re getting low on relatives.’
Those foreigners!’ said Old Bert.
‘Al and I dug a pit,’ said Joe. ‘We caught a horse and those tree people came along and ate our horse. When we complained, they ate Al.’
The rest of this rambling non-sf story charts, in a similar tone, the progress of humanity from cavemen to hunter gatherers to farmers to citizens of larger states. The effects of religion and technology and military force are also considered. The concluding observation is that people nowadays are not stupider than cavemen, but exactly as stupid as cavemen. This strikes me as overly simplistic, and it is not an observation I would agree with. I doubt that even cavemen were as stupid as they are portrayed here.2
I’ve read quite a lot of Steinbeck and would count The Grapes of Wrath among my favourite top ten books, but this is pretty weak stuff.
* (Mediocre). 2,200 words. Story link.
1. This story was reprinted in Playboy (April, 1957) using the title above. The original Lilliput publication was titled We Are Holding Our Own.
2. One of my Facebook group referred to this story as “The Cranky View of Human History”.
Of Death Deserved We Will Not Die by Bennett North
Of Death Deserved We Will Not Die by Bennett North (Lightspeed #162, November 2023) has a narrator who helps his mother make bread outside a city that has closed its gates. Various other snippets of information are presented as the narrator wanders the area gathering supplies—he practises climbing the city walls, there has been a plague and many have been locked outside the city, the narrator’s mother is paid for her bread with “broken chairs and baby clothes and sacks of bones”, etc. (I got the vague feeling the bones were what they ground down to make the bread).
This very short piece never coheres into anything more than a dream fragment.
* (Mediocre). 700 words. Story link (available 23rd November).
Dr Seattle Opens His Heart by Winston Turnage
Dr Seattle Opens His Heart by Winston Turnage (Lightspeed #162, November 2023) is a short, two page fragment about a cruel and arbitrary superhero called Dr Seattle. We learn about the thousand faces people see when they look at him, his damaged body, and how he deals ruthlessly with a terrorist incident at an internet company building (“Detonate it”).
A notion, not a story.
* (Mediocre). 650 words. Story link (available 23rd November).
Sensations and Sensibility by Parker Ragland
Sensations and Sensibility by Parker Ragland (Clarkesworld #200, May-June 2023) opens with two droids entering a café called The Queen of Tarts, a period café from before the time of cybernetics and augmented reality. After they seat themselves, Mairead asks Cian what they should order—and the latter’s response about the cold reveals that Mairead, who was not aware of the low temperatures outside, has no sense of touch or sensation. Then, after they order a tomato tart from the human server, and discuss what “hot” feels like, we learn that Cian has no sense of smell.
The rest of the story mostly consists of the two droids’ conversations about these deficiencies, during which they attempt to mimic human behaviour (something seen when their tomato tart arrives):
“Do you want to cut it?” Mairead asked.
“Is that what we’re supposed to do?”
“It’s what the humans are doing.” Mairead nodded toward a couple sitting at a nearby table. On their plates, the two had neat wedges.
Cian shrugged and picked up their knife. They worked the blade through the pastry. Hot juices bubbled out of the gashes.
“Perfect,” Mairead said.
Cian carefully transferred the triangular slices onto plates using the flat of the blade. Then the droid swapped the knife for a spoon.
“I believe we’re supposed to use the other one, the one with the points.” Mairead picked up a fork and showed it to Cian. “That’s what those people over there are doing.”
Cian switched the items of cutlery.
“And don’t forget to put your napkin in your lap,” Mairead said.
Cian ignored Mairead’s second suggestion.
Mairead scraped off a bit of the tart and brought it close to their mouth. They acted out taking a bite by chomping on thin air. “Delicious.”
“Should I actually put a bit in my mouth?” Cian asked.
“What would happen if you accidentally swallowed?”
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure I can swallow.” Cian skewered the tart, tore a piece free from the slice, and then inspected the potential bite. “I could spit it out.”
“I don’t think that’s polite.
Their conversation subsequently devolves into a mild quarrel.
If there is a point to this inconsequential story, it eluded me.
* (Mediocre). 2,160 words. Story link.
Jody After the War by Edward Bryant
Jody After the War by Edward Bryant (Orbit #10, 1972) opens with the narrator and Jody walking on a mountainside trail until they get to a picnic site overlooking Denver (one of the cities that survived a nuclear war). During this we get some backstory about the conflict, learn how the couple met, and see them discuss her PTSD and unwillingness to have children because of what she saw at one of the target cities.
Eventually, after munching through more related angst and the picnic, the narrator tells her he knows what he is letting himself in for and that he still wants marry her and move to Seattle.
A short slice-of-life/relationship fragment. Early-ish Bryant; he would do better work than this.
* (Mediocre). 2,200 words. Story link.
Those We Serve by Eugenia Triantafyllou
Those We Serve by Eugenia Triantafyllou (Interzone #287, May-June 2020)1 begins with Manoli, an artificial, putting his summer skin on his steel chassis. Manoli is an illegal copy (the real/original Manoli lives in an undersea city) and he works on an island that is a tourist destination:
For a few precious hours the island seemed to belong only to the artificials. Manoli let himself feel enchanted by the walls painted bright summer colors but also by the pure white ones, as radiant as the sun. By the calm sea and the oceanic pools (such was their architecture that they seem to pour into the sea like a tilted glass of water). As he went up the wide and curved stairs that led to a small white church, he admired its decrepit beauty, the chipped green paint of the bells. The priest, another artificial, pulled at the rope and let them boom all the way out to the sea, his long black robes and bushy beard blowing in the high wind. He greeted Manoli with a subtle nod and then crossed his hands and fixed his stare at the horizon.
How could the priest reconcile his nature with his birth memory? Did he still believe he was a God’s creature? Manoli wondered the same thing about every artificial but he always reached the same conclusion: it depended on the person they were made from. Their birth memories and the personality their human had. They could not escape it.
The rest of the piece sees Manoli looking for a woman called Amelia, who arrives later but does not seem to be aware that Manoli is an artificial. Then we see Manoli experiencing the memories of his original who, when Manoli meets him later, complains about living in the undersea city and tells Manoli that the originals are coming to take their lives back. When Amelia later arrives at the bar to join the two of them, she doesn’t recognise the original Manoli.
The piece ends with (spoiler) Manoli managing to overcome his programming and leave the island with Amelia.
This has a confusing start and the rest of it is pretty mystifying too. Even once I realised that Manoli was an artificial person, the reason for their existence never convinced (real people hiding away from the tourists in an undersea city). I also didn’t understand why Amelia was with Manoli (did she not know he was an artificial?) or why she didn’t recognise the original in the bar. This may be one of those stories that is operating on a dreamlike or allegorical or symbolic level—if so, it went over my head.
* (Mediocre). 5,800 words.
1. The writer briefly speaks about the story here.
Behind Our Irises by Tlotlo Tsamaase
Behind Our Irises by Tlotlo Tsamaase (Africafuturism, 2020) opens with the unemployed female narrator getting a new job—but one which later has a catch:
Every eye in our firm runs surveillance programs behind its pupil. Connected through the authenticated enterprise cloud network to the central servers of the Firm. Able to detect corporate theft, infraction, abuse of work assets and more. Much more. I knew about the eyes but I only noticed the holes in our necks, stabbed into the jugular, into the carotid artery in that unsurveilled split second when my black pupils blinked silver and then back to black as the company automatically upgraded me. In that fraction of a second, when all their restraints loosened, I tried to scream.
The story charts the narrator’s journey from unemployed to intern to nanotech-injected corporate slave—an in-your-face and nuance free anti-capitalist tale (“Each one of us a well-oiled cog of the workplace machine”, etc.) which unconvincingly over-dramatizes the dystopian aspects of corporate jobs.
* (Mediocre). 4,300 words. Story link.