# SF Short Stories > . . . reviewed ## Posts - [Illness in a Word by R. P. Bird](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6936): Illness in a Word by R. P. Bird (F&SF, April 1991) opens with Tsi-Tokkmani, the alien Maniquad narrator of the story, returning from a Council meeting with his human slave: I could see that my human was quite agitated.They are like children, even to their size. My body slave’s name was Holand. He was tall for his kind, yet no more than a yearling’s height.“What is it, Child?’’“Master, I heard the insults Kor-Keiimani hurled at you from the speaking circle. Yet you had no reply! How can you endure such abuse?”I stopped. My tail flicked about in irritation as I […] - [The Veldt by Ray Bradbury](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6931): The Veldt by Ray Bradbury (The Saturday Evening Post, September 23, 1950)1 opens with a concerned Lydia Hadley telling her husband George about what is happening in their house’s nursery, a holographic/sensory play area for their two children, Peter and Wendy. Lydia takes George to the nursery to show him and, once there, it switches on and they find themselves in the African veldt. At first they experience the sounds and smells of the simulation, and then: “You see, there are the lions, far over, that way. Now they’re on their way to the water hole. They’ve just been eating,” […] - [Lucie Loves Neutrons and the Good Samarium by Thoraiya Dyer](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6915): Lucie Loves Neutrons and the Good Samarium by Thoraiya Dyer (Clarkesworld #219, December 2024)1 opens with Izzy (the main character) with her wife Lucie at their house in France: Izzy simultaneously adores the French farming village, because stepping into her stone-lined cellar feels like stepping back four hundred years, and loathes the village, because her neighbors’ social attitudes feel like stepping back four hundred years. This chippiness (first seen in an encounter with the estate agent) is most often manifested in the comments about their neighbour Gaston, an old man who runs a nearby vineyard, but Izzy’s concern about this […] - [Swarm X1048 – Ethological FieldReport: Canis Lupus Familiaris, “6” by F. E. Choe](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6907): Swarm X1048 – Ethological FieldReport: Canis Lupus Familiaris, “6” by F. E. Choe (Clarkesworld #210, March 2024)1 opens with a puppy being born “not long after the disaster”: Your mother huffs the air around you. She licks at your face, your belly, your tiny paws.And we watch, transfixed though we have watched countless births on this planet by now, your pinhead-sized nostrils, the soft pinches of flesh around your eyes, the line of your mouth. We watch and wait for your forehead to furrow by the slightest millimeter. Anything.Our bodies thrum with anticipation. Move, little one. Move.Do anything but lie […] - [An Intergalactic Smugglers Guide to Homecoming by Tia Tashiro](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6902): An Intergalactic Smugglers Guide to Homecoming by Tia Tashiro (Clarkesworld #211, April 2024)1 opens with Miko going through customs at a starport orbiting Terra Three: There are seven hundred aliens hidden in Miko’s backpack, and the Galactic Security Agent currently studying her passport (hopefully) has no clue. The agent is an alien themselves, some tentacular species with assistive devices hooked into its uniform to mist its soft skin every few seconds. A puff of evaporated solution exits from one of the devices by its neck as it draws her passport closer to its pitted eyes.[. . .]The GSA agent already […] - [A Thing of Beauty by Norman Spinrad](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6867): A Thing of Beauty by Norman Spinrad (Analog, January 1973) opens with a very wealthy Japanese businessman called Mr Ito arriving in the office of Mr Harris, an American antiquities dealer in a near future USA. We find out in their subsequent conversation, after Mr Ito has gifted Harris a priceless and antique Grateful Dead poster, that Mr Ito is looking to purchase a “major American artefact” for his Kyoto estate (this is to impress his culturally superior and snobbish in-laws). Harris’s eyes light up (“This was the dream of a lifetime! A sucker with a bottomless bank account placing […] - [Five Fathoms of Pearls by James H. Beard](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6856): 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 […] - [Johnny on the Spot by Frank Belknap Long Jr](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6852): Johnny on the Spot by Frank Belknap Long Jr. (Unknown, December 1939) starts with the hard-boiled narrator describing his involvement with another man in a fatal shooting in an alley. The narrator then hides out in a dance hall where he overhears a ruthless older blonde telling a younger woman she is going to take her boyfriend from her. The man later dances with the blonde, who eventually (spoiler) realises that the man is Death. At this point we realise that his involvement with the death in the alley was his presence (“in the end I meet up with practically […] - [The Scalar Intercepts by Michael Cassutt](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6849): 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 […] - [The Adherence by Jeffrey Ford](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6846): 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 […] - [The Man Who Came Early by Poul Anderson](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6827): The Man Who Came Early1 by Poul Anderson (F&SF, June 1956) opens with the narrator, a late 10th Century Icelander/Viking called Ospak Ulfsson, telling a visiting Christian priest about a strange man he once came across. He tells how he and his clansmen found the strangely dressed man on the beach and how, after questioning him, they discovered that the man was Sergeant Gerald Roberts, an MP in the United States Army who had slipped through time: “I was crossing the street, it was a storm, and there was a crash and then I stood on the beach and the […] - [Track 12 by J. G. Ballard](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6818): Track 12 by J. G. Ballard (New Worlds #70, April 1958) opens with Maxted listening to a sound Sheringham is playing to him through headphones. When Maxted fails to guess what the sound is—: ‘Time’s up,’ Sheringham cut in. ‘A pin dropping.’ He took the three-inch disc off the player, and angled it into its sleeve. ‘In actual fall, that is, not impact. We used a fifty-foot shaft and eight microphones. I thought you’d get that one.’  p. 63 The men take a break and go outside for a drink. We learn more about this new science of microsonics—very quiet […] - [Skirmish by Clifford D. Simak](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6801): Skirmish by Clifford D. Simak (Amazing, December 1950) opens with a journalist called Joe Crane arriving early at his newsroom. After he realises that his alarm clock must have been an hour fast (this will prove significant later), he sees something move a nearby desk: [. . .] a thing that glinted, rat-sized and shiny and with a certain undefinable manner about it that made him stop short in his tracks with a sense of gulping emptiness in his throat and belly.The thing squatted beside the typewriter and stared across the room at him. There was no sign of eyes, […] - [The Half Pair by A. Bertram Chandler](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6788): The Half Pair by A. Bertram Chandler (New Worlds, November 1957) sees the male member of a husband and wife prospecting team, halfway between Mars and the Asteroid Belt, complain about a missing cufflink that has been flushed out the garbage disposal into space. When his wife tells him she’ll get him another pair when they land, he is not impressed: ‘We agreed’, he said stiffly, ‘that we weren’t going to let ourselves lapse, get sloppy, the way that some prospecting couples do. You must remember those dreadful people we met on PX173A—the ones who asked us to dinner aboard […] - [Brightside Crossing by Alan E. Nourse](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6777): Brightside Crossing by Alan E. Nourse (Galaxy, January 1956)1 opens in James Baron’s club, with him meeting an unknown man who asks if he is planning a Brightside Crossing. We learn in fairly short order that (a) Baron’s crossing will be across the sunward facing side of Mercury2 when it is at its closest point to the sun (perihelion) and (b) the stranger is Peter Claney, the only survivor of an earlier failed attempt. Claney insists that Baron has no chance of making a successful crossing, and proceeds to tell Baron about his team’s failed attempt.In the central part of […] - [The Short-Short Story of Mankind by John Steinbeck](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6763): 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 […] - [Sole Solution by Eric Frank Russell](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6752): Sole Solution by Eric Frank Russell (Fantastic Universe, April 1956)1 opens with a being trapped in a dark void where only he exists. He realises that the only resources available to overcome his predicament are “secreted within himself” and that he must “be the instrument of his own salvation”.Eventually, after further exploration of his environment, and much thought, he conceives of a solution that will provide what he wants: He created a mighty dream of his own, a place of infinite complexity schemed in every detail to the last dot and comma. Within this he would live anew. But not […] - [Dilemma by Connie Willis](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6744): Dilemma by Connie Willis (Foundation’s Friends: Stories in Honor of Isaac Asimov, 1989) opens with three robots trying to arrange an appointment with Isaac Asimov’s secretary Susan (another robot). They the want to talk to the famous author about repealing the First Law of Robotics1 (one of them is a medical robot and cannot make a surgical incision as it would harm a human). Susan tries her best to fob them off but, when Asimov arrives unexpectedly and talks to the three robots and is flattered by their comments, he tells her to arrange an appointment for the next day […] - [Sober Noises of Morning in a Marginal Land by Brian W. Aldiss](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6734): Sober Noises of Morning in a Marginal Land by Brian W. Aldiss (SF: Authors’ Choice 3, 1971) opens with the narrator, who has been brutally interrogated, being taken back to his room. After he recovers a little he manages to escape through a trapdoor in the roof—only to be recaptured some time later by three horsemen.As this story unfolds we discover that (a) this is set in a 38th Century Kazakhstan (although his surroundings are little different from today’s); (b) there is One State ruling the Earth; (c) the narrator has actually booked into this prison for a one month […] - [Of Death Deserved We Will Not Die by Bennett North](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6728): 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 […] - [A Review: The Reunion of the Survivors of Sigrún 7 by Lars Ahn](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6725): A Review: The Reunion of the Survivors of Sigrún 7 by Lars Ahn (Lightspeed #162, November 2023) takes the form of a review of a documentary about a Mars mission that went wrong. We subsequently learn that Riveria, the maker of the film, locked the four remaining survivors in a room and interviewed them about the mission and the circumstances surrounding the commander’s death: Mission commander Ruben Corto had died in a tragic accident and his remains had been left in space, per his wishes. That was all the surviving members were willing to say, and nothing else could be […] - [Dr Seattle Opens His Heart by Winston Turnage](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6722): 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). - [Confession #443 (Comments open) by Dominica Phetteplace](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6710): Confession #443 (Comments open) by Dominica Phetteplace (Lightspeed #162, November 2023) begins with the narrator describing how he and his friends are being haunted by internet images of a Professor Mangleman. It materialises that the group startled the Professor on a hiking trail the day before, whereupon he fell into a canyon and subsequently died—they did nothing to help him for fear of being blamed by the police.The narrator later learns more about the Professor: His death was ruled an accident. He liked to go hiking wearing complicated earbuds that messed with his vestibular system. He had fallen down trails […] - [Sensations and Sensibility by Parker Ragland](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6702): 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 […] - [LOL, Said the Scorpion by Rich Larson](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6695): LOL, Said the Scorpion by Rich Larson (Clarkesworld #200, May-June 2023) opens with Maeve, one half of a couple, getting fitted for a “holiday suit”: “Does it come in any other colors?” Maeve asks, eyeing herself in the smart glass.“No,” the salesperson admits. “You look quite elegant in eggshell, though.”She’s undecided. The holiday suit is a cooperative swarm of microorganisms, a pale paramecium shroud that coats her entire body, wetly glistening.“Full-spectrum UV protection, internal temperature regulation, virus filtration, water desalination, emergency starch synthesis.” The salesperson has a comforting sort of murmur. “Ideal for any sort of live tourism. Where will […] - [The Big Flash by Norman Spinrad](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6682): The Big Flash by Norman Spinrad (Orbit #5, 1969) opens with a music club manager signing a rock group called The Four Horsemen to perform at his venue. This initial scene displays the story’s entertaining period style: First, the head honcho, lead guitar and singer, Stony Clarke—blonde shoulder-length hair, eyes like something in a morgue when he took off his steel-rimmed shades, a reputation as a heavy acidhead and the look of a speed-freak behind it. Then Hair, the drummer, dressed like a Hell’s Angel, swastikas and all, a junkie, with fanatic eyes that were a little too close together, […] - [Forty-Eight Minutes at the Trainview Café by M. Bennardo](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6660): Forty-Eight Minutes at the Trainview Café by M. Bennardo (Asimov’s SF, November-December 2022) is set in a future where humanity has uploaded itself to a virtual reality where people spend their time experiencing a variety of simulations: Closing his eyes, Felix took a sip of the tea, held it in his mouth, and felt its warmth diffuse through his sinuses. It was an incredible detail, just like every other detail in the place. The feeling of physical presence, of reality, of existential weight. He could not deny that the Trainview Café was utterly unlike any other simulation program he had […] - [The Burning Girl by Carrie Vaughn](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6642): The Burning Girl by Carrie Vaughn (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #340, 7th October 2021) opens with three knights arriving at an abbey, and a teenage girl called Joan being brought before them: [One] of the nuns ran back to the hall and returned with an unlit candle, one of the big beeswax ones used to light the chapel sanctuary. I knew what this meant: these knights had demanded a demonstration. At the sight of that candle, I nearly cried. I did not understand, did not want to understand, but I knew what was happening.Ursula held the candle to me. “You must […] - [The Station of the Twelfth by Chaz Brenchley](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6635): The Station of the Twelfth by Chaz Brenchley (Tor.com, 8th September 2021) has a long opening passage that describes a monorail on Mars and the names of the different stations. One of them is called “The Station of the Twelfth”, and people wait on the platform during an Armistice Day service to explain to visitors how it got its name. This involves the description of a steampunkish alternate world where the British and Russian Empires were at war and, in particular, of a battle on one of the moons of Mars, Deimos, where a British Empire regiment made a valiant […] - [Jody After the War by Edward Bryant](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6627): 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 […] - [Lot by Ward Moore](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6604): Lot by Ward Moore (F&SF, May 1953)1 opens with Mr Jimmon telling the rest of his family that it is time to get in the car and leave their house. For the first few paragraphs it appears as if the family is about to go on vacation—but we soon discover there is a unspecified crisis, that the water and electricity have stopped flowing, and the family station wagon is fully loaded. Then, as they set off: He opened the door on the driver’s side, got in, turned the key, and started the motor. Then he said casually over his shoulder, […] - [The Wheel by John Wyndham](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6598): The Wheel by John Wyndham (Startling Stories, January 1952) opens with an old man dozing at a farm wake up to see his grandson appear with a box that is riding on four improvised wheels. Before he can say anything the mother appears and screams, which brings the rest of the family. The mother then orders the boy, Davie, into the barn. When she tells the grandfather that she would never expected that sort of behaviour from her son, he says that if she hadn’t screamed no-one would have had to know. She is scandalized.The reason for this puzzling behaviour […] - [Mulberry and Owl by Aliette de Bodard](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6589): Mulberry and Owl by Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny #42, September/October 2021) opens with Thuỷ in the cabin of the starship looking at a black hole in the centre of a nebula; Thuỷ is there to talk to an imprisoned imperial enforcer. After a flashback to a time twenty years earlier (about half the subsequent story is an account of Thuỷ’s time with her rebel comrades), we discover that the imperial enforcer is a starship called The Owl and the Moon’s Tongue, which has been imprisoned in the black hole as it is no longer needed by the new Empress (she […] - [Hunger’s End by Robert Cheetham](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6580): Hunger’s End by Robert Cheetham (New Worlds #171, March 1967) sees Caroline listening to Jimmy at a party. He says that physical beauty is valueless as it contributes nothing to functionality; she disagrees and, deciding that he doesn’t know what he is talking about, eventually dismisses him. As Caroline hands her glass to him so that he can get her another champagne, she notices a minute chip in it and deliberately drops it to the floor where it smashes.The rest of the story alternates between Caroline’s adulterous affair with another man called David, who was at the party with his […] - [The Empty by Ray Nayler](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6570): The Empty by Ray Nayler (Asimov’s Science Fiction, November-December 2022) opens with Sal seeing a motionless red dot on her screen—one of her remotely supervised self-driving trucks has broken down.The rest of the first half of the story describes Sal’s uncertain unemployment (she is continually assessed by Amazon-like metrics and there are lots of other people waiting to take her job), her location (she works in a portacabin complex in the car park of an abandoned Wallmart carpark in the middle of nowhere, presumably because of the tax breaks), and her possible future (when she goes to see her supervisor […] - [The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race by J. G. Ballard](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6560): The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race by J. G. Ballard (Ambit #29, 1966)1 does what the title promises: Oswald was the starter.From his window above the track he opened the race by firing the starting gun. It is believed that the first shot was not properly heard by all the drivers. In the following confusion Oswald fired the gun two more times, but the race was already under way.Kennedy got off to a bad start. The rest of this short piece provides a number of oblique observations about this historical event: [It] has been […] - [The Ersatz Wine by Christopher Priest](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6556): The Ersatz Wine by Christopher Priest (New Worlds #171, March 1967) opens with a man fleeing his pursuers and hiding from them in a building. Inside he sees a girl sitting at the bottom of a flight of stairs. She holds out her hand and takes him up to a room where they have sex. He leaves in the morning. His pursuers find him later, leaning against a pile of crates: they wonder how they can keep his batteries charged.Inserted into this brief story are seemingly random passages: “Two fat ladies: eighty-eight,” said the Bingo-caller.“Three and seven: thirty-seven. Key of […] - [The Dragon Slayer by Michael Swanwick](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6533): The Dragon Slayer by Michael Swanwick (The Book of Dragons, 2020) begins with Olav’s backstory, and we learn that he is a wanderer and adventurer and was briefly married to a witch—until he caught her coupling with a demon and slew them both. When we catch up with him he is working as a guard for a desert caravan, which is later ambushed by brigands. Only Olav and (what he thinks is) a young boy survive. Then, when they camp that night, a demon comes out of the forest for Olav, and they only just escape after Olav sets the […] - [New-Way-Groovers Stew by Grania Davis](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6520): New-Way-Groovers Stew by Grania Davis (Fantastic, August 1976) opens with the lesbian narrator’s description of the 1960’s Haight-Ashbury scene—which includes, atypically for the time of publication, a frank description of her elderly gay friend: He’s always so funny, and admittedly, more swishy when he has a new lover. Not that any of them appreciate his wit, his charm, his intelligence. The old fairy usually manages to dig up some tight-assed sailor from the Tenderloin, or a motorcycle freak from one of the leather bars. He buys them new clothes, prepares lavish and tender gourmet meals, and gazes at them with […] - [Those We Serve by Eugenia Triantafyllou](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6505): 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 […] - [Behind Our Irises by Tlotlo Tsamaase](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6498): 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 […] - [Lucifer by Roger Zelazny](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6491): Lucifer by Roger Zelazny (Worlds of Tomorrow, June 1964) opens with Carlson in the middle of a deserted (presumably post-collapse/apocalypse) city on his way to a building where he used to work. When he gets there he repairs and fuels the broadcast generators that power the city, and then, for a short period of time (93 seconds), he powers up the streets and buildings: He was staring out beyond the wide drop of the acropolis and down into the city. His city.The lights were not like the stars. They beat the stars all to hell. They were the gay, regularized […] - [Salvador by Lucius Shepard](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6469): Salvador by Lucius Shepard (F&SF, April 1984)1 opens with a scene that will be familiar to anyone who has seen any of the many Vietnam War movies that were released from the late 1970s onwards2—except that in this case the conflict is in Central America, and the soldiers use combat drugs to enhance their abilities and supress their fear: The platoon was crossing a meadow at the foot of an emerald-green volcano [. . .] when cap-pistol noises sounded on the slope. Someone screamed for the medic, and Dantzler dove into the grass, fumbling for his ampules. He slipped one […] - [The Store of the Worlds by Robert Sheckley](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6448): The Store of the Worlds by Robert Sheckley (Playboy, September 1959)1 opens with Mr Wayne passing a pile of rubble and coming to a tumbledown building at the end, The Store of the Worlds. Inside, Wayne meets the proprietor, Mr Tompkins, who can supposedly transport people (by means of the rusty hypodermic needle on the table, and “certain gadgets” in the back of the store) to the world of their deepest desires. Tomkins gives a “Many Worlds” explanation to Wayne: “What happens then?” Mr. Wayne asked.“Your mind, liberated from its body, is able to choose from the countless probability worlds […] - [Retention by Alec Nevala-Lee](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6439): Retention by Alec Nevala-Lee (Analog, July-August 2020)1 is in the form of a customer service call where the caller is continually fobbed off when he tries to cancel his contract: Thank you, Perry. How can I help you today?I want to disconnect my security system and close my account, please.I see. Just so we’re on the same page, you’re saying that you have some issues with your current service, and you want to explore your options?That’s not what I’m saying. I’ve decided to disconnect my security system and close my account.I understand. We know that your needs can change and […] - [The Atheling’s Wife by Keith Taylor](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6420): The Atheling’s Wife by Keith Taylor1 (Fantastic, August 1976) is the second story in the writer’s “Bard” series, which is set in sixth century Celtic Britain, and begins with Felimid mac Fal arriving at the hall of King Cedric, looking for passage across the sea and away from the island: The walls were gigantic timbers adzed and fitted together like the ribs of a ship. The corner-posts were carved like frowning gods, and it would have taken three men to stretch their arms around one. The roof was tiled with scales a foot across, from a sea-dragon the king had […] - [Lovers on a Bridge by Alexandra Seidel](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6397): Lovers on a Bridge by Alexandra Seidel (Past Tense, 2020) opens with Gretchen looking at a painting (Woman at the Window by Caspar David Friedrich) which is displayed in a place she does not recognise. Then, as she tries to work out where she is, there is the sound of footsteps in the darkness that surrounds her. She flees, and later comes upon another painting (Rembrandt’s Philosopher in Meditation), and sees a man sitting on a bench in front of it. He tells her that she is no longer in the Louvre. Shortly afterwards, he adds: “I’m The Curator, by […] - [The Moon Fairy by Sofia Samatar](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6388): The Moon Fairy by Sofia Samatar (Conjunctions #74, 2020) begins with a moon fairy arriving in the life of a young girl called Sylvie. Most of the rest of the story details their relationship (as well as Sylvie’s domestic arrangements): [Poor] Mittens, whom no one loved more than Sylvie, was given away to the neighbor children soon after the fairy’s arrival. From the window on the landing overlooking the neighbors’ garden, Mittens could be observed in her new circumstances, mewling piteously as the children forced her into doll clothes, tied her up in a wagon, and dragged it over the […] - [Fog and Pearls at the King’s Cross Junction by Aliya Whiteley](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6373): Fog and Pearls at the King’s Cross Junction by Aliya Whiteley (London Centric, 2020) begins with some parental backstory about the narrator’s unhappy family life and how she runs away from home after receiving a letter from a Mr Roderick, who lives in 1950’s London and wants to employ her as his assistant. After Roderick picks her up at a grimy, post-Blitz railway station, he takes her to his unique home, the “lighthouse”, where they eat oyster stew, and he tells her about his research: “Did you know that I used a dozen oysters in the preparation of this dish? […] - [The Ethnomusicology of the Last Dreadnought by Yoon Ha Lee](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6370): The Ethnomusicology of the Last Dreadnought by Yoon Ha Lee (The Sunday Morning Transport, 5th February 2023) starts with this: It is not true that space is silent.The darkness between stars is full of threnodies and threadbare laments, concertos and cantatas, the names of the dead and the wars that they’ve fed. Few people are unmoved by the strenuous harmonies and the strange hymns. Fewer people still understand their significance, the decayed etymologies and deprecated tongues.It is your solemn task, as an archivist of the last dreadnought, to preserve its unique ethnomusicology for rising generations. After this portentous start the […] - [The Monogamy Hormone by Annalee Newitz](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6340): The Monogamy Hormone by Annalee Newitz (Entanglements, 2020) opens with the narrator, Edwina, smearing bacterial slime on the wall of a preschool lunchroom: this introduces one of the two pieces of SF decoration in this essentially mainstream story (“twenty years ago, nobody would have believed that smearing germs on the walls of schools could save a whole generation from asthma and irritable bowel syndrome”). The other piece of decoration appears when Edwina discusses her love-life problems with two of her friends at lunch1 (Edwina has two lovers), and they suggest that she take a magic pill (sorry, a “Eternalove” hormone […] - [Stepsister by Leah Cypress](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6314): Stepsister by Leah Cypress (F&SF, May-June 2020) opens with King Ciar’s friend, “Lord” Garrin, telling tales of his youth in a tavern. During this we get a chunk of backstory about his royal castle upbringing and, in particular, the story of how Garrin was once whipped for hitting the prince too hard (they were practise-sparring with wooden posts). We also learn that Garrin is a potential claimant for the throne. Then, towards the end of this scene, he is summoned by King Ciar and told to go and retrieve the Queen’s stepsister.We don’t actually see Garrin set off on his […] - [Algy by L. Sprague de Camp](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6307): Algy by L. Sprague de Camp (Fantastic, August 1976) is a ‘Willy Newbury’ story,1 and one which sees Willy and his new wife Denise arriving at his aunt’s vacation camp at Lake Algonquin to rumours of a sea monster. An old friend who works there fills them in: Mike scratched his crisp gray curls. “They do be saying that, on dark nights, something comes up in the lake and shticks its head out to look around. But nobody’s after getting a good look at it. There’s newspaper fellies, and a whole gang of Scotchmen are watching for it, out on […] - [Toy Planes by Tobias S. Buckell](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6299): Toy Planes by Tobias S. Buckell (Nature, 13th October 2005) begins with the pilot of a rocket plane that is about to be launched from an “island nation” having his dreadlocks cut off by his sister: I’d waited long enough. I’d grown dreads because when I studied in the United States I wanted to remember who I was and where I came from as I began to lose my Caribbean accent. But the rocket plane’s sponsor wanted them cut. It would be disaster for a helmet not to have a proper seal in an emergency. Explosive decompression was not something […] - [What We Call Science, They Call Treason by Dominica Phetteplace](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6293): What We Call Science, They Call Treason by Dominica Phetteplace (Asimov’s SF January–February 2023) opens with a billionaire called Rodrigo asking the female narrator of the story to wear a new invention (an “emotional fitness tracker”) to a lunch date with an old college acquaintance.After a long lunch with Will, and surveillance drones photographing them outside the restaurant, he and the narrator are picked up by Rodrigo the billionaire. Rodrigo reveals that he is from a parallel world, and they drive to a building and go through a portal to Rome 2, where they speak Latin, have to wear the […] - [A Feast of Butterflies by Amanda Hollander](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6280): A Feast of Butterflies by Amanda Hollander (F&SF, March-April 2020) opens with a constable, in a far-flung outpost of what seems to be an Asian empire, summoned to see one of the village elders called the “Judge”. When he arrives the constable is told that five boys have gone missing (one of them is the Judge’s grandson), and that a young woman who lives on the other side of the mountain may be responsible.When the constable later arrives at the village where the boys went missing he speaks to an old woman who subsequently takes him to “the girl who […] - [Evil Robot Monkey by Mary Robinette Kowal](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6271): Evil Robot Monkey by Mary Robinette Kowal (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Two, 2008) starts with an augmented chimpanzee called Sly working at a potters’ wheel in what appears to be a zoo enclosure. When a passing school kid bangs on the window, Sly loses his temper and throws clay at his tormentor; then the chimp writes “Ass” on the window and makes explicit sexual gestures at the teacher.Later, one of the chimp’s handlers, a sympathetic man called Vern, comes to talk to Sly about his behaviour, and tells him that his supervisor has instructed him to […] - [Tideline by Elizabeth Bear](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6254): Tideline by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s SF, June 2007) opens with Chalcedony, a damaged combat vehicle, prospecting for “trash jewels” as it works its way along the beach in what eventually turns out to be a devastated future world. Then it meets a feral child called Belvedere. Belvedere asks the robot what it is doing, and Chalcedony tells him that it is gathering “shipwreck beads” to make necklaces. We later find out that it intends making 41 necklaces, one to commemorate each of the members of its combat unit, all of whom are now dead.A relationship develops between the two, beginning […] - [Beyond the Dragon’s Gate by Yoon Ha Lee](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6236): Beyond the Dragon’s Gate by Yoon Ha Lee (Tor.com, 20th May 2020) opens with Anna, an ex-academic who used to work in AI research, arriving at an orbital fortress after being abducted by the military. After seeing the wreckage of several spaceships she learns from the Marshal commanding the military that the AIs that control these vessels have been committing suicide. He then tells her that he wants her to communicate with them mind to mind to find out why (even though her academic partner Rabia died from this process during their research).When the Marshall takes her to see one […] - [Magnificent Maurice or the Flowers of Immortality by Rati Mehrotra](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6217): Magnificent Maurice or the Flowers of Immortality by Rati Mehrotra (Lightspeed #126, November 2020) concerns a cat and a witch that live in a cottage between the roots of Yggdrasil: It stands at the nexus of worlds, dark matter coiling around its roots, the rim of the universe held aloft by its ever-expanding crown. Its branches bend spacetime, its cordate leaves uphold the laws of physics, and its tiny white flowers grant immortality.Let us be more specific. One flower grants immortality, two flowers cause a prolonged and painful death, three flowers the obliteration of an entire species. It does not […] - [Songs of Activation by Andy Dudak](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6211): Songs of Activation by Andy Dudak (Clarkesworld, December 2020) is set in a Galactic Empire future, and opens with Pinander at college reciting one of his set texts. After this, he meets his friends for lunch: Pinander’s mind expands with activated Lore. He sits with Jain and Philo.“Alright?”A penitent Jain hunches over her steaming bowl.Philo studies a scroll. “I’m not going to make it,” he says.“Where are you?” Pinander says.“The Temple Odes.”Pinander explains the Temple Odes were songs. “Some verse lends itself to silent reading, but not the Odes. You should be reciting or singing.”Jain giggles in her soup steam.Pinander […] - [The Garden Where No One Ever Goes by P. H. Lee](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6203): The Garden Where No One Ever Goes by P. H. Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #373, 3rd December 2020) sees a young girl meet her lover in a deserted garden in the middle of a city; there, she gives them a pale red rose and they make love.Later, as the young girl and her sister are getting magic lessons from their mother, the sister mentions that there are pale red roses growing in the deserted gardens, and that it appears like “the sort of magic a foolish young girl might make, if she were slipping away from her house to meet […] - [Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super by A. T. Greenblatt](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6198): Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super by A. T. Greenblatt (Uncanny #34. May-June 2020) opens with the would be “Super” (superhero) of the story, an accountant called Sam Wells (who has some ability to produce fire, although not always in a controlled fashion), interviewing to join his local “Super Team”. Most of the assembled superheroes seems unimpressed or uninterested in him:  “I would really be grateful if I could join you,” Sam says, clasping his hands behind his back to stop them from shaking.Twenty-four pairs of eyes turn to look at him again. But this […] - [Laws of Impermanence by Ken Schneyer](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6191): Laws of Impermanence by Ken Schneyer (Uncanny #36, September-October 2020) is set in a world where text is never permanent but constantly changes: In his Physics, Aristotle declared that textual transmutation accelerates over time, and that its rate depends on the length of the manuscript. No one questioned this doctrine until after Gutenberg, when it was found that even moveable type metamorphosed on its racks. Galileo Galilei was the first to test Aristotle’s assertion by rigorous experiment, creating multiple copies of manuscripts of various length, as well as printed books, and examining them against correctors’ copies repeatedly over a period […] - [The Past, Like a River in Flood by Marissa Lingen](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6178): The Past, Like a River in Flood by Marissa Lingen (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #311, 27th August 2020) sees a geomancer returning to the magical university where she studied twenty years after a disaster that occurred there. She meets her former tutor/advisor, and they go to the walled up “Vault of Potions”—the site of two recent deaths—with the with the aim of opening it and forcing the university to deal with the contamination that has been festering inside ever since: I’d handed those very stones to the professors who were standing in the entrance walling up the Vault, me and Ev […] - [Silver Door Diner by Bishop Garrison](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6163): Silver Door Diner by Bishop Garrison (FIYAH #16, Autumn 2020) opens with an unaccompanied young boy going into a diner. Tammy the waitress offers him some apple pie if she’ll tell him who he is and who looks after him. He replies that he is on his own, and then she gets ever more enigmatic answers to further questions, including the fact he is studying “how this world ended”. Then, when Tammy asks the boy what game he is playing, he tells her this: “Susan Culpepper. Eighth grade. In the lunchroom. You made fun of her clothes in front of […] - [Egoli by T. L. Huchu](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6154): Egoli by T. L. Huchu (African-futurism, 2020) is an autobiographical piece about an old Shona1 woman which is told in an almost stream-of-consciousness second person: You remember [Grandfather Panganayi] was proud of that house, the only one in the compound with a real bed and fancy furniture, whose red floor smelled of Cobra and whose whitewashed walls looked stunning in the sunlight compared to the muddy colours of the surrounding huts, just as he was proud of the wireless he’d purchased in Fort Victoria when he was sent there for his training. Through his wireless radio with shiny knobs that […] - [Bloody Man by Avram Davidson](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6138): Bloody Man by Avram Davidson (Fantastic, August 1976) begins with Jack Limekiller, a Canadian ex-pat living in British Hidalgo (British Honduras), asking Archbishop Le Beau, who is scaling fish, for work: “They tell me . . . ” Limekiller hesitated, briefly. Was it My Lord? Your Lordship? Or was it . . . it was, wasn’t it . . . Your Grace?Some saints levitate. Some are telepathic. It was widely said and widely believed that William Constance Christian Le Beau was a saint.“Just ‘Archbishop’ will do, Mr. Limekiller,” the old man said, without looking up. Scrip . . . scrop […] - [Ocean by Steven Utley](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6130): Ocean by Steven Utley (Fantastic, August 1976) opens with the female narrator, who has “flippers and gills now”, poisoned by the spines of a sea urchin—but she escapes its effects by surfacing and becoming a flying creature.The next section describes an ongoing struggle she is having with a man who is either (a) interfering with her (possibly prosthetic) body, or (b) operating her controls (she may be a spaceship), or (c) she is a personality living in a ship’s computer. Later we learn (spoiler) that it is the latter, and that she is on a generation ship where everyone died […] - [Spirit Level by John Kessel](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6109): Spirit Level by John Kessel (F&SF, July-August 2020) opens with Michael, the story’s middle-aged and maritally separated narrator, waking in his parents’ house in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. On his way he sees the ghost of his wife Lauren—who asks why he left her after twenty-eight years, and demands the truth. She then walks into the living room and disappears: He touched his hand to his head. He took a deep breath.Yes, he was awake. He went to the bathroom, relieved himself, then returned to the bedroom.He told himself it was some vivid fantasy, […] - [The Stairs in the Crypt by Clark Ashton Smith & Lin Carter](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6100): The Stairs in the Crypt by Clark Ashton Smith & Lin Carter (Fantastic, August 1976) opens with the death (“the inexorable termination of his earthly existence”) of the necromancer Avalzaunt, and his subsequent entombment: If the pupils of Avalzaunt assumed that they had taken their last farewells of their master, however, it eventuated that in this assumption they were seriously mistaken. For, after some years of repose within the sepulchre, vigor seeped back again into the brittle limbs of the mummified enchanter and sentience gleamed anew in his jellied and sunken eyes. At first the partially-revived lich lay somnolent and […] - [Tooniverse Telemarketer by Rudy Rucker](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6094): Tooniverse Telemarketer by Rudy Rucker (Asimov’s SF, January–February 2022) opens with Dora Schreck, (who is married to Max) dealing with the most recent of a number of irritating telemarketing calls the house AI has let through. We then learn that (a) Max is suffering from Axle-8, a disease that apparently originated in sub-space, and (b) the house AI has budded a daughter who, while working for the neighbours, sent their dog to sub-space. The daughter AI later turns up in the form of a dog house after Dora trims her own house AI’s tendrils to reduce its consciousness.Further wackiness follows, […] - [Victory Citrus is Sweet by Thoraiya Dyer](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6062): Victory Citrus is Sweet by Thoraiya Dyer (Tor.com, 7th September 2022) has an intriguing opening where the narrator of the piece, Victory Citrus, details one of the hazards of space travel: Cosmic rays buggered up my right arm just after we took the mission.That is, some stupid high-energy proton started up an osteosarc in my ulna, which is a new one for me. Last cancer I got was lympho, in my lung. Which was annoying, because you can’t isolate and freeze a lung and keep working.Lung isolation means a stupid induced coma while the new cells grow and Printer Two […] - [Choke by Suyi Davies Okungbowa](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6057): Choke by Suyi Davies Okungbowa (Tor.com, 14th September 2022) sees the narrator, Kédiké, accompanying Afonso, a fellow academic and friend who “worships free food”, to a family assigned by the International Friends program: The house, when you arrive, is more conspicuous than you had expected. Apparently, it used to be a church, back when this town was still a part of Mexico. The Spanish architecture and Infant of Prague statues, both of which you recognize from your Catholic upbringing, are huge tells. When you go past the motion-sensored outdoor lights, the statues come to life, casting slant shadows, like sentries […] - [How the Crown Prince of Jupiter Undid the Universe, or, The Full Fruit of Love’s Full Folly by P. H. Lee](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6047): How the Crown Prince of Jupiter Undid the Universe, or, The Full Fruit of Love’s Full Folly by P. H. Lee (Tor.com, 12th October 2022) opens with the Crown Prince of Jupiter becoming infatuated with the Princess of the Sun: He was in love, and his heart knew no persuasion. “Oh look at her,” he would say, admiring the tiny portrait, “what radiant beauty!”“Her radiance,” commented his advisors, “is due entirely to her nuclear fusion. If your royal highness was in her presence, even a moment, then by those self-same processes you would find yourself instantly annihilated.”“Are we not all […] - [Of All the New Yorks in All the Worlds by Indrapramit Das](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6035): Of All the New Yorks in All the Worlds by Indrapramit Das (Tor.com, 19th October 2022) opens with the narrator, a multiple worlds traveller, meeting Aditi-0, the original iteration of his ex-girlfriend Aditi-1, who he met in New York City-5 while travelling across the timelines (NYCs 2-4 didn’t have an Aditi in them). We subsequently learn that he met Aditi-1 after he was tasked to take a message from Aditi-0 to the versions of herself on other Earths (her “altselves”).The rest of the story is mostly an account of the time he spends with Aditi-0, during which they talk about […] - [Quandry Aminu vs The Butterfly Man by Rich Larson](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6016): Quandry Aminu vs The Butterfly Man by Rich Larson (Tor.com, 21st September 2022) opens with an unnamed woman arriving at a makeshift biolab run by a man called Jow. After some brief conversation she opens a pouch containing something that looks like the cross between a foetus and a homunculus, and they watch it grow in the bathtub of biomass that Jow has prepared: There’s a rattling gurgle, like rainwater racing through pipes during a storm, and the tub starts to churn. A wet pink fleck strikes Jow’s boot. He steps back, heart humming, knees shaky. The biomass is sluicing […] - [Skeleton Song by Seanan McGuire](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=6001): Skeleton Song by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com, 26th October 2022) is one of her “Wayward Children” series (Every Heart a Doorway, etc.)1 and opens with sunset on Mariposa, with the abuelas singing the summoning song that reanimates the dead skeletons of this world: In the palace, in the curtained bower reserved for the Princess, a scattering of bones dusted with diamond and amber began to stir, tempted into motion by the song rising from below. On the other side of the room, a terrible creature raised its head and watched.It was strange and fleshy, shaped as a skeleton was shaped, but […] - [The Last Question by Isaac Asimov](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5988): The Last Question by Isaac Asimov (Science Fiction Quarterly, November 1956)1 is a one of his “Multivac” stories about a giant computer. In this tale, after the computer has been running for several decades, it finally develops a system that provides unlimited solar power for humanity. After this achievement, we then see the Multivac’s two attendants, who are hiding from the publicity in an underground chamber, having a drink and relaxing. Later, an argument develops when one of the two, Adel, contends that that the solar power supply will last forever: Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick […] - [The Answer by Fredric Brown](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5983): The Answer by Fredric Brown (Angels and Spaceships, 1954) opens with a scientist called Dwar Ev completing a connection and then moving towards a switch: The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe—ninety-six billion planets—into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one super-calculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.  p. 36 Ev then asks the super-computer if there is a God, and it replies (spoiler), “Yes, now there is a God”. Then, when Ev rushes towards the […] - [(Emet) by Lauren Ring](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5952): (Emet) by Lauren Ring (F&SF, July-August 2022)1 opens with Chaya in her countryside home watching a golem dig up dandelions in her garden—these creatures of Jewish folklore are created daily by Chaya and linked to her home network: After a few false starts, Chaya has the bestowal of life down to a science. Each morning at dawn, she molds assistants from clay, connects them to her wireless network just like any smart watch or Bluetooth dongle, and passes them the day’s variables: a list of chores, with each step painstakingly defined. The golem in charge of the dandelions finished early, […] - [Just Enough Rain by P. H. Lee](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5940): Just Enough Rain by P. H. Lee (Giganotosaurus, 1st May 2021)1 opens with an arresting first line: I wasn’t surprised when God showed up for Mom’s funeral. They’d always been close. After the funeral service is over, Annie goes over to talk with God and they have a long and wandering conversation (His friendship with her mother, His sending angels to remove the sarcomas produced by a previous bout of cancer, etc.) before God tells her He is thinking of bringing Annie’s mother back to life. Once He ascertains that Annie has no objections (expected inheritance, etc.) there are sounds […] - [A Pall of Moondust by Nick Wood](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5928): A Pall of Moondust by Nick Wood (Omenana, April 2021) opens with the female narrator dreaming about an airlock accident on the Moon: I dreamed, and shook awake, as the two bodies flew away from me.Dreams live.Scott is the one keying in the Airlock code, mouth O-ing in shock at the tug and hiss of escaping air behind her. “Helmets on,” she says, but it is already too late, the door to the Moon behind her is wide as a monster’s maw.Bailey is fiddling with the solar array on the Rover, his helmet playfully dangled on the joystick for a […] - [Hunting Problem by Robert Sheckley](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5915): Hunting Problem by Robert Sheckley (Galaxy, September 1955) opens with Drog arriving late at a meeting of Soaring Falcon Patrol (Drog “hurtles down from the ten thousand foot level”). Drog is chastised by his Patrol Leader, who then recites the Scouter Creed to the assembled scouts: “We, the Young Scouters of the planet Elbonai, pledge to perpetuate the skills and virtues of our pioneering ancestors. For that purpose, we Scouters adopt the shape our forebears were born to when they conquered the virgin wilderness of Elbonai. We hereby resolve—”Scouter Drog adjusted his hearing receptors to amplify the Leader’s soft voice. […] - [Let All the Children Boogie by Sam J. Miller](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5889): Let All the Children Boogie by Sam J. Miller (Tor.com, January–February 2021) starts with the narrator Laurie remembering the time she first heard Iggy Pop’s The Passenger on the radio and how, at the end of the track, there was an interruption, “staticky words, saying what might have been ‘Are you out there?’”Then, next day in a local thrift shop, Laurie hears someone singing the song: The singer must have sensed me staring, because they turned to look in my direction. Shorter than me, hair buzzed to the scalp except for a spiked stripe down the center.“The Graveyard Shift,” I […] - [Laughter Among the Trees by Suzan Palumbo](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5877): Laughter Among the Trees by Suzan Palumbo (The Dark #69, February 2021)1 opens with Ana driving to a park in Canada, during which she recalls (a) her arrival in the country as the child of West Indian immigrants, (b) her early days in school, and (c) the birth of her sister Sab. Ana then recalls a childhood family camping trip where her younger sister disappeared during the night (Sab left the tent—against Ana’s wishes—with Greg, a boy she had been playing with earlier that day). Sab was never seen again, nor was the boy—and there was no evidence he had […] - [For Lack of a Bed by John Wiswell](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5863): For Lack of a Bed by John Wiswell (Diabolical Plots #74, 16th April 2021) opens with Noémi trying to relieve her constant pain by sleeping on the floor. While she distracts herself with social media, her friend Tariq texts with the offer of a sofa. But there is a catch though—apparently someone died on it. But, as the sofa is clean, Noémi accepts the offer, and Tariq, who is actually standing outside her door, brings it in. Noémi subsequently sleeps well.Noémi is then woken late the next morning by Lili, her boss at the pet shop where she works; Lili […] - [The Metric by David Moles](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5843): The Metric by David Moles (Asimov’s SF, May-June 2021) opens on a far future Earth with a spaceship crashing near the city of Septentrion after the vessel is forced out of the metric (a universe wide system developed aeons ago which has its nexus on Earth). When a rescue party from the nearby city of Septentrion arrives, one of the members called Piper spots something in the wreckage, and he races his twin Petal to get to it.When Petal arrives first and picks up a small sphere a stranger appears beside him and starts talking to the pair in an […] - [The Dark Ride by John Kessel](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5812): The Dark Ride by John Kessel (F&SF, January-February 2021)1 gets off to an engrossing start at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, where Leon Czolgosz is trying to assassinate President McKinley. When the crowds prevent Leon from getting near enough he decides to wait until the President returns to visit the Temple of Music.To fill the time Leon wanders around the grounds of the Exposition looking at the exhibits and later decides to go on “A Trip to the Moon”. This is supposedly an aerial trip to the moon followed by an excursion to an underground city for an audience […] - [Strange Wine by Harlan Ellison](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5802): Strange Wine by Harlan Ellison (Amazing, June 1976) begins with two Highway Patrolmen taking Willis Kaw to identify the body of his daughter after she has been involved in a car accident (“The dark brown smear that began sixty yards west of the covered shape disappeared under the blanket”). We then see more of Kaw’s travails: he is a diabetic; his son, who is ninety-five per cent disabled, lives in a hospital; his house roof leaks in heavy rain; and so on. During these various trials Kaw thinks that he may be an alien: He dreamed of his home world […] - [Good and Faithful Servant by Thomas F. Monteleone](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5786): Good and Faithful Servant by Thomas F. Monteleone (Amazing, March 1976)1 begins with an exoskeleton clad future soldier called Denek reporting to his controller in Chicago that he has located approaching intruders and is going to engage. The subsequent combat sequence (which extends through the night and into the next day) sees him destroy three vehicles with laser and mortar fire. During the action we learn that Chicago may be the only world that Denek knows: He wanted to finish this last one and return home. He missed the protective shell of the City, wrapped around him and the others […] - [Stone Circle by Lisa Tuttle](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5761): Stone Circle by Lisa Tuttle (Amazing, March 1976)1 opens with the narrator (after a short passage where, I think, she fantasises about being a huge stone statue) performing oral sex on a government inspector in exchange for meat (there are further indications that set this story in a totalitarian and oppressive society). After the inspector leaves, the building manager comes sniffing around and agrees to cook the meat for her.When the narrator is later out in the street she ends up saving a young woman called Kit (who is under the influence of a drug called “Chill”) from being run […] - [The Album of Dr. Moreau by Daryl Gregory](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5736): The Album of Dr. Moreau by Daryl Gregory (Tor Novellas, 2021)1 opens with Bobby, a human-ocelot hybrid and one of the members of the boy band WyldBoyz, waking up after a huge after-tour drink and drug taking binge to find his manager, Dr M., lying beside him in bed. He has been brutally murdered and Bobby is covered in blood.Bobby goes to get hold of the rest of the band members, who are also human-animal hybrids, and they assemble in Bobby’s room to examine the body and discuss what they are going to do. During this they talk about what […] - [The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr by George R. R. Martin](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5722): The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr by George R. R. Martin (Fantastic, May 1976) opens with Sharra passing through a world gate. She has injuries from her fight with the gate’s guardian, and washes her wounds before falling asleep in a sheltered spot in the wood. Then Sharra regains consciousness to find that she is being lifted into the arms of a man. She is too weak to struggle, and he takes her to a nearby castle that was not there before.When Sharra next wakes up she finds out that her saviour is called Laren Dorr, and the rest of […] - [By Any Other Name by Spider Robinson](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5677): By Any Other Name by Spider Robinson (Analog, November 1976)1 is a post-collapse story—this time humanity’s fall is caused by the intentional release of a virus that hugely enhances human sense of smell and causes what is known as the Hypersomic Plague: Within forty-eight hours [of the release of the virus] every man, woman and child left alive on earth possessed a sense of smell approximately a hundred times more efficient than that of any wolf that ever howled.During those forty-eight hours, a little less than a fifth of the planet’s population perished, by whatever means they could devise, and […] - [The Burning Man by Ray Bradbury](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5666): The Burning Man by Ray Bradbury (Long After Midnight, 1976)1 opens with a boy called Doug and his Aunt Neva driving to the lake in a “rickety Ford” on a baking hot day. On the way they stop to pick up a hitchhiker, a strange man who, as soon he gets in the car, starts raving about the heat, whether it can make you crazy, and various other things. Eventually, after asking Neva if she thinks there is genetic evil in the world, he articulates his strangest idea yet: “Now,” said the man, squinting one eye at the cool lake […] - [Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Richard Cowper](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5650): Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Richard Cowper (F&SF, March 1976) opens1 with Peter, an old and itinerant tale-spinner, and Tom, the piper of the story, on the road to York as the third millennium approaches in a drowned, climate-changed, and post-collapse Britain.2 The pair pause by a stream to catch some dinner, which Tom apparently does by charming the fish out of the water with his pipe; while Tom plays Peter has a vision of a dragonfly, and then hears splashing when Tom successfully catches a huge salmon.We see a further demonstration of Tom’s powers when the pair […] - [If the Martians Have Magic by P. Djèlí Clark](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5619): If the Martians Have Magic by P. Djèlí Clark (Uncanny, September-October 2021)1 appears to be set in an alternate world where magic was discovered between the second and third Martian invasions of Earth and then used to defeat the aliens in that final encounter (the first invasion, in 1897, is presumably the one recounted in H. G. Wells The War of the Worlds; the third encounter takes place in 1903).The story itself opens in Marrakesh some thirty years after the end of the war and sees a Mambo (voodoo priestess) called Minette, after initially negotiating the city traffic in a […] - [That Story Isn’t the Story by John Wiswell](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5605): That Story Isn’t the Story by John Wiswell (Uncanny, November-December 2021)1 opens with Anton leaving a vampire household with the help of an old friend called Grigorii. As they leave the house in Grigorii’s car, Anton sees Mr Bird (the vampire) return: A black town car trails up the street toward them. Sleek and black, with that short club of a man Walter at the wheel. Mr. Bird’s senior familiar. Anton knows who sits in the tinted windows and the shadows of the rear seats.From inside the Kia, Grigorii pops the passenger door open. “Come on, man.”Is blood spotting in […] - [Unseelie Brothers, Ltd. by Fran Wilde](https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5601): Unseelie Brothers, Ltd. by Fran Wilde (Uncanny, May/Jun 2021)1 begins with Mrs Vanessa Saunders and her Fête Noire Charity Ball co-chairs receiving a photo message informing them that Unseelie Brothers Ltd., a shop that makes bespoke ball gowns, are back in town.Saunders quickly returns home to tell her daughter Rie (Merielle), and her niece Sera (from whose point of view the rest of the story is told) to go and find the shop. When the pair eventually locate the premises of Unseelie Brothers Ltd. (it does not give out its address or phone number), the story starts falling into standard […] [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)