Ho ho ho – Merry Christmas! Feel like doing some Christmas reading? If so then here are several Christmas themed science fiction short stories to warm your heart. Well, maybe “warm your heart” isn’t the right choice of words… how about “to please the geek in you” or “to satisfy your Christmas urges!” Whoa! Anyway, here you go – my list of 5 Science Fiction Christmas Stories:

• The Best Christmas Ever by James Patrick Kelly – Robotic servants throw a Christmas party for the last man on Earth.
• All Seated on the Ground by Connie Willis – glaring aliens have landed in Denver during the Holiday season.
• Julian: A Christmas Story by Robert Charles Wilson – the President’s nephew and his friend celebrate a far-future Christmas.
• A Woman’s Best Friend by Robert Reed – an alternate reality George Bailey shows up on a strange world.
• ‘Tis the Season by China Miéville – a man takes his teenage daughter to the one official Christmas party in London’s highly privatized holiday season.

If you know of any other science fiction short stories that would make for good Christmas reading then please share with us!

If you liked this article be sure to check out my other posts about Bizarrely Connected Stories.

In honor of Halloween this coming weekend, I decided to share some of my favorite scary / Halloween-themed science fiction short stories. Now don’t forget, none of these are true horror stories (well, except for one) but I figured that they are creepy enough to qualify as good Halloween stories. So here we go – my list of 10 Science Fiction Halloween Stories:

• Through Thy Bounty by Lucy A. Snyder – mean aliens who love to eat human flesh!
• The Colour Out Of Space by H.P. Lovecraft – New England is blighted by a haunted meteorite!
• The Father-Thing by Philip K. Dick – You’re NOT my Dad!
• When Thorns Are the Tips of Trees by Jason Sanford – trees with ghosts in them!
• Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel – Frankenstein is in England bothering the Pride and Prejudice people!
• Memorare by Gene Wolfe – tombs in space!
• The Dead by Michael Swanwick – a zombie workforce!
• Shoggoths in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear – Researcher finds Lovecraftian water monsters!
• It’s a Good Life by Jerome Bixby – a cruel boy gets whatever he wishes for… so don’t make him angry!
• The Fog Horn by Ray Bradbury – ancient sea monster makes its yearly trek to try and woo a lighthouse!

If you know of any other science fiction short stories that would make for good Halloween reading then please share with us!

If you liked this article be sure to check out my other posts about Bizarrely Connected Stories.

Aah, the allure of finding some ancient edifice. Whether it be real life archaeologists in Egypt, or outlaw xeno-biologists at the edge of our galaxy, there is just something oh so romantic about huge, old monuments – especially if we can’t figure out who built them. Here is my list of 4 Science Fiction Stories Containing Ancient Alien Monuments:

• Beyond the Wall by Justin Stanchfield – a UN security team chases a pirate ship to the base of a controversial alien wall.
• The Ghost Pit by Stephen Baxter – a team of alien hunters crash land on a moon containing an impossibly long bridge.
• Melville on Iapetus by Jack McDevitt – a group of astronauts discover an ancient statue on one of Saturn’s moons.
• The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke – the classic story of an ancient monument discovered on the moon.

What other science fiction short stories have you read that contain ancient alien monuments?

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A few weeks ago when I was researching stories about powerful children I discovered that I had also read several short stories about kids who possessed some sort of powerful object. These stories were cool because they usually turned the tables, somehow, in favor of the kids. Aah, I just wish I could have been one of those kids when I was little! Anyway, I figured this would make a cool list of bizarrely connected stories too, so here we go – my list of 5 Science Fiction Stories About Kids With Powerful Objects:

• The Ray-Gun: A Love Story by James Alan Gardner – an unpopular teenage boy finds an alien ray gun in the forest.
• Just Before Recess by James Van Pelt – a boy finds a small sun in his school desk.
• Mimsy Were the Borogoves by Lewis Padgett – two young children find a box of toys sent back in time from millions of years in the future.
• The Faery Handbag by Kelly Link – about a girl whose grandmother has a handbag with a whole village of fairies in it.
• The Veldt by Ray Bradbury – a couple of parents become concerned when their children use a virtual nursery to recreate an African veldt.

What other science fiction short stories have you read about kids with powerful objects?

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I am starting to realize that several science fiction short stories contain human characters whose bodies have been modified in some way, and usually it is to serve some special purpose in the story. Sometimes the whole story line is based on the modifications, and other times altered humans are just background noise in the stories. Either way it makes for some very interesting reading, so without further ado here is a list of 6 Science Fiction Stories Containing Altered Human Bodies:

• Scanners Live in Vain by Cordwainer Smith – a sensory deprived man tries to stop his Scanner brothers from killing a human who has just made a great scientific breakthrough.
• The Fluted Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi – a girl sculpted for music plans revenge of the ruler of her fief.
• Stable Strategies for Middle Management by Eileen Gunn – a woman undertakes a drastic form of bioengineering as a way to move up the corporate ladder.
• Riding the Giganotosaur by Michael Swanwick – a man has his brain grafted onto a dinosaur so he can run free and wild in the unspoiled Cretaceous period.
• Desertion by Clifford D. Simak – the director of a Jovian survey dome changes men into the local life form so they can explore the planet.
• Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson – sensitive information locked in a man’s head, a girl with mirrored eye implants and people with canine teeth – what more could you ask for!

What other science fiction stories have you read that contain altered human bodies?

If you liked this article be sure to check out my other posts about Bizarrely Connected Stories.

I always wanted to be a “powerful” kid when I was growing up. I tried lifting weights, and exercising, and studying hard, and eating my Wheaties and all that stuff – but I’m not quite sure I made it. Oh well, maybe that is just the price I have to pay for growing up in the 80’s!

What constitutes a “powerful child?” Well, for the purposes of this list it is children who have some special ability, are super intelligent, have political clout or are tactical geniuses. How’s that? Hopefully it works for you because here are 7 Science Fiction Stories About Powerful Children:

• It’s a Good Life by Jerome Bixby – a small boy uses his special powers to terrorize the town in which he lives.
• Star Light, Star Bright by Alfred Bester – powerful people search for a boy with some amazing knowledge.
• The First Men by Howard Fast – a group of gifted children are raised in a controlled environment and eventually evolve into super humans.
• Burn by James Patrick Kelly – a farmer accidentally summons the young ruler of a distant world to help fight forest fires.
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – The 11 year old military genius and his fateful game.
• None So Blind by Joe Haldeman – a brilliant boy and a talented girl who join forces to change the intelligence paradigm.
• Jeffty is Five by Harlan Ellison – a five year old boy who never ages.

What other science fiction stories have you read that are about powerful children?

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There is something magical about the ocean. I spent a couple of years living in the Micronesian islands, and when I came back to my land-locked state I missed the ocean intensely. Although I rarely see the ocean now-a-days, each time I do I find myself re-captivated by it. Not living by the ocean sucks! Oh well, at least I can read about the it right? Here are 5 awesome science fiction short stories that take place (mostly) on the ocean:

• Oceanic by Greg Egan – The religious conflicts of Martin, a Freelander who lives in organic hulls on the oceans of Covenant.
• I, Row-Boat by Cory Doctorow – a sentient row-boat gets caught up in a reef’s grudge war against humanity.
• The Fog Horn by Ray Bradbury – two men in a rural lighthouse witness an ancient creature rise from the deep.
• The Green Leopard Plague by Walter Jon Williams – a genetically altered mermaid researches why the founder of her society went missing for three weeks.
• Shoggoths in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear – a college professor discovers the truth about a dangerous and ancient sea creature off the coast of Maine.

What other science fiction stories have you read that take place on the ocean?

If you liked this article be sure to check out my other posts about Bizarrely Connected Stories.

I like to consider myself an amateur linguist. I have made serious attempts at learning five foreign languages: Spanish, Chamorro, Pohnpeian, Japanese and Arabic. Whew! I think that is pretty good… for an American anyway. So when I see or read science fiction stories about humans easily communicating with aliens on first contact (Star Trek, anyone?) I always roll my eyes. On the other hand, I absolutely love it when humans find out how difficult it is to communicate with alien races – something that I think is probably much more likely to occur. Anyway, here are 6 great science fiction short stories about difficult alien languages:

• Tk’tk’tk by David D. Levine – a salesman on a strange world discovers a spiritual restaurant.
• From Babel’s Fallen Glory We Fled by Michael Swanwick – a human and a millipede-like alien flee the destruction of a magnificent city.
• All Seated on the Ground by Connie Willis – a newspaper columnist investigates the glaring aliens that have landed in Denver.
• Omnilingual by H. Beam Piper – some of the first scientists to Mars search for the key to understanding the Martian language.
• A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny – a gifted linguist is the first human allowed to read sacred Martian texts.
• Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang – an American linguist learns the written language “Heptapod B” and discovers some amazing side effects.

If you know of any other stories about difficult alien languages please enlighten us! Thanks.

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Being an avid hiker myself, I enjoy reading about amazing treks made by story characters – especially when they are such long distances! Here are four awesome science fiction short stories about really, REALLY long walks:

• The Very Pulse of the Machine by Michael Swanwick – an astronaut crashes her rover while exploring the surface of Io, and has to walk back to base.
• A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum – another crash, but this time the astronaut’s 800 mile walk brings him into contact with loads of really strange life forms.
• Tower of Babylon by Ted Chiang – an ancient copper miner climbs the famed tower all the way to the brink of heaven.
• A Walk In The Sun by Geoffrey A. Landis – the sole survivor of a crash on the moon (another crash… jeez!) has to keep her solar powered suit in the sun until help arrives from Earth.

Which one wins the award for longest trek? Hmm… hard to say… its a toss-up between “Tower of Babylon” in which it takes “a full month and a half” to walk to the top of the tower, and “A Walk In The Sun” where our protaginist walks 12,000 kilometers around the circumference of the moon! I’m gonna have to say that “A Walk In The Sun” wins!

Hooray for long, deadly treks… and blisters.

Enjoy!

• Old MacDonald Had a Farm by Mike Resnick – A reporter visits a farm of genetically engineered super animals designed to solve the world’s shortage of food, but there is a big problem – they talk!
• In The Pound, Near Breaktime by Kent Brewster – Would you take your animal to the pound if it begged you not to?
• The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick – A talking dog and his partner try to bilk Buckingham Palace out of some of its wealth.
• Evil Robot Monkey by Mary Robinette Kowal – A grumpy chimp antagonizes school kids.
• Sergeant Chip by Bradley Denton – A very special military dog gives his point of view about going to war.

If you know of any other science fiction stories that include talking animals please let us know by leaving a comment.

Enjoy!