Are You a Fan of King Arthur?

I have always found the legend of King Arthur to be fascinating and fun to read. This easy-to-read and fun story provides a bit of a modern twist on one of the knights from that famous tale.

Non-Spoiler Summary

Sean is in big trouble. With only days before the committee arrives to evaluate his final survey report, the computers on Nemuria have contracted a nasty virus and are holding his data hostage. There is one small chance, however, and that is the small nanny robot which sometimes stores back-ups. But the virus has caused it to believe it is an Arthurian knight… and the only way to fix it is to provide the mythical “Questing Beast” so that it can capture it – then the virus will purge itself and Sean can get his report done. Or at least that is what he’s hoping for. He has to pull every string he has to get the beast made, but even that may not be enough.

Some Interesting Tidbits

• Word count: 5,241 (10 pages)
• Did you know that Ilona Andrews is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team? Yep. You can learn more about this creative team on their web site.

Where To Find Questing Beast

• This short story was first published in issue #23 (June 2006) of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.
• "Questing Beast" can be read (or downloaded in many formats) for free online at Smashwords.

Craving More SF Stories Like This One?

If you liked "Questing Beast" then you may also enjoy “From The Lost Diary Of TreeFrog7″ by Nnedi Okorafor – about a team of jungle explorers who are searching for an ancient computerized plant.

Non-Spoiler summary:

Foster is a young boy, who only wants one thing for his birthday: a nuclear bunker. Everyone else in the neighborhood has one, you see, except for him. His friends keep telling him he’s gonna die when the Reds drop the bomb. His teachers constantly scold him for failing his nuclear readiness exercises. On the TV, the Reds keep coming up with new, deadlier weapons every week.

Well, Foster’s had enough. He’s tired of being scared. He’s gonna do whatever it takes. He’s gonna scream, he’s gonna cry, he’s gonna cuss and plead, till he gets that bunker.

My thoughts while reading it:

‘What the hell, that’s no way to talk to a kid!’ ‘You shove that bunker where the sun don’t shine, Mrs Carlyle!’ ‘The Reds made a WHAT?’ ‘Dude, buy the damn bunker, it’s for your own safety!’ ‘Yaaaay!’ ‘Aaaawww’

The technical stuff:

• Word Count: 7,000 words
• Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Go check your dad’s old stash of scifi books. The best ones are probably written by this guy.

Where you can find it:

• In his collected works anthology The Father-Thing (available in every online bookstore worth its salt)
• This story is currently not available online. Which means you’re gonna have to buy it. And trust me, this is a sound investment

By-Line:
Konstantine Paradias is a short story science fiction and fantasy writer, who has his own blog, called Shapescapes. There you can find a free novel, called Stone Cold Countenance as well as a series of sci-fi comic book reviews. For comments, requests or plain old contact, you can find him at kosparadias@gmail.com

Do You Have Arachnophobia?

Are you afraid of spiders? If you are then don’t feel bad because I have an older brother who is terrified of them too! I must confess that after reading this story I became a little jumpy at the sight of them. It is a great read though – especially if you already dislike the little buggers!

Non-Spoiler Summary

The leader, the gaunt man and the little man are chasing 3 fugitives on horseback when they happen on a great, gray valley. Yeah, it is a little bit mysterious as well as creepy – but that doesn’t stop the from charging into it. It is when they are past the point of no return that they start to notice weird things – like the mad dog that completely ignores them, and the increasingly jittery horses. But once they see the strange haze-balls blowing down the valley they start to get concerned… but will it be too little too late? Hmm – yeah, probably!

Some Interesting Tidbits

• Word count: 4,153 (7 pages)
• Special thanks to the members of the Classic Science Fiction group – whose engaging discussion of this story made me want to read it!
• Did you know that H.G. Wells is often referred to as one of the “fathers of science fiction?” Yep. You can learn more about this classic science fiction author on Wikipedia.

Where To Find The Valley of Spiders

• This short story was can be read for free online at The Literature Network.
• "The Valley of Spiders" is also included in the anthology Great Tales of Horror & the Supernatural.

Craving More SF Stories Like This One?

If you liked "The Valley of Spiders" then you may also enjoy “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs – about a family who discovers a magical talisman that grants 3 wishes.

Time travel stories have almost run their course: whether you’re reading The Time Traveler’s Wife or a classic by Jules Verne, it seems that man’s obsession with time travel has gotten tiring, if not overused. However, once in a while, there comes a story that makes you actually think: what if time travel was truly possible? What would happen? Where would you go?

In Tim Maly’s short Time, Again, we find ourselves looking at the world through the eyes of a man desperately in love, but confused in a world increasingly plagued by war. He is nameless, perhaps adding more to his believability. He loves a woman who travels through time, who loves the technology and is well versed in it.

Like The Time Traveler’s Wife, his likewise nameless wife comes back several times, and at different ages. She is young, full of life and brilliance; she is almost a child, but with wisdom beyond her years; she is his age, and his ardent lover. They make love, they kiss, they speak to each other as equals, she comforts him as she leaves.

However, unlike The Time Traveler’s Wife, Tim Maly’s story is short, succinct, and packed with emotion without going overboard. The story is not so much about the technology of time travel itself, but its impact. It is here where Maly works his magic with his prose: as the husband grieves and nurses his fears about the war, he struggles to remember the many times his wife returned, in different ways.

The past, present, and future tense all merge and interact, like a swarm of bees that is as incongruous from the outside looking in – but that forms a pattern that the reader/observer can easily follow. Maly’s prose is easy, and his imagery is vivid. He shows more, tells less, from the broken egg on the floor that rebuilds itself – a testament to a broken time machine and changed patterns of time – to his lead character’s eyes lingering over his woman’s body, even as she tries to preoccupy him with her knowledge of time travel.

The lead character is developed strongly, with an even pace. He comes off as a typical macho man who wants to control and understand everything, and yet who hides his broken heart. And yes, she does break his heart, in this story without end that travels eternally through time.

Maly’s story is surprisingly easy to follow, even with its jumps through tenses. His prose is his strongest point, as he shows how a brief tear in time changes lives completely.

You can read the whole story here http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TimeAgai.shtml

Inez Ponce de Leon has a background in molecular biology and science communication. She loves to write on a wide variety of topics, even Procera AVH.

Non-spoiler summary:

Ed Morris is a citizen of Earth, who works for an accounting firm on Ganymede. Every day, during his daily trans-solar commute, he is bombarded by animated billboards, radio and tv ads. When he has finally run this gauntlet, he reaches his home planet, only to be beset by swarms of robot salesmen, who pester him. Even at home, the barrage will not cease.

Ed Morris finally realizes he has had enough, so he pleads with his wife Molly to relocate to an extra-sola colony, where people live their lives in peace and quiet, ‘like they used to do in the 20^th century’. Molly won’t even consider it, when suddenly Ed’s worst nightmare comes to life, in the form of a Fully Automated Self-Regulating Android (Domestic use only).

What I think:

Opinions on Philip K. Dick’s tone of his work vary, but everyone can agree on one thing: the man writes like an angel; he is also terribly depressing. This story is both the best and the worst one in his anthology The Father-Thing (buy it now, it’s awesome). It’s the best because it actually addresses the contemporary problem of media saturation and the increasing aggressiveness of ad campaigns, which so far have intruded into every aspect of our lives. It’s also damn funny.

It’s the worst because of its ending. Its ending is, in fact, so depressing, that even Philip Dick apologizes for it at the end of the book.

Boring Technical Stuff:

• Word Count: 5,000
• Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. His work is legion and I suggest you start as soon as possible, or you’ll die unfulfilled.

Where you can find this story:

• In his collected works anthology The Father-Thing (available in every online bookstore worth its salt)
• This story is currently not available online. Which means you’re gonna have to buy it. And trust me, this is a sound investment

By-Line:

Konstantine Paradias is a short story science fiction and fantasy writer, who has his own blog, called Shapescapes (shapescapes). For comments or plain old contact, you can find him at kosparadias@gmail.com

If you swapped minds with your dog, what would you do? Go to the mall, sneak into locker rooms, or chase cats all day? Now, what if you swapped minds with a duck? A cat? Or worse, a toaster?

This is the quandary faced by a nameless professor in Matthew Grigg’s short story, Professor Panini. The story starts when a self-made man, now a professor and researcher, works on exchanging the minds of a cat and duck using a machine. There are no details about how the machine works or what it looks like; suffice it to say that the experiment doesn’t go as planned, and hilarity ensues.

The professor has become a helpless, though intelligent toaster. In his immobile state, he starts looking for help in a myriad ways that the reader might not even imagine. Tossing toast, reprogramming the toaster, and even giving orders over the phone after a Rube Goldberg-like sequence of events all lead comically and slowly to a fun finale.

Will the professor escape the life of a stationary toaster, or will he forever be shooting out SOS bread messages through his apartment window?

Grigg’s prose is simple, sometimes too simple that you wonder if the lead character is actually a professor or some science enthusiast gone mad. However, this also bucks the trend of the jargon-spouting scientist who has nothing to talk about except science, making the short story a much easier read.

There are very few descriptions of the professor’s whereabouts, which might be disadvantageous, since the story could have profited from some descriptions that would allow us to exclaim, “Yes, let’s try the oven/window/fridge so we can get out of this mess!” along with the professor. Nevertheless, the professor’s thoughts and observations about his state allow us to glimpse another angle of the short story: one where an introspective life is necessary, since there is no other option but to think.

Without being weighed down by jargon, much less by conventional characters, Professor Panini becomes funnier and even more believable. It’s easier, after all, to imagine a professor eating his breakfast while starting up his experiment than it is to imagine a researcher stuck in a lab and electrocuting everything in sight.

Professor Panini does not have a dull bone in its short body. With only one character trying to shuttle between brilliant humanity and mere technology, you’ll find yourself thinking: if this is possible, how would I get out of the toaster?

You can read the whole story here http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/ProfPani724.shtml.

Inez Ponce de Leon has a background in molecular biology and science communication. She loves to write on a wide variety of topics, even Procera AVH.

Molly Who?

Have you read Neuromancer? Did you like it? If so then this story will probably be right up your ally – in fact the opening line plays off that famous novel and one of its most memorable characters!

Non-Spoiler Summary

Mulan Rouge is an interesting woman, if you can still call her a woman, and her body has been altered quite a bit. She is dangerous too – ever since she got her first taste of controlled violence she has wanted more. She has worked for some shady characters, but the most shady has to be her current boss and his entourage of deadly toads. Now as she tries to protect him on a train ride to Laos she suddenly becomes suspicious of everyone else on the slug powered train – and that turns out to be a good thing… well, for her boss anyway!

Some Interesting Tidbits

• Word count: 4,684 (10 pages)
• This story has some explicit sexual scenes – so stay away if you don’t like that kind of stuff.
• You can learn more about science fiction author Lavie Tidhar on his web site.

Where To Find The Night Train

• This short story was first published in June 2010 on the web site Strange Horizons – where you can still read it online for free.
• It is also included in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection.

Craving More SF Stories Like This One?

If you liked "The Night Train" then you may also enjoy “The Shangri-La Affair”, also by Lavie Tidhar – about a special agent who travels to Southeast Asia to find a unique virus engineered to bring peace.

Born of Man and Woman, a 1950 short story by Richard Matheson, is about a young child, apparently a monstrosity, who is kept chained in the basement by its parents and frequently beaten.

Non-spoiler summary

This extremely short story is told by the main protagonist, the young child himself, in the form of a personal diary written in broken English. It gives us a brief look into the every day life of an abused child who really doesn’t know what it is to be a child. He is kept chained in the basement by his parents, and frequently beaten. Nevertheless, he remains curious. He is able to pull his chain out of the wall and is able to observe what happens outside, in the real world, through a little basement window.

At one point during the story, the child relates an incident where his young sister (which he refers to as a “little mother”) comes to see him in the basement with her pet. When the pet smells him and attacks him, he crushes it to death.

The last journal entry takes place after a beating from his father. As the child is going over the events in his mind, we learn that he knocked the stick from his father’s hand and made some noises. Then, he begins to ponder over some tactics to use if his parents do not treat him better in the future.

My thoughts on this story

• The first few sentences of the story are intriguing; I found myself hooked right away.
• Matheson brilliantly depicted the passing of days in his story, from a child’s viewpoint, by using unique analogies, such as “This day it had water falling from upstairs” and “This day it had goldness in the upstairs.”
• The last sentences of the diary, along with the fact that he bleeds green blood, provide a clear hint as to why this short story belongs to the science fiction genre.

Interesting tidbits

• Word count: 1,239
• This short story was written by Matheson when he was in his early twenties. It was his first professional sale. It became the title piece in his first short story collection published in 1954.
• “Born of Man and Woman” was nominated for a 1951 Retro Hugo Award in the Best Short Story category.
• Famous author Stephen King said that Richard Matheson influenced him the most as a writer.

Where to find the story

• This short story was first published in 1950 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
• It was also published in Richard Matheson’s first short collection, Born of Man and Woman (1954).
• You can also find it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1: 1929-1964.

Author bio and blog

Martin Dugas is a civil engineer. Fluent in both English and French, he writes in both languages. He is a science fiction junkie and blogs at http://martindugas.wordpress.com.

Still Life With Apocalypse by Richard Kadrey is a post-apocalyptic fiction short story (about 3,000 words long) that is essentially the memoirs of a man in the ruins of the world, after it has been torn to pieces due to inexplicable reasons.

Non-Spoiler Summary:

The nameless protagonist starts by depicting a horrifying scene that completely immerses you into the short story. It is sufficiently disturbing without resorting to gorror imagery. Without missing a beat, he then goes on to describe the way everyday life is in the ashes and gives you just enough information about himself to make you both despise and pity him at the same time.

My thoughts:

My motto concerning science fiction short stories, has always been this: a good short short scifi story is like a swift, hard elbow thrust to the teeth. It makes you go reeling, stumbling back, grasping at the mess of your mouth, trying to pick up your teeth off the floor. Still Life With Apocalypse does just that. It grips you from the moment you start reading it and then suddenly lets you go reeling, feeling somewhat diminished and you just know you (and your dentist) will never stop thinking about it.

Despite its very, very strong selling points, the story does have a weak premise concerning how the Apocalypse came about (a series of events that somehow caused a chain reaction which in turn destroyed society as we know it), but it still flows excellently.

All in all, it’s a short and great read that feels like a nightmare (in a good way).

Writey-whimey ooblie-jooblies

• Word count: 2,900
• Richard Kadrey is a San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer. Kadrey’s novels are Sandman Slim, Kill the Dead, Aloha from Hell, Metrophage, Kamikaze L’Amour, and Butcher Bird: A Novel Of The Dominion. Other works include collaborative graphic novels and over 50 published short stories

Where you can find Still Life With Apocalypse:

This short story has been printed in the short story collection Wastelands (edited by John J. Adams). It’s a collection of post-apocalyptic short stories which has a number of excellent pieces and I highly recommend it. If you want to read it from free, you can find it here (http://www.infinitematrix.net/stories/shortshorts/kadrey22.html).

By-Line:

Konstantine Paradias is a short story science fiction and fantasy writer, who has his own blog, called Shapescapes (shapescapes). For comments or plain old contact, you can find him at kosparadias@gmail.com

I Love Strange Futures!

I do like stories that deal with the future of Earth and the human race – especially thousands of years from now. I have read several, but here is one with a few unique twists – like how future societies might latch on to one piece of our current popular culture and alter it to suit their needs. Some fascinating ideas in here, and a very enjoyable story to read!

Non-Spoiler Summary

Jeremy is cheating on his girlfriend Roberta by being with Tara. He is kind of fickle, however, and when he goes back to Roberta Tara calls the TV show Infidelity Squad to expose him in front of millions of viewers! He is touched by Tara’s feelings for him, so he decides to give her another try. Anyway, this is all well and good but the amazing thing is that this episode of Infidelity Squad gets picked to be preserved in the Museum Of All Media – 500 years in the future! Well, that only makes the story more popular and as the years go by it gets re-told thousands of times in many slightly different ways. The main idea stays the same, though, and that ends up causing big problems for opposing factions 2000 years down the road.

Some Interesting Tidbits

• Word count: 4,014 (7 pages)
• Have you seen Charlie Jane Anders web site? It is very strange and cool at the same time – I guess it depends on how you look at it. See for yourself.

Where To Find Source Decay

• This short story was first published in January 2011 on the web site Strange Horizons – where you can still read it for free.

Craving More SF Stories Like This One?

Charlie Jane Anders is fast becoming one of my favorite authors, and if you liked "Source Decay" then you might enjoy “The Fermi Paradox Is Our Business Model” – which she also wrote. It is about a couple of aliens who are searching the galaxy for dead-but-profitable civilizations.