amysisson's Short Story Per Day 2016: Quarter 2

cut and paste format:

Story #

Title:
Author:
Length:
Category:
Where Published:
When Published:
Rating:
Link:

APRIL 2016

96. (1 in April) - April 1, 2016 - "Let Me Hear From You Urgently" by Eliot Schrefer. Published in One Teen Story, March 2016. Read 04-11-16.
97. (2 in April) - April 2, 2016 - "Firstborn" by Brandon Sanderson. Published in Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audio anthology), Brilliance Audio, 2014. Listened 04-12-16.
98. (3 in April) - April 3, 2016 - "Cut the Blue Wire" by Patrick Mahon. Published in Every Day Fiction, April 7, 2016. Read 04-12-16.
99. (4 in April) - April 4, 2016 - "The Treasures of Fred" by Sandra McDonald and Stephen D. Covey. Published in Daily Science Fiction, April 8, 2016. Read 04-13-16.
100. (5 in April) - April 5, 2016 - "Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return Helpline" by Caroline M. Yoachim. Published in Space Squid, April 2016. Read 04-14-16.
101. (6 in April) - April 6, 2016 - "A Serenade of Strings" by K.L. Townsend. Published in Abyss & Apex, 1st quarter, 2016. Read 04-14-16.
102. (7 in April) - April 7, 2016 - "How I Lost Eleven Stone and Found Love" by Ian Creasey. Published in Fantasy Scroll Mag, February 2016. Read 04-14-16.
103. (8 in April) - April 8, 2016 - "Memories of My Mother" by Ken Liu. Published in Daily Science Fiction, March 19, 2012. Read 04-18-9-16.
104. (9 in April) - April 9, 2016 - "Bear-bear Speaks" by Beth Cato. Published in Daily Science Fiction, April 19, 2016. Read 04-18-9-16.
105. (10 in April) - April 10, 2016 - "Light of Other Days" by Bob Shaw. Published in Jim Baen's Universe, v.1, no.1, 2006.
106. (11 in April) - April 11, 2016 - "A Bead of Jasper, Four Small Stones" by Genevieve Valentine. Published in Clarkesworld Year Seven, 2015.
107. (12 in April) - April 12, 2016 - "Scatter" by Rosalie Kempthorne. Published in Every Day Fiction, April 21, 2016. Read 04-21-16.
108. (13 in April) - April 13, 2016 - "We Have a Cultural Difference, Can I Taste You?" by Rebecca Ann Jordan. Published in Strange Horizons, April 18, 2016. Read 04-21-16.
109. (14 in April) - April 14, 2016 - "The Parasite and the Widow" by Jeremy M. Gottwig. Published in Nature, April 21, 2016. Read 04-21-16.
110. (15 in April) - April 15, 2016 - "The Dead" by Michael Swanwick. Published in Starlight 1 (anthology), 1996. Read 04-21-16.
111. (16 in April) - April 16, 2016 - "Don't Mention the 'F' Word" by Neil Mathur. Published in Futures from Nature (anthology), 2007. Read 04-22-16.
112. (17 in April) - April 17, 2016 - "Heartwired" by Joe Haldeman. Published in Futures from Nature (anthology), 2007. Read 04-23-16.
113. (18 in April) - April 18, 2016 - "This Is a Letter to My Son" by KJ Kabza. Published in Strange Horizons, April 11, 2016. Read 04-25-16.
114. (19 in April) - April 19, 2016 - "Still Life" by Jonathan H. Randall. Published in Daily Science Fiction, April 21, 2016. Read 2016-04-25.
115. (20 in April) - April 20, 2016 - "The Effigies of Tamber Square" by Jon Michael Kelley. Published in Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures, no. 5, March 2016. Read 04-25-16.
116. (21 in April) - April 21, 2016 - "Space Travel Loses its Allure When You’ve Lost Your Moon Cup" by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley. Published in Crossed Genres, July 2014. Read 04-26-2016.
117. (22 in April) - April 22, 2016 - "Down on the Farm" by Charles Stross. Published in Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audio anthology), Brilliance Audio, 2014. Listened 04-26-16.
118. (23 in April) - April 23, 2016 - "Mika Model" by Paolo Bacigalupi. Published in Slate, April 26, 2016. Read 04-26-16.
119. (24 in April) - April 24, 2016 - "The Sudden and Mysterious Disappearance of The Pretty Good Gatsbys" by Timothy Mudie. Published in Liquid Imagination, February 28, 2016. Read 04-26-16.
120. (25 in April) - April 25, 2016 - "Party Smart Card" by Barrington J. Bayley. Published in Futures from Nature (anthology), 2007. Read 04-28-16.
121. (26 in April) - April 26, 2016 - "RAM SHIFT PHASE 2" by Greg Bear. Published in Futures from Nature (anthology), 2007. Read 04-28-16.
122. (27 in April) - April 27, 2016 - "Undead Again" by Ken MacLeod. Published in Futures from Nature (anthology), 2007. Read 04-28-16.
123. (28 in April) - April 28, 2016 - "Puff Piece" by Becky Robison. Published in Pinball, Spring 2016. Read 04-28-16.
124. (29 in April) - April 28, 2016 (second story) - "Speak, Geek" by Eileen Gunn. Published in Futures from Nature (anthology), 2007. Read 04-28-16.
125. (30 in April) - April 29, 2016 - "Sister Emily's Lightship" by Jane Yolen. Published in Starlight 1 (anthology), 1996. Read 04-29-16.
126. (31 in April) - April 29, 2016 (second story) - "I Remember Angels" by Mark Kreighbaum. Published in Starlight 1 (anthology), 1996. Read 04-29-16.
127. (32 in April) - April 30, 2016 - "I miss the Before" by Robert Reed. Published in Daily Science Fiction, May 2, 2016. Read 2016-05-02.



MAY 2016

128. (1 in May) - May 1, 2016 - "After the Coup" by John Scalzi. Published in Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audio anthology), Brilliance Audio, 2014. Listened 05-02-16.
129. (2 in May) - May 2, 2016 - "Last Round" by Paul Crenshaw. Published in Pinball, Spring 2016. Read 05-03-16.
130. (3 in May) - May 3, 2016 - "17 Amazing Plot Elements... When You See #11, You'll Be Astounded!" by James Beamon. Published in Daily Science Fiction, May 3, 2016. Read 05-03-16.
131. (4 in May) - May 3, 2016 (second story) - "The Right Sort of Monsters" by Kelly Sandoval. Published in Strange Horizons, April 4, 2016. Read 05-03-16.
132. (5 in May) - May 4, 2016 - "Sparrows" by Gary Emmette Chandler. Published in Flash Fiction Online, May 2016. Read 05-04-16.
133. (6 in May) - May 5, 2016 - "The Summer of Rotting Lasagna" by Zack Kotzer. Published in Vandercave Quarterly, 2015. Read 05-05-16.
134. (7 in May) - May 5, 2016 (second story) - "The Black Kids" by Christina Hammonds Reed. Published in One Teen Story, April 2016. Read 05-05-16.
135. (8 in May) - May 5, 2016 (third story) - "Fried Chicken You Can’t Refuse" by Peter Wood. Published in Perihelion, April 2016. Read 05-05-16.
136. (9 in May) - May 5, 2016 (fourth story) - "Best Friends Forever" by Michelle Ann King. Published in Daily Science Fiction, May 5, 2016. Read 05-05-16.
137. (10 in May) - May 6, 2016 - "Bodyshop" by Graham Brand. Published in Every Day Fiction, May 5, 2016. Read 05-06-16.
138. (11 in May) - May 7, 2016 - "Night Watch" by Nancy Sweetland. Published in Flash Bang Mysteries, 2016. Read 05-09-16.
139. (12 in May) - May 8, 2016 - "The Fountain and the Shoe Store" by Paul Steven Marino. Published in Strange Horizons, September 5, 2011. Read 05-09-16.
140. (13 in May) - May 9, 2016 - "The Man Who Didn’t Believe in Luck" by Preston Lerner. Published in Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures, no. 4, date unknown. Read 05-09-16.
141. (14 in May) - May 10, 2016 - "The First Snow of Winter" by Caroline M. Yoachim. Published in Daily Science Fiction, May 10, 2016. Read 05-10-16.
142. (15 in May) - May 10, 2016 (second story) - "The Finite Canvas" by Brit Mandelo. Published in Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audio anthology), Brilliance Audio, 2014. Listened 05-10-16.
143. (16 in May) - May 10, 2016 (third story) - "The Long Fall Up" by William Ledbetter. Published in F&SF, May/June 2016. Read 05-10-16.
144. (17 in May) - May 11, 2016 - "Stacy and Her Idiot" by Peter Atkins. Published in Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures, no. 4, date unknown. Read 05-11-16.
145. (18 in May) - May 12, 2016 - "Swift, Brutal Retaliation" by Meghan McCarron. Published in Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audio anthology), Brilliance Audio, 2014. Listened 05-12-16.
146. (19 in May) - May 12, 2016 (second story) - "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin. Originally published in New Dimensions 3, 1973. Read 05-12-16.
147. (20 in May) - May 13, 2016 - "Will It Fly?" by Cheryl Wood Ruggiero. Published in Daily Science Fiction, April 20, 2016. Read 05-13-16.
148. (21 in May) - May 14, 2016 - "Chit Win" by Deborah Walker. Published in Daily Science Fiction, December 30, 2011. Read 05-17-16.
149. (22 in May) - May 15, 2016 - "Across the Terminator" by David Tallerman. Published in Clarkesworld Year Seven (reprint anthology), 2015. Read 05-17-16.
150. (23 in May) - May 16, 2016 - "The Promise of Space" by James Patrick Kelly. Published in Clarkesworld Year Seven (reprint anthology), 2015. Read 05-17-16.
151. (24 in May) - May 17, 2016 - "The Gambler" by Paolo Bacigalupi. Published in The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards: SF (anthology), 2012. Read 05-18-16.
152. (25 in May) - May 18, 2016 - "The Box" by J.T. Sharp. Published in Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures, no. 5, March 2016. Read 05-18-16.
153. (26 in May) - May 19, 2016 - "Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia" by Rachel Swirsky. Published in Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audio anthology), Brilliance Audio, 2014. Listened 05-19-16.
154. (27 in May) - May 19, 2016 (second story) - "Bridesicle" by Will McIntosh. Published in The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards: SF (anthology), 2012. Read 05-19-16.
155. (28 in May) - May 20, 2016 - "A !Tangled Web" by Joe Haldeman. Published in The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards: SF (anthology), 2012. Read 05-21-16.
156. (29 in May) - May 21, 2016 - "Getting Dark" by Neil Barrett Jr. Published in The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards: SF (anthology), 2012. Read 05-22-16.
157. (30 in May) - May 22, 2016 - "The Poet with Fishhook Eyes" by Michelle Knowlden. Published in Daily Science Fiction, April 21, 2016. Read 2016-05-25.
158. (31 in May) - May 23, 2016 - "To Give Birth to a Dancing Star" by K.B. Sluss. Published in Luna Station Quarterly, June 2016. Read 2016-06-01.
159. (32 in May) - May 24, 2016 - "The Reality Machine" by Karl El-Koura. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 1, 2016. Read 06-01-16.
160. (33 in May) - May 25, 2016 - "One Last Smoke" by Alex Granados. Published in Every Day Fiction, April 14, 2016. Read 06-01-16.
161. (34 in May) - May 26, 2016 - "A Brutal Murder in a Public Place" by Joyce Carol Oates. Published in Black Dahlia & White Rose (collection), 2012. Read 06-03-16.
162. (35 in May) - May 27, 2016 - "Bird Watching" by Anton Rose. Published in Punchnel's, May 19, 2016. Read 06-04-16.
163. (36 in May) - May 28, 2016 - "Fence to Fence" by Jennifer Cox. Published in Freeze Frame Fiction, date unknown. Read 06-05-16.
164. (37 in May) - May 29, 2016 - "Heating Up" by Daniel Wilmoth. Published in Every Day Fiction, January 11, 2016. Read 06-05-16.
165. (38 in May) - May 30, 2016 - "Fortune for Your Freshman Year" by Lucy Silbaugh. Published in One Teen Story, May 2016. Read 06-05-16.
166. (39 in May) - May 31, 2016 - "Ice and White Roses" by Rebecca Birch. Published in Nature, November 26, 2014. Read 06-05-16.


JUNE 2016

167. (1 in June) - June 1, 2016 - "Useful Objects" by Erica L. Satifka. Published in Nature, October 8, 2014. Read 06-06-16.
168. (2 in June) - June 2, 2016 - "The First Confirmed Case of Non-Corporeal Recursion: Patient Anita R." by Benjamin C. Kinney. Published in Strange Horizons, June 6, 2106. Read 06-06-16.
169. (3 in June) - June 3, 2016 - "Department of Truth" by Jennifer Rose Jorgensen. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 7, 2016. Read 06-07-16.
170. (4 in June) - June 4, 2016 - "The Day the Future Invaded" by Beth Powers. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 2, 2016. Read 06-08-16.
171. (5 in June) - June 5, 2016 - "One More Bite" by Michelle Muenzler. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 9, 2016. Read 06-09-16.
172. (6 in June) - June 6, 2016 - "After the End" by Damien Angelica Walters. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 10, 2016. Read 06-10-16.
173. (7 in June) - June 7, 2016 - "Head, Scales, Tongue, Tail" by Leigh Bardugo. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-12-16.
174. (8 in June) - June 8, 2016 - "The End of Love" by Nina LaCour. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-13-16.
175. (9 in June) - June 9, 2016 - "Little Dead Girl" by C.M. Saunders. Published in Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures, June 2016. Read 06-13-16.
176. (10 in June) - June 10, 2016 - "Irma Splinkbottom’s Recipe For Cold Fusion" by Janene Murphy. Published in Flash Fiction Online, November 2009. Read 06-14-16.
177. (11 in June) - June 11, 2016 - "America, America" by Okafor Emmanuel Tochukwu. Published in Flash Fiction Online, January 2016. Read 06-14-16.
178. (12 in June) - June 12, 2016 - "The Exterminator's Daughter" by Meg Cabot. Published in Prom Nights From Hell (anthology), 2007. Read 06-14-16.
179. (13 in June) - June 13, 2016 - "Last Stand at the Cinegore" by Libba Bray. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-15-16.
180. (14 in June) - June 14, 2016 - "Sick Pleasure" by Francesca Lia Block. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-15-16.
181. (15 in June) - June 15, 2016 - "Don't Read This Story" by K.T. Bryski. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 16, 2016. Read 06-16-16.
182. (16 in June) - June 16, 2016 - "On Discovering a Ghost in the Five Star" by Peter M. Ball. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 3, 2016. Read 06-20-16.
183. (17 in June) - June 17, 2016 - "Time and Space Died Yesterday" by Brandon Echter. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 17, 2016. Read 06-20-16.
184. (18 in June) - June 18, 2016 - "The Greyhound" by Dafydd Mckimm. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 21, 2016. Read 06-21-16.
185. (19 in June) - June 19, 2016 - "The Job" by Bob Page. Published in Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures, no. 6, June 2016. Read 06-21-16.
186. (20 in June) - June 20, 2016 - "The Weight of Kanzashi" by Joshua Gage. Published in Diabolical Plots, June 2016. Read 06-21-16.
187. (21 in June) - June 21, 2016 - "In Ninety Minutes, Turn North" by Stephanie Perkins. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-22-16.
188. (22 in June) - June 22, 2016 - "Souvenirs" by Tim Federle. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-22-16.
189. (23 in June) - June 23, 2016 - "Deathbed" by Caroline M. Yoachim. Published in Daily Science Fiction, July 18, 2011. Read 06-23-16.
190. (24 in June) - June 24, 2016 - "Inertia" by Veronica Roth. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-24-16.
191. (25 in June) - June 25, 2016 - "Love is the Last Resort" by Jon Skovron. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-25-16.
192. (26 in June) - June 26, 2016 - "Pencils, Rules, Bones, Heart" by JT Gill. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 27, 2016. Read 06-27-16.
193. (27 in June) - June 27, 2016 - "Good Luck and Farewell" by Brandy Colbert. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-27-16.
194. (28 in June) - June 27, 2016 (second story) - "Brand New Attraction" by Cassandra Clare. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-27-16.
195. (29 in June) - June 27, 2016 (third story) - "A Thousand Ways This Could Go Wrong" by Jennifer E. Smith. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-27-16.
196. (30 in June) - June 28, 2016 - "Turkey Shoot" by Tom Lavagnino. Published in Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures, 2015. Read 06-28-16.
197. (31 in June) - June 28, 2016 (second story) - "The Arrangements" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Published in The New York Times Book Review, June 28, 2016. Read 06-28-16.
198. (32 in June) - June 28, 2016 (third story) - "The Map of Tiny Perfect Things" by Lev Grossman. Published in Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins, 2016. Read 06-28-16.
199. (33 in June) - June 29, 2016 - "Going Deep" by James Patrick Kelly. Published in The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards: SF (anthology), 2012. Read 06-29-16.
200. (34 in June) - June 29, 2016 (second story) - "Failed Interview with the International Convocation of the Damned" by Luc Reid. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 29, 2016. Read 06-29-16.
201. (35 in June) - June 30, 2016 - "Created By..." by David Wardrop. Published in Daily Science Fiction, June 30, 2016. Read 06-30-16.

Story # 96

Title: "Let Me Hear From You Urgently"
Author: Eliot Schrefer
Length: 3,900 words (estimated based on word/page count)
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: One Teen Story
When Published: 2016-03
Rating:
Link: n/a

You might guess what this story is about based on the title, which we've all seen in our spam folders before. A thirteen-year-old enters into an e-mail correspondence with the Nigerian scammer who dupes him out of several hundred dollars. There wasn't anything in this story that was particularly brilliant or earth-shattering, but it was nicely done.

Story # 97

Title: "Firstborn"
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Length: 14,135 words
Category: Novelette (science fiction)
Where Published: Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audiobook anthology, Brilliance Audio)
When Published: 2014
Original Publication: Tor.com, December 2008
Rating:
Link: http://www.tor.com/2008/12/17/firstborn/

I was quite invested in this novelette. It's military sci-fi, which I enjoy; the narration was good; I found the story intriguing.... For me, however, it didn't stick the ending. It didn't seem unrealistic to me that this unbeatable adversary would blow his own brains out after being tricked for roughly 30 minutes into believing that several space battles were not going his way. I understand that he had "never learned how to lose," but I don't think he would have given up that quickly -- I think he would have tried to get back to winning for at least a while longer.

Story # 98

Title: "Cut the Blue Wire"
Author: Patrick Mahon
Length: 990 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Every Day Fiction
When Published: 2016-04-07
Rating:
Link: http://everydayfiction.com/cut-the-blue-wire-%E2%80%A2-by-patrick-mahon/

This was a tidy little piece about an EOD technician (i.e. bomb disposal) who is no longer quite human. I didn't feel like it broke new ground, though, and I wasn't entirely convinced that his entire personality would have transferred with his bomb knowledge into the artificial body.

Story # 99

Title: "The Treasures of Fred"
Author: Sandra McDonald and Stephen D. Covey
Length: 1,355 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-04-08
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/time-travel/sandra-mcdonald-and-s...

This is a short, nice little piece about time travel. I enjoyed it but I'm not sure this one will stick with me.

Story # 100

Title: "Carla at the Off-Planet Tax Return Helpline"
Author: Caroline M. Yoachim
Length: 1,125 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Space Squid
When Published: 2016-04
Original Publication: Unidentified Funny Objects 3 (anthology), 2014
Rating:
Link: http://www.spacesquid.com/carla-at-the-tax-helpline/

This is a cute and timely piece recording the calls taken by a tax return helpline call center employee.

Story # 101

Title: "A Serenade of Strings"
Author: K.L. Townsend
Length: 1,223 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Abyss & Apex
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: http://www.abyssapexzine.com/2015/12/serenade-of-strings/

This is a heartfelt piece about a young man in despair who connects with a woman who stops to hear his ukelele playing in a subway station. It was well-written, but perhaps a little too earnest for my taste.

Story # 102

Title: "How I Lost Eleven Stone and Found Love"
Author: Ian Creasey
Length: 3,928 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Fantasy Scroll Mag
When Published: 2016-02
Rating:
Link: http://fantasyscrollmag.com/article/how-i-lost-eleven-stone-and-found-love-ian-c...

This story, mainly about body image, overeating, eating disorders, is related by a man who has a pet alien to suck weight off his body. I'm not sure why, but I felt oddly detached from and a little impatient with this piece.

Story # 103

Title: "Memories of My Mother"
Author: Ken Liu
Length: 997 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2012-03-19
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/time-travel/ken-liu/memories-of-m...

OK, reading this was something special for me. This past weekend I attended four sessions of short films at the Worldfest-Houston international film festival. This was my favorite film of its session, and one of my favorites of the weekend. And it was only while I was writing up a blog post review of that session that I found out the short film, titled Beautiful Dreamer, was based on this short story by Ken Liu, who is one of the short fiction authors I tend to seek out.

The short version is that a woman with a terminal illness takes advantage of the relatavistic time effects of high speed space travel to stretch out her remaining two years over her daughter's entire lifetime.

My review of the short film is here (at the end of the post): http://amysreviews.blogspot.com/2016/04/worldfest-houston-2016-sci-fi-shorts.htm...

Story # 104

Title: "Bear-bear Speaks"
Author: Beth Cato
Length: 904 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-04-19
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/disaster-apocalypse/beth-cato/bea...

This short piece, about a mother clinging to her child's teddy bear immediately following a disaster scenario of some kind, was fine, but doesn't stand out for me among post-apocalyptic stories. That's not the fault of the piece; it's just that I've read so many of them that it seems to take something unusual to move me at this point.

Story # 105

Title: "Light of Other Days"
Author: Bob Shaw
Length: 3,156 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Jim Baen's Universe, v.1, no.1
When Published: 2006
Original Publication: Analog, 1966
Rating:
Link: http://hell.pl/szymon/Baen/The%20best%20of%20Jim%20Baens%20Universe/Vol%201%20Nu...

In this story, a husband and wife are traveling through beautiful countryside when they happen upon a slow glass farm, where they stop to purchase a "scenedow," or a window made of glass through which light passes very slowly. Practically speaking, that means that the window is storing up beautiful scenery, and can provide moving pictures (i.e. the water will ripple, the small woodland creatures will go about their business). Now, this may not seem like a big deal now, but in 1966, when this story was first published....

I did have a few quibbles: first, I couldn't take the word "scenedow" seriously. More importantly, there were some dense sentences in this story that I had to re-read a few times to parse. I'm also not sure whether the fact that the husband and wife apparently loathed each other actually added anything of value to the story. Finally, I do find it a little hard to believe that in the established industry of slow glass "farming"(*) it wasn't common knowledge yet that people might use it to preserve "moving picture memories" of loved ones.

(*) I loved the fact that storing up the light/images was called "farming" -- and of course it would happen in places with gorgeous views, which are often rural and which would probably have a lot of traditional farms too.

According to Wikipedia, this story was a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Ha! I also tripped over scenedow, mis-pronouncing it mentally as seen-DOW, as in the boat, before realising what was meant. Once I pronounced it to rhyme with window, it worked fine.

I also wonder whether the husband would be so reconciled, seemingly, with his wife at the end. But I suppose that captures the moment, and doesn't say it will change anything fundamentally.

Story # 106

Title: "A Bead of Jasper, Four Small Stones"
Author: Genevieve Valentine
Length: 5,785
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Clarkesworld Year Seven (anthology, edited by Neil Clarke & Sean Wallace, Wyrm Publishing)
When Published: 2015
Original Publication: Clarkesworld , October 2012
Rating:
Link: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valentine_10_12/

Unfortunately this story did not work for me at all. It was very dense; I had to struggle for understanding throughout the entire story, and still don't feel confident that I know what happened. It's too bad, because the themes (rising sea levels on Earth, extraterrestrial colonization, communication time lags) are all dear to my heart. But this was just incomprehensible.

For me, the many parenthetical asides felt unnecessary and a little self-indulgent.

Story # 107

Title: "Scatter"
Author: Rosalie Kempthorne
Length: 734 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Every Day Fiction
When Published: 2016-04-21
Rating:
Link: http://everydayfiction.com/scatter-by-rosalie-kempthorne/

I don't see this short piece as a story so much as a vignette. Four siblings come together to help their father celebrate his authorial debut, and mention briefly that they'll have to talk soon about the father's terminal illness.

Half a point taken away for using colons instead of commas for some of the dialogue. For me, it comes across as affected.

Story # 108

Title: "We Have a Cultural Difference, Can I Taste You?"
Author: Rebecca Ann Jordan
Length: 3,616 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Strange Horizons
When Published: 2016-04-18
Rating:
Link: http://strangehorizons.com/2016/20160418/jordancultural-f.shtml

I found this story quite delightful. An alien that experiences everything through taste and vibrations has difficulty fitting in at an intergalactic school.

My only real issue with the story was that Nina didn't know, and it seemed implied that the school authorities and medical personnel also didn't know, that Filo/Gee's species reproduces asexually (binary fission, in fact). That's kind of important when you're dealing with a nearly extinct species.

Oh, and I kind of wish there weren't a comma splice right there in the title. They drive me insane.

Story # 109

Title: "The Parasite and the Widow"
Author: Jeremy M. Gottwig
Length: 960 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Nature
When Published: 2016-04-21
Rating:
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v532/n7599/full/532408a.html

This flash piece is about a widow waiting at a transfer point with a parasitic alien. I liked it but found the alien names confusing (I disliked the name "Three" as a place). And this is a personal bias, but I would have enjoyed it more had the main character made a different decision.

>17 amysisson:

Hmmn. I admit to wishing for what I guess was your preferred decision. But I like that my wish went unfulfilled, it added to the overall melancholy of the piece. The other would have been, for me, a Hollywood ending. And I can imagine that ending (in fact, the story compels me to imagine that ending) as clearly as if it had been written. Ironic, I suppose, that I can admire the story for not providing that ending, even as I imagine it. It's as though I'm getting it both ways.

>18 elenchus:

That's a great way to look at it!

Story # 110

Title: "The Dead"
Author: Michael Swanwick
Length: 4,253 words
Category: Short story (science fiction/horror)
Where Published: Starlight 1 (anthology)
When Published: 1996
Rating:
Link (2011 reprint on Tor.com): http://www.tor.com/2011/10/25/the-dead/

I normally don't like stores in which: 1) I don't find any of the characters likeable; or 2) there are zombies. But I liked this one. I found it to be a fairly original take, in that the zombies don't go around looking to eat people's brains, but they do provide a very cheap source of alternate labor.

Story # 111

Title: "Don't Mention the 'F' Word"
Author: Neil Mathur
Length: 811 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Futures from Nature (anthology)
When Published: 2007
Original Publication: Nature, July 21, 2005
Rating:
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7049/full/436440a.html

I seem to be reading a lot of dense stories lately. This one was full of technobabble about nanotech gone out of control. I felt as though I missed the joke.

Story # 112

Title: "Heartwired"
Author: Joe Haldeman
Length: 878 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Futures from Nature (anthology)
When Published: 2007
Original Publication: Nature, March 24, 2005
Rating:
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7032/full/434544a.html

In this piece, a woman buys a drug that will temporarily rekindle her and her husband's "romantic fascination" with one another after 25 years of marriage. I can see where this was cute and funny in a way, but I really disliked the breaking of the fourth wall, and I thought this tried a little too hard. Not to mention that I have a problem with both characters being willing to slip their spouses a drug without their knowledge. Unethical much? Of course, I realize this is flash fiction and I probably shouldn't overanalyze it, but it didn't work for me for these reasons.

>22 amysisson:

Sounds like Haldeman updated the premise of O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi".

>23 elenchus:

Did you read it? Yes, but I guess with a happier ending? I read that as wild sex on the table there in the restaurant, and they didn't really get in trouble once they explained the situation. So I could see this was intended to be amusing, but I found it a bit offputting.

I didn't read it, the parallel was suggested by your description. Not compelling enough to see for myself!

Story # 113

Title: "This Is a Letter to My Son"
Author: KJ Kabza
Length: 5,007 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Strange Horizons
When Published: 2016-04-11
Rating:
Link: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2016/20160411/kabzalettertoson-f.shtml

This story is about a young person, born male but identifying as female, as she struggles with whether to undergo a treatment that will make her content with a male identity. I thought this was well written but found it on the heavy side, in that not only did her mother die of cancer, but her stepmother might have it too, and her mother's cancer is genetic so physically becoming a female might endanger her.... I'm not sure I believe that medicine has advanced to the point where it can play with the brain so specifically (to manipulate people's body self image) but it still can't cure cancer. That's possible -- cancer's a tricky thing -- but all of these things combined made the story feel a little more contrived and/or manipulative that I would ideally like.

Story # 114

Title: "Still Life" by Jonathan H. Randall
Author: Jonathan H. Randall
Length: 196 words
Category: Short story/microfiction
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-04-21
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/science-fiction/jonathan-h-randal...

This story is too short to say anything about it. OK, I guess I can say that a woman is posing for photographs.

This didn't really work for me -- too spare. And I think I know what was going on, but it didn't really work for me (assuming I was correct).

>27 amysisson:

Interesting: I was left unawed, and yet when I try to describe in a few words what I think is going on, I actually think there are a couple possibilities. The prose is quite suggestive in times, which I would think would impress me more.

I do like that the title appears to be a pun, if the portraits are indeed taken as a type of virtual personality construct / memorial, perhaps even as a means of alien / AI possession? There is that phrase, "another flash of light" just before she apparently dies, and thinks to herself how accurate doctors are these days.

Story # 115

Title: "The Effigies of Tamber Square"
Author: Jon Michael Kelley
Length: 5,091 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures
When Published: 2016-03
Rating:
Link: http://www.triggerwarningshortfiction.com/the-effigies-of-tamber-square/

Well, this certainly had an intriguing premise. Seventy-eight years prior, 36 people in a town square disappeared, replaced with hollow effigies made of a mysterious, enduring substance. Cecily Hook is one of many people who've made their living from the tourism surrounding the mysterious tragedy. One night, she sees a flash, and realize someone has returned....

But alas, I'm afraid I found this story far too talk-y for my taste. In addition, the writing itself felt convoluted, and the resolution is not clear enough to be satisfying.

I do love the concept of this market, however. The editor is an artist who chooses stories to illustrate, with a single, noir-style picture. Each issue's illustrations uses black and a single other matching color.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I have a piece coming out from this market in the near future, so I'm definitely not unbiased. I do plan to keep on reading their back issues, hoping to find a few gems. But still ... what a neat idea for a magazine!)

Story # 117

Title: "Space Travel Loses its Allure When You’ve Lost Your Moon Cup"
Author: Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
Length: 985 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Crossed Genres
When Published: 2014-07
Rating:
Link: http://crossedgenres.com/magazine/019-space-travel-loses-its-allure/

I have to admit, I don't envision space cargo companies dealing with toilet paper and menstrual supplies quite this way.

Story # 117

Title: "Down on the Farm"
Author: Charles Stross
Length: 12,679 words
Category: Novelette (science fiction / horror)
Where Published: Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audiobook anthology, Brilliance Audio)
When Published: 2014
Original Publication: Tor.com, July 2008
Rating:
Link: http://www.tor.com/2008/07/20/down-on-the-farm/

This novelette, like the other one by this author in this audio collection, is part of Stross's "Laundry" series, about a secret British intelligence unit that deals with Eldritch horrors. I enjoyed the first half or so of this story, but I lost interest once it got to the part about what the "funny farm" inmates were doing.

I haven't been overly thrilled with this audio collection so far, alas.

Story # 118

Title: "Mika Model"
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Length: 4,375 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Slate
When Published: 2016-04-26
Rating:
Link: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/04/mika_model_a_new_s...

I loved the way this story was written ... and then it just ended. Without really ending. It's about a sex/pleasure robot who asks for a lawyer after killing her owner (or lessee, really).

The page on which the story appears says the following:

This short story was commissioned and edited jointly by Future Tense—a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate—and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination. It is the first in Future Tense Fiction, a series of short stories from Future Tense and CSI about how technology and science will change our lives.

There's also a published response by an attorney regarding the legal situations in the story. So I understand that it might have been in Future Tense's interests not to end the story definitively, so as to spark more discussion, but as a reader/simple consumer of the story, I was left unsatisfied. I likely would have rated this at at least 4 1/2 stars if I felt there was more resolution. (Although to be fair, I guess in a way the story did have resolution.) In any case, I loved the writing itself.

Ha! i visit slate.com regularly, saw the link and thought about posting notice here, but haven't had the chance to read it yet. I'm doubly motivated to find the time now.

Story # 119

Title: "The Sudden and Mysterious Disappearance of The Pretty Good Gatsbys"
Author: Timothy Mudie
Length: 4,986 words
Category: Short story (dark fantasy)
Where Published: Liquid Imagination
When Published: 2016-02-28
Rating:
Link: http://liquidimagination.silverpen.org/article/the-sudden-and-mysterious-disappe...

I love this story's title. The story itself is interesting, although the resolution was a bit anti-climactic for me, and the prose is marred by a few spots of awkwardness and a lot of strange formatting on the web page (random line breaks in the middle of sentences). The premise is that a journalist wants to find out what happened to that band he used to like, after they broke up for no apparent reason....

>32 amysisson:

Slate publishes fiction now? Thanks for linking to it - would have missed it :)

>35 AnnieMod:

They've done some special one-offs, and I think that's what this is. Part of a long-standing collaboration called Future Tense, dealing with various aspects of future trends. But who knows, maybe this is the start of a more regular offering.

>36 elenchus:

Maybe... never seen fiction from them before so did not expect it really... :)

Story # 120

Title: "Party Smart Card"
Author: Barrington J. Bayley
Length: 927 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Futures from Nature (anthology)
When Published: 2007
Original Publication: Nature, March 30, 2006
Rating:
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7084/full/440714a.html

I probably shouldn't read the mini-introductions to the stories in this anthology. Assuming the author wrote this one himself, I was a little put off by the (to me) slightly grandiose claim that he "was one of three SF authors (the others were Michael Moorcock and J.G. Ballard) who in the 1960s aimed to overthrow traditional science fiction." It would be one thing if the editor of the book came to that conclusion, and perhaps that actually was the case, but most of these intros seem to me to be author-written.

Anyway, I thought this story had an interesting premise, which was that different factions recruit new members by plastering a decal of their party symbol on their foreheads, which affects the person's thoughts. However, I found the execution of the story to be a little clumsy.

Story # 121

Title: "RAM SHIFT PHASE 2"
Author: Greg Bear
Length: 913 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Futures from Nature (anthology)
When Published: 2007
Original Publication: Nature, December 14, 2005
Rating:
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/4381050a.html

This story is cute, but I didn't find it memorable. An artificial intelligence reviews a book written by a robot -- the robot's 5,456,678th work, in fact. Again, cute, but I think it could have been done better at half the length.

Story # 122

Title: "Undead Again"
Author: Ken MacLeod
Length: 795 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Futures from Nature (anthology)
When Published: 2007
Original Publication: Nature, February 17, 2005
Rating:
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7027/full/433784a.html

This is a cute story -- a slightly new take on vampires. I admit that I was confused about this character's original origin.

Story # 123

Title: "Puff Piece"
Author: Becky Robison
Length: 813 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Pinball
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: http://www.thisispinball.com/becky-robison.html

I'm not entirely sure why this little piece of mainstream flash delighted me so much, but it really did. It's about a middle school election and unrequited same-sex love. I found it both funny and poignant.

Story # 124

Title: "Speak, Geek"
Author: Eileen Gunn
Length: 942 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Futures from Nature (anthology)
When Published: 2007
Original Publication: Nature, August 23, 2006
Rating:
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7105/full/442956a.html

This is a fun piece from the POV of an "uplifted" dog (a la Brin's concept of "uplift").

Story # 125

Title: "Sister Emily's Lightship"
Author: Jane Yolen
Length: 4,441 words (estimated by sample page count)
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Starlight 1 (anthology)
When Published: 1996
Rating:
Link: n/a

A fictional Emily Dickinson suffers from extreme light sensitivity and possibly other ailments, which prevent her from exploring the world outside her home and small community. I won't say much more, except to note that this is a science fiction story. I found it thoughtful and well-written, but I wasn't as engaged as I might have liked.

Story # 126

Title: "I Remember Angels"
Author: Mark Kreighbaum
Length: 2,000 (estimated by sample page count)
Category: Short story (fantasy)
Where Published: Starlight 1 (anthology)
When Published: 1996
Rating:
Link: n/a

In this story, the narrator is relating memories to aliens, and talks about seeing angels while watching a woman get raped. This didn't work for me, as I felt none of the elements (rape, aliens, angels) really had anything to do with the other elements. It's also not clear if the angels are real or the narrator imagines them due to the horrific situation. But even if they're real, the fact that angels come to escort the dead woman away doesn't really mitigate that fact that she was raped and beaten to death. And yeah, the more I think about it, the less I think the aliens belonged in this story -- it's just an awkward framing device.

Story # 127

Title: "I miss the Before"
Author: Robert Reed
Length: 892 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-05-02
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/science-fiction/robert-reed/i-mis...

1) It drives me nuts that the "m" in "miss" is not capitalized. Typo, or intentional on the author or editor's part?

2) This was a stream-of-consciousness dialog exchange. I don't have much patience for this kind of thing, I'm afraid. Mileage may vary.

April round-up post here: http://amysreviews.blogspot.com/2016/05/short-fiction-april-2016.html

Story # 128

Title: "After the Coup"
Author: John Scalzi
Length: 7,087 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audiobook anthology, Brilliance Audio)
When Published: 2014
Original Publication: Tor.com, July 2008
Rating:
Link: http://www.tor.com/2008/07/20/after-the-coup/

I can't quite tell if this story was or wasn't published within Scalzi's "fix-up novel" The Human Division. The plot was vaguely familiar to me and I think I've read it before, but I'm going to count it for my daily reading goal since 1) I'm not sure if I've read it, and 2) even if I did, this was in a different format.

By way of background, I adore Scalzi's Old Man's War and truly enjoyed several of its sequels, but there have also been a few of his books to which I've been quite indifferent, or even actively disliked. Happily, this story fell into the "fun" camp for me, and I attribute that at least in part to the fact that this story was so well suited to audio. I felt like the narrator overdid one of the character's voices, but that's a minor quibble, and he did do a great job distinguishing between the two characters' voices. (I would name the narrator, but both Brilliance Audio and Amazon identify this audio collection's authors and narrators without matching them up!)

At any rate, this story is about a guy who gets roped into one-on-one combat with a member of an alien race in order to avoid a breakdown of diplomatic communications. Shakespeare it ain't, but I found it laugh-out-loud funny in several spots.

Story # 129

Title: "Last Round"
Author: Paul Crenshaw
Length: 1,484 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Pinball
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: http://www.thisispinball.com/paul-crenshaw.html

I'm afraid this story didn't do much for me. A man reminisces about the last time he played golf with his grandfather. There are a few turns of phrases I liked ("The sprinklers were stuttering back and forth over the greens, throwing little rainbows....") but for the most part it was very stream-of-consciousness. I also didn't feel that the author managed to make the memories significant to the reader in addition to the narrator.

Story # 130

Title: "17 Amazing Plot Elements... When You See #11, You'll Be Astounded!"
Author: James Beamon
Length: 808 words
Category: Short story (fantasy?)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-05-03
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/religious/james-beamon/17-amazing-plot-el...

I admire this story's ambition, but I don't think it completely worked. I think it's about thoughts going through Judas's mind as he hangs himself, but I'm not completely certain because I know next-to-nothing about the Bible, and actually had to look up whether Judas did hang himself. Assuming I'm correct, I think the literary allusions worked in some cases but not others. I have to admit that I did like the "click-bait"-ness of the story's title.

>49 amysisson:

I was reading that one last night and the last part, revealing who that was actually caught me by surprise. I agree - some parts worked better than others but it was a nice gimmicky story.

Story # 131

Title: "The Right Sort of Monsters"
Author: Kelly Sandoval
Length: 3,682 words
Category: Short story (fantasy)
Where Published: Strange Horizons
When Published: 2016-04-04
Rating:
Link: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2016/20160404/sandovalmonsters-f.shtml

OK, now this story I loved! It's about a village woman who desperately longs for a child, and has to decide whether to take the same drastic measures her own sister took to have a child that some might call a monster. The plot went in a direction I did not expect. Most of all, I loved the way the author revealed specific details so gradually.

I don't have children and have never wanted them, so it takes a lot for a story to make me understand that someone would feel the way this woman did in the beginning of the story. (I do feel very protective of small creatures, so by the time I got to the end of the story, the author had completely "spoken" to me.) In that regard, reading this was akin to reading Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow as an atheist and getting a glimmer of understanding of the concept of sainthood.

>47 amysisson:

Enjoyed that, not that I'm that much into soldier SF or whatever the subgenre's called. The humour made all the difference, macho but not taking itself too seriously.

Story # 132

Title: "Sparrows"
Author: Gary Emmette Chandler
Length: 1,000 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Flash Fiction Online
When Published: 2016-05
Rating:
Link: http://flashfictiononline.com/main/article/sparrows/

This was a lovely short piece about brothers and flying.

Story # 133

Title: "The Summer of Rotting Lasagna"
Author: Zack Kotzer
Length: 1,740 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Vandercave Quarterly
When Published: 2015
Rating:
Link: http://www.vandercave.com/lasagna

Alas, this story purports to be humor, but at halfway through I was seriously tempted to stop reading. It was stream-of-consciousness, and I felt like it was trying to be literary and deep with all these thoughts about the significance of the lasagna in tupperware left in the dresser.

Story # 134

Title: "The Black Kids"
Author: Christina Hammonds Reed
Length: 6,500 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Short story (mainstream / YA)
Where Published: One Teen Story
When Published: 2016-04
Rating:
Link: N/A

This short story is told from the POV of a wealthy African-American teen girl during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. Ashley feels most at home with Guatemalan nanny, and doesn't fit in either with her equally wealthy white friends or the black scholarship athletes at her ritzy school.

I quite liked this story's set-up and the characters, but it was unsatisfying as a story in a number of ways. It ended mid-scene. Ashley's motivations were strange, even to her -- which is probably natural for a teenager in the best of circumstances, let alone these ones. But there was a point when Ashley could have better explained her behavior to another student she inadvertently got into some trouble. I often feel like this when watching movies with misunderstandings: if they just used slightly different wording when talking to each other, it would make the world of difference.

I know communication is imprecise. But saying "I started the rumor about you looting" implies that "I said you were looting" or even "I said I thought you were looting." It implies intent. But what she had actually said was "I wonder if LaShawn stole those shoes." If I'm LaShawn, those are two very different things. I mean, the latter isn't flattering either, but voicing aloud a question is not the same thing as stating an opinion as though it's fact.

Story # 135

Title: "Fried Chicken You Can’t Refuse"
Author: Peter Wood
Length: 940 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Perihelion
When Published: 2016-04-12
Rating:
Link: http://www.perihelionsf.com/1604/fiction_10.htm (good for approx. 4 months)

This short piece about a time-traveling mafioso is intended to be funny but the humor didn't quite work for me.

Story # 135

Title: "Best Friends Forever"
Author: Michelle Ann King
Length: 788 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-05-05
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/robots-and-computers/michelle-ann...

In this quite short piece, a little girl tries to prove that she and her robot companion are indeed friends. What I liked about this was that in admitting it did not have feelings for the girl and striving to protect the girl from that knowledge, the robot sort of proved it did have feelings for her. Or perhaps not proved -- I would need to know the exact programming to draw that conclusion. For instance, was the robot programmed specifically not to hurt the girl's feelings? But the effect is the same in the end (and the author's comments say something along those lines).

>57 amysisson:

Liked it, too, and the implicit relevance of Asimov's Three Laws was pretty apparent.

Story # 136

Title: "Bodyshop"
Author: Graham Brand
Length: 567 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Every Day Fiction
When Published: 2016-05-05
Rating:
Link: http://everydayfiction.com/bodyshop-%E2%80%A2-by-graham-brand/

If you squint real hard, you can suspend disbelief about this little story in which a man goes in for some new prosthetic limbs. It's not really believable that the med procedures would actually happen without identity verification beyond a traditional ID card. But it's cute, and reasonably clever for its length.

Story # 137

Title: "Night Watch"
Author: Nancy Sweetland
Length: 735 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Flash Bang Mysteries
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: http://flashbangmysteries.com/current-issue/spring-apr-2016-no-3/night-watch-by-...

This is meant to be a noir-ish flash piece; it's told from the POV of a man stalking his ex. I found it competent but not particularly interesting.

Story # 138

Title: "The Fountain and the Shoe Store"
Author: Paul Steven Marino
Length: 5,154 words
Category: Short story (fantasy)
Where Published: Strange Horizons
When Published: 2011-09-05
Rating:
Link: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2011/20110905/fountain-f.shtml

This is a heartfelt story about loss, grief, guilt, and redemption, wrapped up in a tale about a man who has built an archway through which people can walk and be given, for an hour, that which makes them happiest.

I liked it a lot, but felt that there were some references I just didn't get. And while I like it when stories don't tell me every little detail, in this case it felt like a few more details would have helped me (such as who Louis and Molly were).

Story # 139

Title: "The Man Who Didn’t Believe in Luck"
Author: Preston Lerner
Length: 2,434 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures
When Published: unknown
Rating:
Link: http://www.triggerwarningshortfiction.com/the-man-who-didnt-believe-in-luck/

I liked this story -- found it quite suspenseful, in fact. A professional gambler who doesn't believe in luck needs to make some quick cash to pay for his daughter's operation. My only quibble was the after-the-fat reveal of what had happened -- it seemed a tiny bit like a literary "cheat" -- but to be honest, I couldn't think thought of a better way to reveal the info without spoiling the plot at the wrong time.

Story # 140

Title: "The First Snow of Winter"
Author: Caroline M. Yoachim
Length: 871 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-05-10
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/other-worlds-sf/caroline-m-yoachi...

This is a quiet piece about the sad fate of a colony planet. Apparently I like downers.

Story # 141

Title: "The Finite Canvas"
Author: Brit Mandelo
Length: 11,268 words
Category: Novelette (science fiction)
Where Published: Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audiobook anthology, Brilliance Audio)
When Published: 2014
Original Publication: Tor.com, December 2012
Rating:
Link: http://www.tor.com/2012/12/05/the-finite-canvas/

This piece was nice and dark. A doctor working in "exile" on Earth (the "haves" of society all live in nice, safe stations in orbit) encounters a fugitive assassin, who tells her story in return for the doctor performing the scarification to commemorate her latest kill.

My only quibble was that I felt the emotional connection between them formed too quickly. It's funny, I accept super-quick-intense relationships in movies (I'm thinking of Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese in the original Terminator movie), but when I can't see the chemistry and urgency, it's a little harder for me to accept. Still, I liked the moral ambiguity of the story overall, and the ending felt right to me.

Story # 142

Title: "The Long Fall Up"
Author: William Ledbetter
Length: 7,794 words
Category: Novelette (science fiction)
Where Published: F&SF
When Published: 2016-05
Rating:
Link: N/A

This is the second piece I've read this year that I absolutely know I will be nominating for awards next year. Oddly enough, both are about pregnant women, which is not my usual cup of tea.

In this novelette, a pilot is sent after a woman harboring an illegal zero-g pregnancy.

You know what? I'm not going to say any more than that, except I highly recommend this story.

Story # 143

Title: "Stacy and Her Idiot"
Author: Peter Atkins
Length: 4,919 words
Category: Short story (dark fantasy)
Where Published: Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures
When Published: unknown
Rating:
Link: http://www.triggerwarningshortfiction.com/stacy-and-her-idiot/

This is a foul-mouthed, noir-ish piece about a minor drug deal gone sour. I enjoyed it quite a bit, although I thought the narrator was male for quite a while, and was thrown off to find that wasn't the case. In addition, although I didn't question the plot logic a lot while reading it, it kind of falls apart a little upon scrutiny. Why the elaborate ruse to get the narrator to that place at that time? Surely there could have been a less complicated way to do it. The narrator seeing the fateful symbol previously seemed odd, since that didn't look like a ritual sacrifice scene. Etc. etc. But still a fun tale, if you don't mind the language.

Story # 144

Title: "Swift, Brutal Retaliation"
Author: Meghan McCarron
Length: 7,692 words
Category: Novelette (dark fantasy)
Where Published: Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audiobook anthology, Brilliance Audio)
When Published: 2014
Original Publication: Tor.com, January 2012
Rating:
Link: http://www.tor.com/2012/01/04/swift-brutal-retaliation/

This novelette is effective (to a point) and moody, about two sisters dealing with the aftermath of their brother's death from cancer. I had quite mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, there were phrases that I found beautifully evocative. On the other hand, there were phrases that I thought sounded constructed/self-conscious. In addition, while I agree that family dynamics are complex, the nuances of the girls' motivations seemed too involved to be realistic to me, especially as they were analyzing their own motivations in such a self-aware way.

The biggest problem for me, though, was that the story literally ends mid-scene. I was listening to this on audio, and the end of this story coincided with the end of a disc, but I didn't know that, so I quickly went to the next disc, thinking there would be just one more track to wrap things up. Nope. Then I thought perhaps there was an error in the production of the audiobook, and a track was left off. Nope. I found the story online and on confirmed -- yep, it just ended mid-scene, with not a single question answered. For me, those questions were: Was the ghost just there to express rage? To find peace? To get the sisters to band together against the parents? Speaking of whom, was the father physically abusive, or just emotionally? (There is a mention of one slap, but....)

That said, one of the comments on the website notes that only the girls can see the dishes breaking. If that's the case, and they're holding hands, then it would seem they have found strength in each other. But will that last past this scene? They certainly seemed to be taking a long time to learn that lesson.

Ultimately, I feel as though this story would "reach" more readers if it had an ending just slightly more conclusive. It doesn't need much. I'm not a stickler for "all stories must do this, and all stories must do that" (*), but I do think that this kind of thing is what turns people off from "literary" fiction.

(*) - For instance, I don't subscribe to the idea that every science fiction story must have an intrinsic science element, without which the story would fall apart. I don't have patience with the criticism that "well, if you took away the science, this could just happen anywhere so what was the point of making it look like science fiction." In my view, if it's entertaining to examine a concept in this way, or it makes a point to do so (i.e. to show that some things in human nature don't change no matter what the setting), that's good enough for me.

Story # 145

Title: "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Length: 2,817 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: (unauthorized on the internet)
When Published: unknown
Original Publication: New Dimensions 3, 1973
Rating:
Link: N/A (see below!)

Call me Miss Late to the Party on this one! A recent conversation with one of the professors at the community college where I'm library-temping convinced me I really needed to go read this story. And although I spent the first half of it thinking "this isn't really a story" (not that that's a crime), by the end of it I was completely sold. I would have preferred it to be broken up into a few more paragraphs, and sometimes it tries a little too hard, but where it succeeds it does so at a level that's kind of off the charts.

Regarding my note posting a link above: The fact that the professor and I were able to pull this story up on the internet so easily -- the very first Google hit is a PDF obviously put online by a professor somewhere -- sparked an interesting copyright discussion. In my opinion, posting this story freely online for students is a violation of fair use. It uses 100% of the work (as opposed to an excerpt), it's posting it in a way that's not limited to the students in that class, and it's very likely the professor is using it over and over again from semester to semester. In addition, it could be shown to be causing financial loss to the creator. Even if the professor were photocopying it for his/her whole class over and over and not putting it on the internet, it would be a violation unless the educational institution cleared/paid for the use. People tend to think because the purpose is educational means that anything goes, under the guise of "fair use." That's not automatically the case.

On the other hand, as my professor points out, if he uses a college text "anthology" of short stories and teaches 10 of the 50 stories, with the students paying $50 for that textbook, well, it's creating a real hardship. And while he wouldn't post the story online, since he knows it already is online, he'll tell his students to find it. (Does it make a difference if he tells them exactly where to find it, or just tells them to Google it?)

In any case, I'm not posting the link. For anyone who would like to read it, you can find it in anthologies and collections and ... on the internet. ;-)

Story # 146

Title: "Will It Fly?"
Author: Cheryl Wood Ruggiero
Length: 642 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-04-20
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/fantasy/cheryl-wood-ruggiero/will-it-fly

I'm afraid I found this short-short to be rather inaccessible. I could hazard a guess as to what I thought was happening, but even if I found out somehow that I was right, I think I would be dissatisfied with the amount that got through from author to reader.

Story # 147

Title: "Chit Win"
Author: Deborah Walker
Length: 3,636 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2011-12-30
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/other-worlds-sf/deborah-walker/ch...

I'm afraid this story kind of rubbed me the wrong way. In my view, if you're a female nano-biochemist, you simply do not move to a colony world where women are not allowed to work -- not unless the Earth is about to be destroyed by the sun going nova, and even then I'm not sure. You're also unlikely to have children calling you Ma, and your husband Pa, just because you've taken them from Earth (where you're a nano-biochemist) to a colony world with a Little-House-on-the-Prairie-like setting.

While the solution to the main problem (the way females are treated) was semi-clever, nothing leading up to it gave me any reason to like a single character except the five-year-old girl. The fact that the father was willing to let his son take the animal his sister had befriended and make it it fight (think cock-fighting), just so the son could "fit in," meant that the father was a jackass himself.

Aside from my irritation with the story -- not the set-up of how women were treated, but how the main characters responded to that situation -- I didn't find it believable, either socially or scientifically.

Story # 148

Title: "Across the Terminator"
Author: David Tallerman
Length: 5,011 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Clarkesworld Year Seven (anthology, edited by Neil Clarke & Sean Wallace, Wyrm Publishing)
When Published: 2015
Original Publication: Clarkesworld , July 2013
Rating:
Link: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/tallerman_07_13/

My reading of this short story may well have suffered from the fact that I was in the mood for an optimistic hard SF tale, and this had a downbeat ending. A three-man (sigh) American crew operates, almost forgotten (shuttle re-supply missions have become fewer and fewer), on a lunar base, across Shackleton Crater from their Chinese counterparts. When a scientific discovery necessitates finally communicating and then cooperating with the Chinese, both teams discover that their countries intend to extract them from the lunar surface because the whole endeavor is suddenly a waste of resources.

I definitely was interested in the inter-crew relations, but this story did read a bit like it was written in the 1950s or 1960s. To be fair, the Chinese had a female commander. But the story ends in a stalemate of sorts. Neither crew has the courage to tell their countries to get over themselves.

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this, but I found it disappointing, and some of the characters a little bit cliched.

Story # 149

Title: "The Promise of Space"
Author: James Patrick Kelly
Length: 3,887 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Clarkesworld Year Seven (anthology, edited by Neil Clarke & Sean Wallace, Wyrm Publishing)
When Published: 2015
Original Publication: Clarkesworld , September 2013
Rating:
Link: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kelly_09_13/

In this story, a woman talks to a ... something that was once and may or may not still be her astronaut husband. It seems to be what's left of his personality after the effects of space-travel-induced Alzheimer's, augmented by a computer or AI interface accessing the "captures" (video recordings) he made before succumbing to the disease.

I found this somewhat interesting but also disjointed, and had trouble engaging with it emotionally.

Story # 150

Title: "The Gambler"
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Length: 9,900 words (estimated based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (science fiction)
Where Published: The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards: SF (anthology, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, Robinson)
When Published: 2012
Original Publication: Fast Forward 2 (anthology), October 2008
Rating:
Link: N/A

I quite enjoyed this novelette about social media, news-as-social media, journalistic integrity, and fame. I tend to think of Paolo Bacigalupi as another Cory Doctorow, i.e. someone who has his pulse on how technology is affecting society right now.

Story # 152

Title: "The Box"
Author: J.T. Sharp
Length: 2,819 words
Category: Short story (dark fantasy/horror)
Where Published: Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures
When Published: 2016-03
Rating:
Link: http://www.triggerwarningshortfiction.com/the-box/

Alas, this short dark fantasy/horror piece didn't work for me. The main character had emotional responses that sometimes seemed off, and it was very clear to me as soon as she disposed of the bird carcass that she was eventually going to dispose of a human body in the same way, and the minute someone told her to drive carefully after drinking, I knew why she'd have to dispose of a body. Very predictable that way. The ending was also too open-ended for my taste -- I don't mind not knowing the how/why of the mystery, but I wanted to have some idea of what happened, i.e. what the practical effect was.

Story # 153

Title: "Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia"
Author: Rachel Swirsky
Length: 8,601 words
Category: Novelette (fantasy)
Where Published: Tor.com: Selected Original Fiction, 2008-2012 (audiobook anthology, Brilliance Audio)
When Published: 2014
Original Publication: Tor.com, August 2012
Rating:
Link: http://www.tor.com/2012/08/22/portrait-of-lisane-de-patagnia/

This fantasy novelette, told from the POV of a former apprentice of a renowed portraiture artist, contains gorgeous imagery and language. The narrator of this audio book edition has (or uses) a lovely accent, adding to the atmosphere -- I'm not sure, but I wonder if this is an alternate Italy?

In any case, Renn now makes a living painting landscapes and infusing her art with magic -- somewhat bitterly, because she knows her actual artistic skills are not masterful. When the story begins, she is summoned by her now-dying former teacher and lover, Lisane de Patagnia, who wants Renn to paint her portrait using magic, although it is strictly forbidden to use magic when painting human subjects.

I thought this story was very well told. For me, though, it needed the tiniest bit more to push it over the edge into 4 1/2 or 5 stars (which is generally where I draw the line when considering works for awards, although I'm far too late for this 2012 story anyway). I guess I wanted to know more about the portrait itself -- did it look at all like Lisane, or was it abstract? -- and more about what it meant to the people who looked at it and to the future of art and magic. Renn's emotional journey was complete, but I still felt something was missing at the end. It's possible that I'm just being too demanding.

Story # 154

Title: "Bridesicle"
Author: Will McIntosh
Length: 6,465 words (estimated based on sample page count)
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards: SF (anthology, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, Robinson)
When Published: 2012
Original Publication: Asimov's, January 2009
Rating:
Link: N/A

I found it hard to believe after reading it that this story won the Hugo award in 2010. The basic premise is that a dead woman is briefly revived from cryogenic suspension many years after her death, to be "auditioned" via a speed dating process to see if the man who has awakened her wants to pay for her very expensive resurrection so he can marry her. Meanwhile, she used to have a "hitcher," meaning she had taken her mother's brain download into her own mind because her mother guilt-tripped her into it, and she killed herself to escape said mother, and a big part of the reason she didn't get along with her mother is because she is a lesbian, and her own love-of-her-life is suspended in the same cryogenic center.

My biggest problem here is that I did not for one second buy into this set-up. The world is overcrowded with people, and socially awkward or physically unattractive men are going to try to resurrect dead women, based on short conversations with their heads (the only part of them that works during these brief revivals), and marry them? And even if I bought into that, the "hitcher" concept muddies it up. And to throw suicide and homophobia into the same quite short story really piled it on thick. Oh, and surrogate motherhood too.

When someone described the plot of The Hunger Games to me, I said it was one of the stupidest things I'd ever heard, as though the people in the book would ever accept that concept as their reality. The person who recommended the book to me said to trust her, that the author made it believable. And she was right -- the author made me buy into it, whether I wanted to or not.

Not so with this short story, I'm afraid. It's possible an author could make me believe that this practice, of essentially forcing dead women into unpalatable marriages in order to have another chance at life, could become both legal and socially acceptable. But it would take something extraordinary on the author's part for me to accept it.

Clearly, though, I'm in the minority!

Story # 154

Title: "A !Tangled Web"
Author: Joe Haldeman
Length: 8,620 words (estimated based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (science fiction)
Where Published: The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards: SF (anthology, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, Robinson)
When Published: 2012
Original Publication: Analog, 1981
Rating:
Link: N/A

This was a mildly amusing story about an interpreter trying to seal a deal with an alien species while also outwitting a human rival.

Story # 156

Title: "Getting Dark"
Author: Neil Barrett Jr.
Length: 4,850 words (estimated based on sample page count)
Category: Short story (dark fantasy)
Where Published: The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards: SF (anthology, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, Robinson)
When Published: 2012
Original Publication: Subterranean Press, 2009
Rating:
Link: N/A

This is an atmospheric story in which the reader gradually finds out that a woman is either crazy, or she's seeing ghosts of all her dead family members. Honestly, I didn't care which it was -- I didn't find being in this woman's head interesting or enjoyable.

Story # 157

Title: "The Poet with Fishhook Eyes"
Author: Michelle Knowlden
Length: 601 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published:
When Published:
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/future-societies/michelle-knowlde...

This short piece gave me the impression that the title came first, and then the author tried to write a story to go with it. It didn't quite work for me.

Story # 158

Title: "To Give Birth to a Dancing Star"
Author: K.B. Sluss
Length: 2,938 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Luna Station Quarterly
When Published: 2016-06
Rating:
Link: http://lunastationquarterly.com/story/to-give-birth-to-a-dancing-star/

I'm afraid this story didn't quite work to me; it felt as if it tried a little too hard, although that's probably more a matter of personal taste than anything else. And this is a very small example, but it kind of sums up my reaction. At one point, the main character thinks "And if I had the chance, I would do it all over again." There are two words that don't fit for me there: "all over." For me, to say "I would do it all over again" implies that you're referring to a long sequence, or a large number, of events. Yet the character is actually referring to one action she just took a few moments prior to thinking this. It would have made sense to me if it said "I would do it again" but not "I would do it all over again."

Absolutely nitpicking, and I promise I'm not judging the entire story on this line! There was some nice stuff here, but I didn't buy the overall premise, and I wasn't engaged by the emphasis on the main character's miscarriage and inability to later conceive. If she really threw her husband's records out, she needed a lot of mental help. And I didn't like the fuzziness of the ending.

Story # 159

Title: "The Reality Machine"
Author: Karl El-Koura
Length: 842 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-01
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/virtual-reality/karl-el-koura/the...

This story is about a man who uses a virtual reality machine so that he can give in to his temper in a fascimile of the real world. I'm afraid I wasn't really engaged by it.

Story # 160

Title: "One Last Smoke"
Author: Alex Granados
Length: 1,000 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Every Day Fiction
When Published: 2016-04-14
Rating:
Link: http://everydayfiction.com/one-last-smoke-%E2%80%A2-by-alex-granados/

This is intended as a humorous SF story about a male alien who accidentally increases the libido of the entire United States (but somehow not North America, and somehow using a device that's supposed to be within 6 feet of the subjects), then has to un-do the damage by lacing cigarette tobacco with a counteracting drug. Alas, I'm afraid the humor falls kind of flat for me.

Story # 161

Title: "A Brutal Murder in a Public Place"
Author: Joyce Carol Oates
Length: 1,830 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Short story (literary)
Where Published: Black Dahlia & White Rose (collection)
When Published: 2012
Original Publication: McSweeneys 37, 2011
Rating:
Link: N/A

Oh dear, this does not bode well. This is the first story in this collection that I've read, and I found it to be completely overblown and overwritten. It's about a bird trapped in Newark Airport.

At least I only paid a dollar for this book at the dollar store. And maybe I'll like the other stories better.

Story # 162

Title: "Bird Watching"
Author: Anton Rose
Length: 741 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Punchnel's
When Published: 2016-05-19
Rating:
Link: http://www.punchnels.com/2016/05/19/bird-watching/

I thought that this short piece about suicide was nicely written, but ultimately not as satisfying or as "complete" as I would have liked.

Story # 163

Title: "Fence to Fence"
Author: Jennifer Cox
Length: 958 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Freeze Frame Fiction
When Published: unknown
Rating:
Link: https://freezeframefiction.com/read/q8-flash-fiction/fence-to-fence-by-jennifer-...

This piece, about a teenage girl of divorced parents with low self-esteem, unfortunately jumps around a bit, even within a single paragraph. Between that and some ambiguous pronouns, the story came across as less polished to me.

Story # 164

Title: "Heating Up"
Author: Daniel Wilmoth
Length: 468 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Every Day Fiction
When Published: 2016-01-11
Rating:
Link: http://everydayfiction.com/heating-up-by-daniel-wilmoth/

This is a short-short satire about a conservative government's attempts to minimize the effects of global climate change. While in my case this is preaching to the choir, for me it didn't quite work as satire.

Story # 165

Title: "Fortune for Your Freshman Year"
Author: Lucy Silbaugh
Length: 2,700 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: One Teen Story
When Published: 2016-05-18
Rating:
Link: N/A

This story, written in second person future tense, tells of a young woman's freshman year at a prestigious (probably Ivy League) university. I found it decent, but can't shake the feeling that it was also a little pretentious. I found it more difficult to like the main character that I would have liked.

Story # 166

Title: "Ice and White Roses"
Author: Rebecca Birch
Length: 938 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Nature
When Published: 2014-11-26
Rating:
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v515/n7528/full/515600a.html

This short piece is about Alzheimer's in a future with human settlement out to Mars, at least. This was nicely written, but for me the two elements of the story (future world and Alzheimer's) felt segregated, and it didn't offer anything new for me.

Finally finished my post about favorite stories read in May: http://amysreviews.blogspot.com/2016/06/short-fiction-may-2016.html

Story # 167

Title: "Useful Objects"
Author: Erica L. Satifka
Length: 928 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Nature
When Published: 2014-10-08
Rating:
Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v514/n7521/full/514266a.html

I think this short piece is intended as a commentary on the fact that the liberal arts are constantly under fire from those who make the budget decisions. I agree with the message, but I couldn't really accept the premise of this story as making much sense -- I didn't see internal logic or consistency in it.

Story # 168

Title: "The First Confirmed Case of Non-Corporeal Recursion: Patient Anita R."
Author: Benjamin C. Kinney
Length: 3,427 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Strange Horizons
When Published: 2016-06-06
Rating:
Link: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2016/20160606/kinneyrecursion-f.shtml

In this story, a frustrated ghost, limited to "dialogue" from her own memories, tries to communicate with the people who see her.

This didn't quite work for me. It was a little repetitive (deliberately, but I still found it too noticeable to accept), and I wasn't convinced that the ghost's words to the the young woman near the end would be something the girl could interpret. I also found the ghost's bitterness somewhat off-putting.

>83 amysisson:

Oates is an acquired taste I think - most of the time I think all her works are overwritten; sometimes I seem to be in the mood for them.

Story # 169

Title: "Department of Truth"
Author: Jennifer Rose Jorgensen
Length: 996 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-07
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/hither-and-yon/sf-fantasy/jennifer-rose-jorgensen...

This is a short piece about time travel and truth-telling. I won't say there was anything deep about it, but some of the details were truly clever, and I enjoyed it.

Story # 170

Title: "The Day the Future Invaded"
Author: Beth Powers
Length: 280 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-02
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/time-travel/beth-powers/the-day-t...

This is a charming little piece, a vignette or micro-story, actually. It's too short to describe, but the title is somewhat self-explanatory.

>94 amysisson:

Charming, yes! I loved it. Done well enough that I suspect it would hold up to analysis and scrutiny and arguments for and against allegorical readings. But it doesn't have to, it's charming.

Story # 171

Title: "One More Bite"
Author: Michelle Muenzler
Length: 800 words
Category: Short story (horror)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-09
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/fairy-tales/michelle-muenzler/one-more-bi...

There aren't many authors who can make me actually look forward, with pleasure, to reading a dark, creepy story. Michelle is one of those authors. This short story, at 800 words, is really all atmosphere, since we don't find out terribly much about how this ... process works. But that atmosphere is so beautifully constructed that it's delightful (delightfully creepy) to read.

Story # 172

Title: "After the End"
Author: Damien Angelica Walters
Length: 1,106 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-10
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/disaster-apocalypse/damien-angeli...

This post-apocalyptic piece is very well-written, but at the same time I didn't feel like it offered much that was new. I also didn't understand why the mother wouldn't tell the daughter what she specifically thought had happened, since it served no purpose not to tell her, especially once the mother knew that she herself was dying. Finally, second person POV is a bit of a hard sell for me.

Story # 173

Title: "Head, Scales, Tongue, Tail"
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Length: 10,400 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

I've just started this new anthology of YA romance stories, by the same editor, Stephanie Perkins, who put together the fabulous My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories (which I haven't quite finished; I plan to start it over this holiday season).

In this story, a high school student named Gracie befriends an odd "summer boy" in Little Spindle. Eli doesn't seem rich like the other summer residents, and he spends his summers reading in the library, but he and Gracie find a connection when she thinks she's spied Idgy Pidgy, the lake's supposed Loch Ness-type "sea monster." They spend the subsequent summers together, and Gracie finds herself wondering what will happen to their friendship-turned-romance now that she's finishing high school.

This was a charming story, although I think it would have worked fine without Eli actually being the sea creature. But I liked that fine too, so no problem there. The only real flaw I found in the story was the background on Annalee Saperstein at the beginning of the story feels like it's tacked on from something else the author has written. And it threw me off when, a few pages in, I realized the story wasn't about Annalee at all. Still, I'd read this again.

Story # 174

Title: "The End of Love"
Author: Nina LaCour
Length: 9,900 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

I mostly liked this story about Flora, a young lesbian taking geometry in summer school, not because she needs to, but to escape her parents' too-congenial (in her opinion) divorce proceedings. Flora's attraction to Mimi is rekindled, and she gains other new friends as well. It bothered me, however, that the reader doesn't get to see Flora have the conversation she needs to with her parents -- they are gaily throwing away all of their possessions, not considering the fact that Flora and her mother had painstakingly decorated the house together. That's incredibly thoughtless, and they needed to be told so. The reader gets the impression that Flora has found new courage in her relationship with Mimi, but doesn't get to actually witness it, which is a little disappointing.

Story # 175

Title: "Little Dead Girl"
Author: C.M. Saunders
Length: 2,314 words
Category: Short story (horror)
Where Published: Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures
When Published: 2016-06
Rating:
Link: http://www.triggerwarningshortfiction.com/little-dead-girl/

I quite liked the premise and tone of this short, dark story about a man haunted by the ghost of a little girl. I also (as per usual with this publication) liked the illustration. However, I found the writing slightly less polished than it could have been, in part due to the presence of several comma splices.

Story # 176

Title: "Irma Splinkbottom’s Recipe For Cold Fusion"
Author: Janene Murphy
Length: 995 words
Category: Short story (humor)
Where Published: Flash Fiction Online
When Published: 2009-11
Rating:
Link: http://flashfictiononline.com/main/article/irma-splinkbottoms-recipe-for-cold-fu...

This is a cute humor piece about a housewife who decides to play around with her microwave oven.... Fun, although not terribly memorable. Some nice turns of phrase.

Story # 177

Title: "America, America"
Author: Okafor Emmanuel Tochukwu
Length: 827 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Flash Fiction Online
When Published: 2006-01
Rating:
Link: http://flashfictiononline.com/main/article/america-america/

The magazine describes this piece as "literary" whereas I'd be more inclined to call it "mainstream," but no matter. This is about a gay man from Nigeria coming out to his parents, who conclude that he has been infected with an American sickness. It's well-written but felt rather incomplete to me.

>102 amysisson:

literary and mainstream seem to be considered synonyms way too often. And antonyms of genre :)

Story # 178

Title: "The Exterminator's Daughter"
Author: Meg Cabot
Length: 11,000 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA / paranormal romance)
Where Published: Prom Nights from Hell (anthology)
When Published: 2007
Rating:
Link: N/A

This was pretty ghastly. Told in alternating her-and-his viewpoints, this story is about the daughter of an "exterminator," i.e. vampire/demon slayer, who is intent on killing the gorgeous vampire son of the vampire father who turned her mother. Killing the son will draw out the father, she thinks, so she can kill him, which will revert her mother to purely human form. Because that makes sense. (Sorry, I shouldn't be sarcastic, but I'm in a bad mood.)

I also didn't get that the main character claims the vampire son would have just killed her in a crowd in spite of all the witnesses, but then she is "saved" by her hot guy love interest because he shows up at the right time .... to be a witness. Which she just said the vampire wouldn't have cared about. But it gives the necessary reason that she has to now trust hot guy love interest and share all the secrets of vampire hunting with him.

There's also some line level writing that grated on me, such as when the male POV character says something to the effect of "I let go of the lip I'd started chewing on."

Story # 179

Title: "Last Stand at the Cinegore"
Author: Libba Bray
Length: 13,500 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

I didn't much care for this one. Three teens in a small Texas town are working their last evening at the Cinegore, an old-fashioned movie theater dedicated to showing old horror movies, before it's torn down to make room for a Starbucks and other modern real estate. The theater's final showing is a movie that's "cursed" and that is rumored to cause death any time it's seen by human eyes.

One of the things that bugged me about this story was the too-outrageous (in terms of what he says) friend, which feels like a cliche to me at this point. That friend is also gay, which is great -- I think YA stories should have more gay characters as a matter of course, and that the stories should not always be about their struggles. At the same time, it rang false to me when the main character said that his gay friend's popularity went up when he came out in his junior year in high school -- in a small Texas town. That doesn't feel like the Texas that I live in.

The plot was also just dumb, with the teens tossing off one-liners at the same time they're supposedly scared sh*tless by the monsters that some of their classmates have just been turned into.

Story # 180

Title: "Sick Pleasure"
Author: Francesca Lia Block
Length: 6,200 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Short story (YA)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

This story was too stream-of-consciousness/nostalgia for my taste, with a main character narrating about a boy she once liked and had a short-lived connection with some years in her past. This story was not helped by the main characters being referred to only as A, L, M, J, and so on, with minor characters being referred to by the nicknames the girl's friends give them, such as Rat Catcher, Horse, and so on. This latter affectation is one of the author's trademarks, which I don't find it nearly as charming as I used to. When coupled with the ridiculous initials thing for the main characters, it was downright annoying. And there wasn't enough point to the story to make up for it.

Story # 181

Title: "Don't Read This Story"
Author: K.T. Bryski
Length: 273 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-16
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/robots-and-computers/k-t-bryski/d...

This short-short didn't quite work for me, in part because the premise wasn't new to me.

Story # 182

Title: "On Discovering a Ghost in the Five Star"
Author: Peter M. Ball
Length: 1,481 words
Category: Short story (fantasy)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-03
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/parapsychology/peter-m-ball/on-discoverin...

Alas, this could have been a really decent story. I liked the premise, which is that people know that ghosts are around us, and society effectively silences the ghosts by refusing to listen to what they have to say. It's a pretty obvious metaphor for the silencing of victims and minorities, but it's a valuable one. However, the story is marred by an unusual number of typos, clumsy word repetition, clumsy tense changes, awkward and sometimes unnecessary section breaks, and some unnecessary shortening of words ('bout for about, 'cause for because) that seems out of place with the rest of the story's voice. Even the story's title is wrong, because nobody in the story discovers the ghost. It also says that the ghost was killed in the "back of the laundromat" (implying a back room or behind the building) but later it says her head was bashed against one of the dryers.

In any case, for me it feels as though the author just didn't pay close attention to the writing -- all of these things could have been easily fixed. But perhaps it's unfair of me to impose my preferences onto the story. Other readers' mileage may vary considerably.

Story # 183

Title: "Time and Space Died Yesterday"
Author: Brandon Echter
Length: 1,247 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-17
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/hither-and-yon/slipstream/brandon-echter/time-and...

Well, kudos to this story for its experimental nature, but I'm afraid I found it pretty unreadable. It's essentially stream-of-consciouness. I mean, a picture of the main characters' marriage does emerge, but I have to admit I found the overall effect to be kind of pretentious.

Story # 184

Title: "The Greyhound"
Author: Dafydd Mckimm
Length: 1,028 words
Category: Short story (fantasy)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-21
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/Monsters/dafydd-mckimm/the-greyhound

This story had promise, but didn't quite come together for me. The author indicates in the notes at the end of the story that it came together from a random idea generator, and honestly, I think that shows a bit. At any rate, I found it too convenient that the one fellow passenger who asks her (the selkie) about her dripping skirt happens to be someone who has hunted and killed seal pups.

That said, there is one line I quite loved (in spite of the not-quite-perfect use of the semi-colon): I think he was expecting a disgusted look; so I gave him one, out of kindness.

Story # 185

Title: "The Job"
Author: Bob Page
Length: 1,555 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures
When Published: 2016-06
Rating:
Link: http://www.triggerwarningshortfiction.com/the-job/

This premise was fun, although I believe I've seen it before: workers plug in so that they don't have to be actively conscious during boring shift work. (I think there was something quite similar in Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson's The Singers of Time, although it's been so many years since I read it that I'm not certain.) It doesn't actually make a lot of sense in this story, because if you have the technology to plug workers in like that, why don't you have the technology to have robots open the boxes instead of plugged-in humans?

At any rate, though, my issues with the story are more about the writing than the premise. There's a certain clumsiness, and lack of attention to punctuation and dialog attribution.

Story # 186

Title: "The Weight of Kanzashi"
Author: Joshua Gage
Length: 559 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Diabolical Plots
When Published: 2016-06-01
Rating:
Link: http://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-16-the-weight-of-kanzashi-by-joshua-ga...

This didn't work for me for a number of reasons:

1) The present tense felt forced.

2) I didn't feel it was actually a story. (The author remarks on this in his notes after the story; he says he was trying for a story by juxtaposition rather than conflict.)

3) The shaving and waxing of the astronauts seemed unnecessary to me, and is not done by space station crews in real life.

Story # 187

Title: "In Ninety Minutes, Turn North"
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Length: 12,600 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

This is actually a sequel to my favorite story in Perkins' other YA anthology, "It's a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown" in My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories. In that story, Marigold meets North, a boy who works for his family's Christmas tree farm.

In this story, Marigold has moved away to Atlanta to pursue her desire to be a professional animator, and North has stayed behind because his parents expect him to take over the farm. Marigold doesn't understand why North won't try a long distance relationship with her, since she's only 3-4 hours away, but is determined to "rescue" him by convincing him there has to be a solution to his parental expectation problem.

While this was nicely written and I liked many of the details, I wasn't really in the mood for a story in which better communication could have saved everyone a lot of grief. So that has, perhaps unfairly, colored my view of this story. Also, to be honest, it probably had too much to live up to, since I loved that earlier story so much.

Story # 188

Title: "Souvenirs"
Author: Tim Federle
Length: 9,300 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Short story (YA)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

In this story, a gay teen named Matt is struggling through his last day of work as an amusement park, because his summer boyfriend decided early in the season that this would be their official break-up day. This is because the boyfriend, Kieth, is off to college while Matt has another year of high school.

Although both characters were nicely drawn, I feel as though there's a trend in YA fictional romances about the POV character noticing every little quirky thing about their love interest, as though that expresses profound, deep love. In fact, the characters both literally list all the little things they love about each other. But a laundry list doesn't make me feel the emotion, so this felt flat to me.

Story # 189

Title: "Deathbed"
Author: Caroline M. Yoachim
Length: 581 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2011-07-18
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/time-travel/caroline-m-yoachim/de...

A woman keeps her husband company as he remembers his impending death. I'm not sure precisely what is going on in this story, but it really didn't matter to me.

Story # 190

Title: "Inertia"
Author: Veronica Roth
Length: 11,300 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA / science fiction)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

In this story, a teenaged girl is summoned to a "visitation," meaning that an about-to-die friend has listed her as one of the people he wants to "see" before dying. She goes to the hospital and gets linked in to his consciousness so they can share memories and talk for a short while. Through these memories, we learn that they were friends and had a falling out that had to do with her refusal to undergo treatment for her depression, which they now mend (and even discovered they may love each other romantically too -- and he survives the operation after all even though the odds are 9 to 1 against that happening.

I wasn't a huge fan of this. Most people don't get such an extreme opportunity to goad them into communicating. Plus I did not buy that this under-eighteen year old just chose "not to fill" the doctor's prescription for anti-depressants, and nobody (doctor, father, concerned and caring stepmother) followed up on it. Since when do teenagers fill their own prescriptions for rather serious drugs like that? I also think cutting is an over-used cliche for young adult fiction.

Story # 191

Title: "Love is the Last Resort"
Author: Jon Skovron
Length: 14,500 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

This one was rather on the silly side. A narrator who keeps breaking the fourth wall relates a story of a trio of matchmakers getting three couples together at a summer resort. I even found the set-up silly, because a summer resort for extremely wealthy people is unlikely to use high schoolers on staff.

Story # 192

Title: "Pencils, Rules, Bones, Heart"
Author: JT Gill
Length: 994 words
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-27
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/superhero/jt-gill/pencils-rules-b...

This story is about a girl who befriends a boy with "extraordinary powers," namely telekinesis, in a world where the government is beginning to regulate such things. It was nicely written, but I found it a bit too simplistic, and a bit too self-consciously poignant.

Story # 193

Title: "Good Luck and Farewell"
Author: Brandy Colbert
Length: 11,300 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

In this story, a teenage girl who lost her mother to depression and suicide some years before is now anxious about the fact that her favorite cousin, who has become a mother figure for her, is moving away with her same-sex partner. She is somewhat reassured upon getting to know that partner's unofficially adoptive brother, who feels a similar sense of anxiety.

This was nicely written. I'm not sure how long it will stay with me, but I enjoyed reading it.

Story # 194

Title: "Brand New Attraction"
Author: Cassandra Clare
Length: 10,200 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

A girl whose father runs a dark carnival gets suspicious when her father disappears and her uncle shows up with a new demon to power the carnival.

This was OK, but not one that will stay with me.

Story # 195

Title: "A Thousand Ways This Could Go Wrong"
Author: Jennifer E. Smith
Length: 12,200 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

Definitely the highlight of the anthology so far (and I note there's only one story to go). In this story, Annie runs into Griffin, a shy boy she's had her eye on for a while, and asks him on a maybe-a-date, maybe-not-a-date outing to an arcade. MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD When Annie gets stuck late at the camp she works while waiting for an autistic boy's mother to pick up her child, Griffin gets along with the little boy remarkably well. It takes Annie a while to put two-and-two together, but Griffin finally tells her that he too has Asperger's (which he says they're now calling autism).

This is one of the better fictional treatments of the subject that I've seen. It's not played for laughs (ala Big Bang Theory), nor is it extreme from the autistic person's point of view (ala The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime). It's just a quiet look at what it might be like to try to navigate such a relationship when one of the two people has a harder time with cues. I also thought the characters were very well developed for such a short story.

Story # 196

Title: "Turkey Shoot"
Author: Tom Lavagnino
Length: 3,713 words
Category: Short story (dark fantasy)
Where Published: Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures
When Published: 2015
Rating:
Link: http://www.triggerwarningshortfiction.com/turkey-shoot/

This is a fun, dark little tale in which a man leaves an answering machine message explaining to his friend why he's coming over to kill him. I liked it, but I thought it was at least a third longer than it needed to be, and it was actually a bit anti-climatic. During the big build-up, I began to anticipate that the golf foursome had deliberately decided to kill their obnoxious co-worker. Instead, their big crime was simply lying about their golf prowess -- actually, the crime ends up being bigger, but lying was the only bad thing they actively decided to do. Oh well, it was still fun, but it wasn't as razor-sharp as I'd hoped.

Story # 197

Title: "The Arrangements"
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Length: 4,432 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: The New York Times Book Review
When Published: 2016-06-28
Rating:
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/books/review/melania-trump-in-chimamanda-ngozi...

Well, that was something completely different! Apparently the NYT Book Review commissioned this story about "the American election," but it's really about Donald Trump from his third wife Melania's point of view. I thought this was well done, but I'm not entirely sure what to make of it....

Story # 198

Title: "The Map of Tiny Perfect Things"
Author: Lev Grossman
Length: 13,200 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novelette (YA / fantasy)
Where Published: Summer Days and Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories (anthology), edited by Stephanie Perkins
When Published: 2016
Rating:
Link: N/A

And this is the second stand-out from this anthology! High school student Mark realizes he's living August 4 over and over, ala Groundhog Day, and is coping fairly well. Then he meets Margeret, a fellow repeater, and they make it their mission to find all the perfect moments they can.

Bravery points for openly referencing the movies Groundhog Day and The Edge of Tomorrow, and kudos for not being too similar to either of those stories. And I liked the way the book Flatland was referenced as well.

I'm reading this from the library, but I'm tempted to buy the book now, just for this story. (I have to admit to some bias; I'm a big Lev Grossman fan.)

Story # 199

Title: "Going Deep"
Author: James Patrick Kelly
Length: 6,300 words (estimated based on sample page count)
Category: Short story (science fiction)
Where Published: The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards: SF (anthology, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, Robinson)
When Published: 2012
Original Publication: Asimov's, June 2009
Rating:
Link: N/A

In this story, lunar resident Mariska is about to become an adult at age 14, and is chafing at the attention from her contract father, who was hired by her spacer clone-mother to take care of Mariska while the mother was on a long-term mission.

There was a lot in this story that was quite interesting, but this felt vastly unfinished to me. No single aspect of the story (cloning, sharing brain feeds, hibernation, genetic predisposition) was particularly developed. I get the idea the take-away message is supposed to be that being a "space" is in one's genetics, but even that felt unfinished.

Story # 200

Title: "Failed Interview with the International Convocation of the Damned"
Author: Luc Reid
Length: 430 words
Category: Short story (humor / horror)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-29
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/Monsters/luc-reid/failed-interview-with-t...

This is a cute piece of humorous horror microfiction mocking our current literary take on vampires.

Story # 201

Title: "Created By..."
Author: David Wardrop
Length: 205 words
Category: Short story (fantasy)
Where Published: Daily Science Fiction
When Published: 2016-06-30
Rating:
Link: http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/religious/david-wardrop/created-by-

This is going to sound very unkind, but I don't think this story had any business being published. It's full of grammatical errors and unclear writing. I also didn't find the underlying premise very compelling.

Blog post of my June 2016 favorites: http://amysreviews.blogspot.com/2016/06/short-fiction-june-2016.html

I've read 201 stories so far this year, consisting of an estimated 667,500 words.