Amy's 2025 short story reading

JANUARY 2025

1. Jan 1, 2025 - "Wonders of the Invisible World" by Patricia McKillip. In Full Spectrum 5 (anthology), Bantam 1995 (original publication). Science fiction.
2. Jan 2, 2025 - "Rain" by W. Somerset Maugham. Original story publication year unknown. In The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham 1: East and West (collection), Doubleday 1953. Literary fiction - vintage.
3. Jan 3, 2025 - "The Fall of Edward Barnard" by W. Somerset Maugham. Original story publication year unknown. In The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham 1: East and West (collection), Doubleday 1953. Literary fiction - vintage.
4. Jan 4, 2025 - "Mackintosh" by W. Somerset Maugham. Original story publication year unknown. In The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham 1: East and West (collection), Doubleday 1953. Literary fiction - vintage.
5. Jan 5, 2025 - "Where My Love Still Lives" by Emily Taylor. Clarkesworld 215, August 2024. Science fiction.
6. Jan 6, 2025 - "Honolulu" by W. Somerset Maugham. Original story publication year unknown. In The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham 1: East and West (collection), Doubleday 1953. Literary fiction - vintage.
7. Jan 7, 2025 - "This Week in Clinical Dance: Urgent Care at the Hastings Center" by Lauren Ring. Diabolical Plots, June 2024. Science fiction/Satire.
8. Jan 8, 2025 - "Thunder in the Morning" by Ray Bradbury. In Driving Blind (collection), Avon Books 1997 (original publication). Science fiction.
9. Jan 9, 2025 (read Jan 10, 2025) - "Show Biz" by Robert Bloch. In Future Crime (anthology), Donald I. Fine 1992. Originally published 1959 in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Science fiction - social.
10. Jan 10, 2025 - "The Archronology of Love" by Caroline M. Yoachim. Lightspeed 107, April 2019. Science fiction.
11. Jan 12, 2025 - "One-Shot" by Lawrence Watt-Evans. In Future Crime (anthology), Donald I. Fine 1992. Originally published 1990 in Asimov's. Science fiction - alternate history.
12. Jan 12, 2025 - "I Always Do What Teddy Says" by Lawrence Watt-Evans. In Future Crime (anthology), Donald I. Fine 1992. Originally published 1965 in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Science fiction - social.
13. Jan 15, 2025 - "The Not-So-Big Sleep" by Terry Black. Future Crime (anthology), Donald I. Fine 1992. Originally published 1990 in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Science fiction - humor.
14. Jan 15, 2025 - "A Belly Full of Stars" by Michael Gust. In Full Spectrum 5 (anthology), Bantam 1995 (original publication). Fantasy - dark
15. Jan 16, 2025 - "The Accomplice" by Vernor Vinge. In The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (collection), Tor 2001. Originally published 1967 in Worlds of If Science Fiction.
16. Jan 18, 2025 - "The Science Fair" by Vernor Vinge. In The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (collection), Tor 2001. Originally published 1971 in Orbit 9.
17. Jan 18, 2025 - The Statue Hunt" by E. Carey Crowder. Diabolical Plots, January 2025. Science fiction.
18. Jan 19, 2025 - "The Music Must Always Play" by Marissa Lingen. Clarkesworld 216, September 2024. Science fiction.
19. Jan 20, 2025 - "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackened Husk of a Planet" by Adeline Wong. Strange Horizons, October 28, 2024. Science fiction.
20. Jan 21, 2025 - "Road Trip" by William C. Armstrong & J.W. Armstrong. Nature, January 15, 2025. Science fiction.
21. Jan 21, 2025 - "Of Your Own Device" by Victoria Chvatal. Nature, December 30, 2024. Science fiction.
22. Jan 25, 2025 - "Second Chances" by Michael Jan Friedman. In Star Trek: New Worlds, New Civilizations (collection), Pocket Books 1999. Science fiction - media tie-in.
23. Jan 25, 2025 - "Beyond Horizons" by Michael Jan Friedman. In Star Trek: New Worlds, New Civilizations (collection), Pocket Books 1999. Science fiction - media tie-in.

FEBRUARY 2025

24. Feb 1, 2025 - "Fleet" by Sandra McDonald. Clarkesworld 131, August 2017. Science fiction.

MARCH 2025

25. March 6, 2025 - "Blockade Billy" by Stephen King. In Blockade Billy, Scribner 2010. Psychological horror.

APRIL 2025

26. April 16, 2025 - "Morality" by Stephen King. In Blockade Billy, Scribner 2010. Psychological horror.
27. April 24, 2025 - "Just Before Recess" by James Van Pelt. Flash Fiction Online, March 2008. Science fiction.

MAY 2025

28. May 31, 2025 - "Avi Loves Ric Forever" by Norma Fox Mazer. In Summer Girls, Love Boys (collection), 1982. Young adult - contemporary.

JUNE 2025

29. June 1, 2025 - "Death Row" by Frieda McFadden. Amazon Original Stories, 2025. General fiction - psychological.
30. June 13, 2025- "Fard" by Aldous Huxley. Little Mexican and Other Stories (collection), Chatto & Windus, 1924. Literary fiction - vintage.
31. June 15, 2025- "The Portrait" by Aldous Huxley. Little Mexican and Other Stories (collection), Chatto & Windus, 1924. Literary fiction - vintage.
32. June 22, 2025- "Little Mexican" by Aldous Huxley. Little Mexican and Other Stories (collection), Chatto & Windus, 1924. Literary fiction - vintage.

SEPTEMBER 2025
33. September 11, 2025 - "No Future in It" by Joe Haldeman. In Dealing in Futures (collection), Viking 1985. Originally published (year unknown) in Omni.

OCTOBER 2025
34. October 13, 2025 - "Persephone" by Lev Grossman. Part of Amazon Originals Into Shadow collection, Amazon 2022. Urban fantasy.
35. October 15, 2025 - "Wings" by Colin Greenland. In Starlight 3 (anthology), ___________.

NOVEMBER 2025
#?. November ?, 2025 - "The Affair at 7, Rue de M-" by John Steinbeck. Online; originally published in Amazing Stories (magazine), 1927. Humor.
#?. November 17, 2025 - "Everest" by Isaac Asimov. In Universe Science Fiction (magazine), 1953. Science fiction.

DECEMBER 2025
#?. December ___, 2025 - "Die Abreise der Emma Inch" / "The Departure of Emma Inch" by James Thurber. In A Rose for Emily: American Short Stories (dual language English/German). Original publication in New Yorker, 1935. American literature.
#?. December 30, 2025 - "Das Kriegsschiff" / "The Warship" by Thornton Wilder. In A Rose for Emily: American Short Stories (dual language English/German), original publication date unknown. American literature.
#?. December 30, 2025 - "The Nothing" by Frank Herbert. From Project Gutenberg; originally published in Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, 1955. Science fiction.

****************************

Genre breakdown:

American Literature - 2
Fantasy / Dark - 1
Fantasy / Magic realism, dark - 1
General fiction / Psychological - 1
Horror / Psychological - 2
Literary fiction / vintage - 7
Science fiction - 13
Science fiction / Alternate history - 1
Science fiction / Humor - 1
Science fiction / Media tie-in - 2
Science fiction / Post-apocalypse - 1
Science fiction / Satire - 1
Science fiction / Social - 2
Young adult / contemporary - 1
Young adult / science fiction - 1

Total: 34

(2 known repeats)

Story # 1

Title: "Wonders of the Invisible World"
Author: Patricia McKillip
Length: 3,800 words (estimated)
Length category: short story
Genre category: Science fiction
Where Published: Full Spectrum 5 (anthology), Bantam 1995
When Published: 1995
Rating:
Link: n/a

In this story, a contractor goes via time travel to appear as an angel to Cotton Mather, and starts second-guessing the morality of doing so. I found this a little ponderous, and didn't like or understand her employer's motives at all.

Story # 2

Title: "Rain"
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Length: 15,200 words (estimated)
Length category: novelette
Genre category: Literary fiction / vintage
Where Published: The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham 1: East and West, Doubleday 1953
When Published: original publication date unknown
Rating:
Link: n/a

In "Rain", a British couple are temporarily stranded in a Samoan port, where they witness a missionary browbeating a "loose" woman into submission and conversion. I was glad to see the doctor (the POV character) attempt to stand up to the missionary, but it was scary how everyone was scared of him.

Edited to add: after reading "Mackintosh" in the same book, it seems that tyranny practiced by missionaries and occupation-appointment government officials may be a common theme in Maugham's short stories. For all I know, it may be one of his mainstay themes throughout all his work; aside from Of Human Bondage, I haven't read much by him yet.

Story # 3

Title: "Rain"
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Length: 12,100 words (estimated)
Length category: novelette
Genre category: Literary fiction / vintage
Where Published: The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham 1: East and West, Doubleday 1953
When Published: original publication date unknown
Rating:
Link: n/a

In this story, a Chicago man travels to American Samoa to see why his best friend, and fiance to the woman he worships, has not come back to go through with the wedding. I enjoyed the "Chicago is the true capital of American" mentality of the protagonist, and overall found this to be an excellent character study.

Story # 4

Title: "Mackintosh"
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Length: 12,700 words (estimated)
Length category: novelette
Genre category: Literary fiction / vintage
Where Published: The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham 1: East and West, Doubleday 1953
When Published: original publication date unknown
Rating:
Link: n/a

The title character, Mackintosh, is a Scottish man working in the (you guessed it) Samoan islands as assistant to a island colony governor. The governor is a grotesque, narcissistic, and cruel man whom Mackintosh comes to despise, and this is the story of how that hatred comes to a head.

Story # 5

Title: "Where My Love Still Lives"
Author: Emily Taylor
Length: 3,570 words
Length category: Short story
Category: Science fiction
Where Published: Clarkesworld 215
When Published: August 2024
Rating:
Link: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/taylor_08_24/

This story had an interesting premise; Ruby is a harvester who uses a motorized glider to gather food grown on rooftops, the only place "up top" where crops can be grown without being destroyed by the robot "builders," aka the tech-gone-awry that has forced the endangered humans to live below ground. The story isn't really about that, though; it's about Ruby and Augie's inability to sustain a relationship. I'm afraid I found the love element to be a little overwrought, and the children somewhat generic, and I wish the underlying premise had been explored more, but that's just personal taste.

Story # 6

Title: "Honolulu"
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Length: 8,900 words (estimated)
Length category: Novelette
Genre category: Literary fiction / vintage
Where Published: The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham 1: East and West, Doubleday 1953
When Published: original publication date unknown
Rating:
Link: n/a

I didn't care for this one -- the structure was odd, and the story was slow as all get-out. A British man goes to Honolulu, meets a Hawaiian man to whom a friend referred him, who introduces him to a ship captain, who eventually tells an odd tale of voodoo-like magic that he experienced.

Story # 7

Title: "This Week in Clinical Dance: Urgent Care at the Hastings Center"
Author: Lauren Ring
Length: 906 words
Length category: Flash fiction
Genre category: Science fiction - satire
Where Published: Diabolical Plots
When Published: June 2024
Rating:
Link: https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-112a-this-week-in-clinical-dance-urge...

The ill and dying dance on stage to compete for medical treatment. Interesting concept, but the execution didn't work for me.

Story # 8

Title: "Thunder in the Morning"
Author: Ray Bradbury
Length: 2,390 words (estimated)
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Fantasy - magic realism, dark
Where Published: Driving Blind (anthology), Avon 1997
Original publication year: 1997
Rating:
Link: n/a

This is a fun and odd little tale about a street cleaner and his mysterious machine.

Story # 9

Title: "Show Biz"
Author: Robert Bloch
Length: 1,989 words (estimated)
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction / Social
Where Published: Future Crime, Donald I. Fine 1992
Original publication year: 1959
Rating:
Link: n/a

In this story, a public relations CEO has a clandestine meeting with a professor who claims to have discovered something that will change the nation, if not the entire world. Essentially, he has created a "blueprint" for shadowy individuals to control the nation by hiring actors and grooming them into politicians they can control. Given when this was written, it's a little impressive, but I found the professor a bit melodramatic.

Story # 10

Title: "The Archronology of Love"
Author: Caroline M. Yoachim
Length: 8,931 words
Length category: Novelette
Category: Science fiction
Where Published: Lightspeed 107
When Published: April 2019
Rating:
Link: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-archronology-of-love/

Caroline remains one of my top three short spec fic writers (the other two being Ted Chiang and Ken Liu). This story doesn't disappoint. It involves the mystery of a lost colony on the far away New Mars, and the use of archronology to study the alien artifacts there. Researcher Saki Jones and her colleagues use a projection chamber to visit the past, but whatever "space" they and their bee-sized drone records occupy is destroyed, and if visited again will only show blank spaces. Caroline always comes up with something new and interesting, and often very moving.

Story # 11

Title: "One-Shot"
Author: Robert Bloch
Length: 442 words (estimated)
Length category: Flash fiction
Genre category: Science fiction / Alternate history
Where Published: Future Crime, Donald I. Fine 1992
Original publication year: 1990 (Asimov's)
Rating:
Link: n/a

I think the correct interpretation is that Marilyn Monroe was killed by a time traveler from an alternate history (covered up by the government as suicide) because she was the one who killed JFK, and that JFK is going to be killed the next week in Dallas anyway the way it happened in our history, so that the time traveler's efforts were in vain. However, it is a tiny too bit subtle for my taste and I'm not 100% sure my interpretation is correct. I disliked the lack of character in the two no-name characters, if that makes sense.

Story # 11

Title: "I Always Do What Teddy Says"
Author: Lawrence Watt-Evans
Length: 3,647 words (estimated)
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction / Social
Where Published: Future Crime, Donald I. Fine 1992
Original publication year: 1965 (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine)
Rating:
Link: n/a

In a society where children are indoctrinated by their teddy bears, a man and two accomplices change the man's son's teddy bear so that he will be the first person capable of killing another human, generations after that ability has been socially engineered out of society. I'm afraid I found both the story and the writing fairly clunky.

Story # 13

Title: "The Not-So-Big Sleep"
Author: Terry Black
Length: 2,652 words (estimated)
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction / Humor
Where Published: Future Crime, Donald I. Fine 1992
Original publication year: 1990 (Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine)
Rating:
Link: n/a

Finally a story in this anthology that I really liked. This is a humorous tale about a lazy heir who has his rich uncle's body reanimated in order to claim the insurance money, since the insurance company won't pay when it's suicide. It's silly but cleverly executed.

Story # 14

Title: "A Belly Full of Stars"
Author: Michael Gust
Length: 3,120 words (estimated)
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Fantasy - dark
Where Published: Full Spectrum 5 (anthology), Bantam 1995
When Published: 1995
Rating:
Link: n/a

I'm afraid I'm giving up on this anthology. I've only read two stories in it, chosen at random, and both are dark tales (one SF, one fantasy) about angels and religion. Not my cup of tea. But the other reason is that this book is simply difficult to hold and read. It's the standard mass market paperback size, but it's so thick (almost 600 pages) that it takes concentrated effort to hold it open to read. I certainly can't hold it open with one hand and read while I'm eating, and even trying to weigh it down to keep it open isn't working well. If I loved the two stories I'd read so far, I would maybe see if this was available as an e-book, but I have too many other things to read.

Story # 15

Title: "The Accomplice"
Author: Vernor Vinge
Length: 3,283 words (estimated)
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction
Where Published: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (collection), Tor 2001
Original publication year: 1967 (Worlds of If Science Fiction)
Rating:
Link: n/a

This was a fun story about a computer company founder who learns that one of his employees has embezzled a few million dollars worth of supercomputing time for unknown reasons. Considering when this was originally published, it's pretty impressive in what it got right, although Vinge's intro to the story also notes what it missed.

Story # 16

Title: "The Science Fair"
Author: Vernor Vinge
Length: 3,752 words (estimated)
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction
Where Published: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (collection), Tor 2001
Original publication year: 1971 (Orbit 9)
Rating:
Link: n/a

This story was very inventive, but I felt I only managed to enjoy about half of its potential because it was also dense, in that so many names and terms and ideas were left unexplained. In other words, it actually made me feel too unintelligent to enjoy it.

Story # 17

Title: "The Statue Hunt"
Author: E. Carey Crowder
Length: 3,032 words
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction
Where Published: Diabolical Plots
When Published: June 2024
Rating:
Link: https://www.diabolicalplots.com/ (NOTE: story-specific link not yet available)

Two academics on a generation spaceship stumble upon something that's being kept from the civilians. This is the type of premise I generally enjoy but the emotional element didn't quite resonate with me.

Story # 18

Title: "The Music Must Always Play"
Author: Marissa Lingen
Length: 3,380 words
Length category: Short story
Category: Science fiction
Where Published: Clarkesworld 216
When Published: September 2024
Rating:
Link: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/lingen_09_24

After aliens crash land in Minnesota, with none surviving more than a few days, a linguist joins a team with the Herculean task of trying to study the aliens with no references to work from.

I did like this, but I wasn't left completely satisfied with where it ended. It seemed like set-up more than story.

Story # 19

Title: "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackened Husk of a Planet"
Author: Adeline Wong
Length: 1,790 words
Length category: Short story
Category: Science fiction
Where Published: Strange Horizons
When Published: October 28, 2024
Rating:
Link: http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackened-husk-...

Via observational time travel, high school students observe the future Earth. Given the title, it's not a spoiler to say the Earth has become a dead planet. There are no surprises here, but it's well-written and moving. I do object to the title, though, because a planet blanketed in dark smog is not a "blackened husk."

Story # 20

Title: "Road Trip"
Author: William C. Armstrong & J.W. Armstrong
Length: 950 words
Length category: Flash fiction
Category: Science fiction
Where Published: Nature
When Published: January 15, 2025
Rating:
Link: behind paywall

In this short piece, an AI in the form of a Sphinx challenges a passing traveler in a future where humans are an endangered species. I thought this was quite clever and I loved the last line. I do think the story could have had a better title, though.

Story aside, I'm very disappointed that Nature's "Futures" fiction department is now behind a paywall. I don't know when that changed; it could have been a few years ago. I'm still able to access it because the academic library for which I work has a subscription to Nature. However, I tried to find some "Futures" stories via the database Academic Search Complete, because many public libraries have access to that, but even though Nature appeared to be indexed there, I couldn't find any fiction. This is a real shame. I understand the paywall, but if I worked at the journal I'd push for the flash fiction to remain free, because it's much more likely to get award nominations, and I highly doubt the journal is making money from that fiction anyway, since I can't imagine many people subscribe to the entire journal just for that.

>21 amysisson: They don't even print them in the magazine anymore - they are online only since some time in 2019:(

However - they used to be free for a few weeks post publication as of last year - can you check if https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04177-5 cuts in the middle or if that is the complete story (compare with https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04073-y for example which is definitely behind the paywall).

I think I figured out that one - it cuts the last few paragraph at least (looking at a preview PDF and what is seen on the page). Bummer indeed :(

Story # 21

Title: "Of Your Own Device"
Author: Victoria Chvatal
Length: 939 words
Length category: Flash fiction
Category: Science fiction
Where Published: Nature
When Published: December 30, 2024
Rating:
Link: (behind paywall)

A political prisoner escapes from solitary confinement to find that his prison is not what he thought it was.

I actually didn't find this terribly original; I've come across a very similar concept as the basis for an entire novel (Solitaire by Kelley Eskridge) as well as an episode of Deep Space Nine. I also found the last two sentences to be a clunky ending.

Story # 22

Title: "Second Chances"
Author: Michael Jan Friedman
Length: 2,475 words (estimated)
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction / Media tie-in
Where Published: Star Trek: New Worlds, New Civilizations (collection), Pocket Books 1999
Rating:
Link: n/a

This collection of Star Trek stories is divided into four parts, each with 4-6 stories: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. This story, titled "Second Chances", is in the "Earth" section and is about xenobiologists attempt to find a new home for the Tribbles bought back from the past in the Deep Space Nine episode titled "Trials and Tribble-ations". Tribbles are usually played for laughs, but this is a straight story rather than a humorous one.

I should also note that this book is more coffee-table size, although not huge, and has each story illustrated by various artists. "Second Chances" is illustrated by Sonia J. Hillios.

Story # 23

Title: "Beyond Horizons"
Author: Michael Jan Friedman
Length: 3,927 words (estimated)
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction / Media tie-in
Where Published: Star Trek: New Worlds, New Civilizations (collection), Pocket Books 1999
Rating:
Link: n/a

This story is an account of Captain Janeway's interaction with Q, and a second member of the Q Continuum who wants to die. While I liked the way the story was told, I found there to be too much description of what to me felt like obscure symbolism. (Many of the Trek episodes in the multiple series are also guilty of the symbolism thing.) But what really bothers me -- and this is not the fault of the author; this was already established in the Next Gen to Voyager timeline -- is that there are too many science fiction stories (mostly on screen) in which the superior, god-like beings, after having encountered huge numbers of intelligent species, get their minds changed by the Amazing Wonderful Earnest Questing humans, who are just So Much More Amazing than every other species they've encountered. I may be extra cranky about this because I watched the movie "The Eternals" last week, which is one quite possibly the worst Marvel movie I've seen. The exact same thing happened in that movie.

Given who the U.S. just shamefully inaugurated as president, sorry, humans kind of suck.

Story # 24

Title: "Fleet"
Author: Sandra McDonald
Length: 5,950
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction - post-apocalypse
Where Published: Clarkesworld 131, August 2017
Original publication year: 2013 (We See a Different Frontier (anthology))
Rating:
Link: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/mcdonald_08_17_reprint/

My intention is to read stories I haven't read before, but lo and behold, when I came to catalog this story on LibraryThing, I found I'd already read and cataloged it in 2015! I didn't recognize it while reading it, and what's truly funny to me is that in 2015 I didn't care for it that much, while this time I thoroughly enjoyed it.

At any rate, Isa is a "Bridge", or a person selected from her village who has memories implanted that bridge the past and the future, following a presumably global technological collapse. She must make pilgrimages to "remember the dead" at regular intervals, accompanied by a handful of reluctant villagers chosen by lottery. Part of the ritual is going to dig through a landfill to find things that could be useful to her people, isolated as they are because they're on the island of Guam. But there is much more to her duties than is initially apparent.

Story #25
Title: "Blockade Billy"
Author: Stephen King
Length category: Novella
Genre category: Horror - psychological
Where Published: Blockade Billy (collection), Scribner May 2010
Original publication year: 2010 (Cemetary Dance April 2010)
Rating:

This is told as a third-person flashback; an old-time baseball coach remembers when "Blockade Billy", a catcher from nowhere came up and amazed everyone with his ability to block the plate. This being a Stephen King story, naturally there's a very dark element to the story.

Story #26
Title: "Morality"
Author: Stephen King
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Horror - psychological
Where Published: Blockade Billy (collection), Scribner May 2010
Original publication year: Esquire, July 2009
Rating:

Wikipedia describes this as a novella in one entry, and a short story in another. I'm pretty sure it was a short story, or at most a novelette. This reminded me of the movie Indecent Proposal, but about violence instead of sex. I didn't particularly care for it.

Story #27
Title: "Just Before Recess"
Author: James Van Pelt
Length category: Flash fiction
Genre category: Science fiction
Where Published: Flash Fiction Online, March 2008
Rating:

The first two lines of this story are as follows: Parker kept a sun in his desk. He fed it gravel and twigs, and once his gum when it lost its flavor. 'Nuff said. Just read it. It's delightful.

Story # 28

Title: "Avi Loves Ric Forever"
Author: Norma Fox Mazer
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Young adult - contemporary
Where Published: Summer Girls, Love Boys and Other Short Stories (collection), 1982
Original publication year: 1982
Rating:

This is an epistolary story, in which Richie writes letters she'll never send to her best friend Stevie, with whom she's realized she's in love. This story could be 1/3 as long and be far more effective.

Story # 29

Title: Death Row
Author: Frieda McFadden
Length category: Short story
Genre category: General fiction - psychological
Where Published: Amazon Original Stories
Original publication year: 2025
Rating:

Talia Kemper is on death row for the murder of her husband, even though she has an alibi. She can't understand why no one believes her.

There is much more to this story than meets the eye. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Story # 30
Title: "Fard"
Author: Aldous Huxley
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Literary fiction - vintage
Where Published: Little Mexican and Other Stories (collection), Chatto & Windus, 1924
Rating:

A rich woman is shockingly unaware of how hideously she treats her maid. I enjoyed it as a character study. I have no idea (perhaps I missed it?) what the title refers to.

Story # 31
Title: "The Portrait"
Author: Aldous Huxley
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Literary fiction - vintage
Where Published: Little Mexican and Other Stories (collection), Chatto & Windus, 1924
Rating:

A European art dealer spins a tale for a nouveau riche would-be art collector. As with "Fard", I think this demonstrates Huxley's skill at creating full-bodied characters in a short amount of time.

Story # 32
Title: "Little Mexican"
Author: Aldous Huxley
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Literary fiction - vintage
Where Published: Little Mexican and Other Stories (collection), Chatto & Windus, 1924
Rating:

This too shows excellent character work, but in contrast to "Fard" and "The Portrait", this one seemed a little pointless to me. There was a lot of set-up that went nowhere. A tourist is befriended by a rich-but-poor Italian noble who is bitter because he is stuck caring for the family estate, with a treasure trove of painted frescoes he cannot sell, while his elderly father enjoys freedom to travel and do as he pleases.

Story #33
Title: "Deathwatch"
Author: Norman Spinrad
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction
Where Published: The Playboy Book of Science Fiction (anthology), HarperPrism 1998
Original publication year: 1965(Playboy)
Rating:

I shouldn't hold a story published in 1965 to today's sensibilities, at least in terms of literary quality, but it's hard not to! This is the kind of story that a writer likely couldn't have gotten published in a paying venue anytime after 2000, if not earlier, let alone in the high-paying Playboy. It's all telling, no showing, and anyone familiar with science fiction would have seen the ending coming a mile away. But that's what got published then.

The one thing I don't feel guilty about criticizing is the casual sexism. It's not so much about a woman's place as homemaker, but rather that the POV character assumes he knows how all women handle things emotionally, and implies that it makes them lesser than men.

Story # 34
Title: "Persephone"
Author: Lev Grossman
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Fantasy (superhero)
Where Published: Into Shadow Collection (Amazon Original Stories)
Rating:

A high school girl is taken aback by a sudden telekinesis-like incident that knocks out her tormentors; she's promptly whisked away by G-men in a helicopter along with another student who experienced something similar, conveniently on the very same day. Also conveniently, the teachers and the school "nurse" knew just what to watch for and to call the G-men. The two of them decide to resist their captors and the story ends, making this something of a non-story for me. It felt like an outline to a bigger work and wasn't satisfying on its own. I did like the main character's voice, though.

Story # ??
Title: "Wings"
Author: Colin Greenlan
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Fantasy
Where Published: Starlight 3 (anthology)
Rating:

This felt disjointed and unpopulated, as though the author had a fully realized world in his head as he wrote this but shared insufficient detail with us. Humans on the whole are depressed because literal angels showed up, and now humans seemingly realize that all they ever really needed to be be happy was to be able to fly like these superior beings. I liked the idea of cross-breeding between humans and angels, but the two main characters were all over the place and their was no making sense of their motivations in my opinion.

Story # ??
Title: "Wolves Till the World Goes Down"
Author: Greg van Eekhout
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Fantasy
Where Published: Starlight 3 (anthology)
Rating:

This is told from the point of view of one of two ravens, who report back to Odin on what they see as Ragnorok approaches. The writing is good, but it didn't really speak to me, and I didn't understand the title since we see only one wolf, Fenrir. The rest is what Odin's various progeny do (or don't) in response to living out the prophecy. I guess the point is that prophecy can't or shouldn't control us, but I didn't feel the point the way I wanted to.

Story # ??
Title: "The Affair at 7, Rue de M-"
Author: John Steinbeck
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Humor
Where Published: Amazing Stories (magazine), 1927
Rating:

I found this story fairly silly and tiresome.

Story # ??
Title: "Everest"
Author: Isaac Asimov
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science Fiction
Where Published: Universe Science Fiction (magazine), 1953
Rating:

Myths of Yeti surround Everest at a time when it was considered unclimbable, so a man gets dropped off in a spacesuit from an airplane to investigate. This was probably mildly entertaining at the time it was published, and it's reasonably well-written for what it is, but nothing special. I got it from Project Gutenberg.

Story # ??
Title: "Die Abreise der Emma Inch" / "The Departure of Emma Inch"
Author: James Thurber
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Humor
Where Published: A Rose for Emily: American Short Stories / Eine Rose for Emily: Amerikanische Kurzgeschichten, 1997
Originally Published: New Yorker, 1935
Rating:

This is a dual-language book with English on the even-numbered pages and German on the odd-numbered pages. I'm reading in German with a little help now and then from the English pages.

In this story, a man and his wife hire Emma Inch to be their cook while on vacation, only to find that the woman is oddly stubborn about the oddest things.

Edited to add..... Google's AI overview erroneously claims this is a story about a woman leaving her husband!

Oh dear God. Because Google's AI overview seemed so off, I asked ChatGPT to summarize the story. It gave me the same info as Google's overview. So I then asked ChatGPT to summarize based on the actual full-text of the story. Even though it's public domain, I had to copy and paste it for ChatGPT, which is fine. It then gave a completely different, and more accurate, summary. When I asked why the two answers were so different, it explained the assumptions it had made. It offered to give me a side-by-side analysis of the differences in the two summaries. I'd love to copy and paste it here, but the formatting isn't suited for pasting.

Sigh.... so much AI is getting wrong, and the errors are going to be perpetuated beyond belief.

Story # ??
Title: "Das Kriegsschiff" / "The Warship"
Author: Thornton Wilder
Length category: Short story
Genre category: American literature
Where Published: A Rose for Emily: American Short Stories / Eine Rose for Emily: Amerikanische Kurzgeschichten, 1997
Originally Published: unknown (possibly Yale Literary Magazine)
Rating:

As with the last story, this is in a dual-language book English/German book; I'm reading in German with a little help from the English pages.

In this story, the castaways of a British convict ship and their eventual descendants go through changes in their tiny, insulated society, sometimes musing on the outside world.

I liked it. The evolution of the little society seemed realistic to me.

Story # ??
Title: "The Nothing"
Author: Frank Herbert
Length category: Short story
Genre category: Science fiction
Where Published: Fantastic Universe Science Fiction, 1955
Rating:

This was an okay story about a future in which humans who don't have paranormal talents are called "Nothings."