On the dangers of making your small child an internet video star.
Starpoop by Sandra McDonald (2023) — 3,244 words (about 13 minutes for the average reader)
Originally published in Lightspeed magazine, issue #158, July 2023.
"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." – George R. R. Martin
On the dangers of making your small child an internet video star.
Starpoop by Sandra McDonald (2023) — 3,244 words (about 13 minutes for the average reader)
Originally published in Lightspeed magazine, issue #158, July 2023.
This Hugo award winner in 1960 is a bit long but well worth the time invested.
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes — 12,349 words (about 49 minutes for the average reader)
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 16, No. 4 (April 1959)
Let’s start the week off with this Hugo award winning short story, a cautionary tale of algorithms and AI.
Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer — 5,610 words (about 22 minutes for the average reader)
Originally published in Clarkesworld magazine, Issue #200, May 2023
This one feels particularly timely given the national concern over illegal immigration.
The Long Mural by James Van Pelt (2023) — 7,080 words (about 28 minutes for the average reader)
From Issue 206 of Clarkesworld Magazine originally published November 2023
Every year, Locus magazine does a review issue in February. In it, their editors and reviewers list their favorites of the year. One of those reviewers this year was Alexandra Pierce. She recommended this novella. I picked it up on her recommendation as a well-written story that explores deeper issues.
The story is that of an unnamed boy and woman. The boy lives below decks on a sort of chain gang about a generation ship. The woman is a professor aboard that same ship in a caste that is just slightly above that of the boy. She gets the boy out of the Hold and brings him to the university. He struggles to adapt there while relying on the Practice that he was taught in the Hold by an old man.
This is a tale of class and hierarchy in society. It moves rather slowly and the writing is dense. It borders on being for English teachers only but never quite tips into that territory. Clearly the author is not just talking about space. This is a metaphor for all human societies. And what the author has to say in her exploration is well worth reading this short book.
My rating: 4/5
I started subscribing to Clarkesworld magazine again in January. This was an early favorite. How can a murder be temporary? Read and find out!
The Temporary Murder of Thomas Monroe by Tia Tashiro (2025) — 11,900 words (about 47 minutes for the average reader)
Clarkesworld magazine always has amazing stories. This one might be a little weird for those that grew up during the Cold War as it takes place in an old ICBM silo.
Silo, Sweet Silo by James Castles (2023) — 4,397 words (about 17 minutes for the average reader)
Today’s story comes from the amazing Uncanny Magazine. In it a scientist who used his son to collect data for an AI prison, goes to that prison to make amends for how that data collection affected his son.
SuperMAX by Daniel H. Wilson (2023) – 7,914 words (about 32 minutes for the average reader)
I first read this classic story in high school. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1956. It is the story of a Jesuit priest who accompanies a mission to a remote star that expired in a supernova thousands of years ago. They are visiting the star system because a civilization lived there that was destroyed by the star’s explosion. But as the priest tells the story, he raises a surprising and important question.
The Star by Arthur C. Clarke (1955) – 2,432 words (about a ten minute read for the average reader)
I read this as member of my book club at my local library. We each read a different book on a particular topic. For the most recent meeting we read historical fiction that takes place prior to the twentieth century. I kind of cheated with this one. It is short stories and only some of them go that far back in time. But it seemed to be a hit when I told them about it.
The editor was able to get stories from a lot of well know contemporary authors of science fiction. The theme of the anthology was time travel love stories. The book’s title as a call out to the 1980 move Somewhere in Time was totally on purpose. There were sixteen stories in the book. Here are my brief synopses and ratings.
The average of these ratings give the book as a whole a rating of 4/5.