A konologist (one who studies dust) is delayed at a train station while returning home with samples from Nagasaki that may still hold evidence of that city’s devastation, and encounters a strange…
Tag: science fiction
“The Heat Death of the Universe” by Pamela Zoline
A housewife has a breakdown in the midst of her chaotic home, paralleling the increasing entropy inherent in a closed system. By turns hilarious and horrifying, poignant and satirical; the battle against…
“Reading Lists” by Seanan McGuire
A woman who needs to find a book to write a report on for her adult literacy program stumbles on a room in the library that is “temporally out of order,” and…
“And You Shall Sing to Me a Deeper Song” by Maria Haskins
A cyborg soldier encounters a peaceful village in peril in a post-apocalyptic landscape. There are some interesting ideas in this story – the enhanced “singers” as a weapon, the robot war, the…
“Milagroso” by Isabel Yap
A man who works for a company that produces artificial food goes to a festival in his home town where a saint’s statue miraculously generates vast quantities of natural food. This story…
“Syringe” by Isabel Yap
A dying woman is cared for by AI nurses, who are programmed for compassion but not too much. This is a short, sad story about the limits of technology: Merlie’s Nurses™ are…
“Long As I Can See the Light” by Maria Haskins
Forty years after an apparent alien invasion has converted the Earth into a factory for space ships and humans into drones for building them, a man who avoided the initial invasion meets…
“The Impossible Man” by J.G. Ballard
A young man loses his leg in a car accident, and is pressed into a campaign to encourage “regenerative surgery” for an increasingly elderly population despite his misgivings. This has some interesting…
“Deepster Punks” by Maria Haskins
Two workers on a deep sea mining rig face themselves and something that has followed them from another world. This story has a good balance of brooding dread and high adventure, and…
“Tanguska, 1987” by Maria Haskins
Eighty years after mysterious and powerful Metallics take control of humanity’s destiny with a mix of benevolence and tyranny, a teen is selected to become part of a world-shaping project. This felt…