Seven sections, or in fact seven matches, each match, like those of the fairytale Little Matchgirl, throwing light.
Archive | Individual Stories
The Individual Stories category has two types of content : 1 – the stories I read in magazines and anthologies and review straight away, rather than waiting to complete the magazine or anthology and reviewing it all in one go. I started doing this in 2010; 2 – stories published as standalone ‘chapbooks’, or published online, or otherwise as a singleton. There are a couple of dozen stories of this nature, reviewing during the 2000s, which are available here.
Pat Cadigan. Report Concerning the Presence of Seahorses on Mars. (Reach for Infinity)
Inventive setting and nice narrative from Cadigan, as a young woman narrates a visit to their Martian colony by a representative from Earth.
Karl Schroeder. Kheldyu. (Reach for Infinity)
Further near-future science thriller from Schroeder, featuring the return of Gennady.
Gordon Eklund. I Said I Was Sorry Didn’t I. (Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2014)
Eklund has been writing high-quality SF as long as I have been reading it, and I’m pleased to say that this story is of as high a standard as his best
D.M. Armstrong. Butterscotch. (Fantasy and Science Fiction Mar/Apr 2014)
Chilling story of an expectant couple plagued by a regular visitation from one of the shambling, dead ‘travelers’ (and the mother-in-law).
Allen M. Steele. The Legion of Tomorrow. (Asimovs July 2014)
A lengthy look at the very early days of SF fandom,
M. Bennardo. How Do I Get To Last Summer From Here? (Asimovs July 2014)
They say the past is a foreign country, but what if going back there was as simple as saying ‘there’s no place like home’, except that you don’t need a pair or ruby slippers, just the right mindset??
Karl Bunker. The Woman from the Ocean. (Asimovs July 2014)
A story with a simple point to make – if we could remove humanity’s obsession with ‘us’ and ‘them’, would the world be a better place?