5- & 4-Star Stories: 10; Estimated Time: 6h:28m (117K words)
Recommended By
Total Stories: 22; Estimated Time: 9h:05m (164K words)
Total Stories: 46; Estimated Time: 17h:38m (318K words)
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Rating: 5 ->
Hugo-worthy
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Builders Of Leaf Houses by Catherine Wells
Time: 1h:04m (19K words) Issue: Analog 12|15
On Dray's planet, the natives in
Motherlove's village meet humans at an inconvenient time, for they are coping
with a number of challenges. Marta and Shipner mean well, but they have
problems of their own, and communication is difficult.
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Edited
by Rich Larson
Time: 10m (3K words) Issue: Interzone 259
Two teenage boys spend a weekend with
a friend who's just been "edited." The narrator struggles to accept
the changes in his friend and wonders if things can still be the same.
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Footprints In The Snow by Bud Sparhawk Time: 17m (5K words) Issue: Analog 12|15
Alberto seems to be a caricature of a
bigot. He hates the family of spider-like alien refugees who've moved in next
door and won't give them a fair chance. But first impressions can be
misleading--this story rewards readers who persist.
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Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold Time: 2h:04m (37K words) Issue: Penric's Demon
Penric, age 19, is accidentally
possessed by a demon meant for someone else. Demons can be useful, but they
are dangerous, and Penric has no idea what to do with one.
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During a flu epidemic, the narrator
uses her cooking blog to tell the world about how she and her family make do
on short rations.
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The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred by Greg Egan Time: 1h:04m (19K words) Issue: Asimov's 12|15
The situation on Vesta has reached the
point where certain people flee to Ceres in suspended animation. Anna, the
new Director of Ceres, tries to understand the refugees better as relations
with Vesta continue to deteriorate.
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Rating: 4 ->
Recommended
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DreamPet by Bruce Mcallister Time: 08m (3K words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
The narrator is senior VP for design
at a company that makes genetically-modified pets, and he likes to give them
as gifts to family members.
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Midnight Funk Association by Mack Leonard Time: 25m (8K words) Issue: Interzone 259
Bunchess Taylor, a black musician in
Detroit, learns that someone or something is poisoning Detroit's music when
his assistant, "the white boy," buys an extra-sensitive piece of
equipment.
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Of Apricots and Dying by Amanda Forrest
Time: 28m (8K words) Issue: Asimov's 12|15
In a near-future Pakistan, 19-year-old
Asma has to choose between a high-tech job in the city or staying home to
help her family. A complex story, and there is more to things than meets the
eye.
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Moving story about a woman who carves
mediocre decoy ducks and an old man who buys one every week.
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Rating: 3 -> Average
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A Case Of Identity by Edward M. Lerner
Time: 24m (7K words) Issue: Analog 12|15
A quantum AI playing at detective is
recruited by a young woman to investigate the disappearance of her fiance.
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Bidding War by Rich Larson Time: 11m (3K words) Issue: Asimov's 12|15
In a fairly near future Canada, Wyatt
bids online for a mezo-American flute he thinks would be just the gift to
patch things up with his girlfriend. Mildly amusing.
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Cleanout by Naomi Kritzer Time: 17m (5K words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
The narrator and her two sisters have
come to clean out their comatose mother's house and select items they might
want to remember her by.
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Come-From-Aways by Julian Mortimer Smith Time: 08m (2K words) Issue: Asimov's 12|15
One night in present-day Maine, a
teenager with a pregnant girlfriend rows into the fog to think things over.
But strange alien equipment often washes up on Bartlett's Beach on foggy
nights.
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Empty
by Robert Reed
Time: 27m (8K words) Issue: Asimov's 12|15
Lerner Pong is an AI on a mission to
the outer solar system following a huge war between machines that has left
the inner solar system in ruins.
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Her Echo by Kj Kabza Time: 02m (615 words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
In the style of an old legend, this
story tells about what happened to Old Wise Woman's reflection, shadow, and
echo after she died.
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In 2139 Beiruit, Suraya sends a
sequence of e-mails that summarize her team's progress saving as many people
in Lebanon as possible from a coming global catastrophe.
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Paris, 1835 by Bill Johnson Time: 19m (6K words) Issue: Analog 12|15
A lady time-traveler falls into bad
company in nineteenth-century Paris.
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Heartwarming story of how Torulf and
Judith, an elderly couple on Mars, unexpectedly find themselves given custody
of three preteen grandchildren they didn't know they had.
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Riding the Waves of Leviathan by Garrett Ashley
Time: 23m (7K words) Issue: Asimov's 12|15
In the near future, a teen-age boy's
world is turned upside down when a giant monster starts hauntings the beaches
in his town.
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SF story in present-day Seattle.
Nicole and Andrew are star-crossed lovers, who meet in a bus accident. They
marry, they divorce, and then things start to get strange.
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Rush Down, Roar Gently by Sara Saab Time: 20m (6K words) Issue: Interzone 259
An old woman hazards crossing a
drowning future Beirut to make an apology to an old friend she had wronged
thirty years before.
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In a magical, 2020s Texas, Lorna and
Vix sell sex, but they mostly trade emotions; they'll take what you don't
want, and sell the kind you do. As long as the law doesn't catch them.
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The Fabulous Follicle by Harvey Jacobs
Time: 17m (5K words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
Cute slipstream story about Morris the
barber, who takes on some rather non-traditional clients in order to raise
money to open his own shop.
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The narrator is a soldier in a
far-future army that transports soldiers by turning them into beams of light.
But he has funny visions when he's a light beam, and he's starting to
question the whole war.
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The Museum Of Modern Warfare by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Time: 21m (7K words) Issue: Analog 12|15
The narrator, now a diplomat, returns
to a planet where she and other humans had allied with natives to win a
bloody victory. She's there to visit a new war museum and investigate
complaints about it.
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In which Malik, a Moor from Cordoba,
and Fara, a lady knight, unite to hunt a powerful and uniquely deceitful
dragon.
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The Thirteen Mercies by Maria Dahvana Headley Time: 17m (5K words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
In a modern-day world that uses magic,
a group of soldiers sentenced for war crimes struggle to make sense of their
punishment.
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The Winter Wraith by Jeffrey Ford Time: 13m (4K words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
All alone at home during bad winter
weather, Henry wants to get rid of the dead Christmas tree in the
living-room. It drops needles and ornaments and there just seems to be
something wrong with it.
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Tomorrow is a Lovely Day by Lisa Mason Time: 23m (7K words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
Tomorrow, Benjamin graduates school
and can start a new life as a teacher, but he has to finish one last day at a
job he really hates.
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We Jump Down into the Dark by M. Bennardo Time: 17m (5K words) Issue: Asimov's 12|15
Anders joins a mission to try to save
two people from a colossal space station before it twists itself apart.
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Fun fantasy tale in which Rose, a
middle-aged general store owner, agrees to be "warden and
postmaster" for the new government--even though other locals aren't
reconciled to having lost the war.
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On a spaceship in the far future,
Rasakhi tells the story of how the last human died.
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Rating: 2 -> Not
Recommended
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After His Kind by Richard W. Strachan Time: 12m (4K words) Issue: Interzone 259
The sole survivor of a colony ship
nevertheless raises a host of rather strange children, and today he hosts a
special ceremony at "the worm farm."
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Gypsy
by Carter Scholz Time: 1h:18m (24K words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
With Earth falling apart, a secret
group launches a mission to Alpha Centauri in 2041. Launching is only half
the problem; getting there is the real challenge.
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Hob's Choice by Tim Sullivan Time: 30m (9K words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
Hob Dancer has come from Earth to Cet
Four because his great-great-grandmother wants him to learn about the
natives, who are struggling to survive human colonization.
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It's All Relative at the Space-Time Café by Norman Birnbach
Time: 06m (2K words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
Bohr meets his ex, Jenny, at the café,
where they reminisce about love and science in terms of puns.
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Silencer - Head Like A Hole Remix by E. Catherine Tobler
Time: 09m (3K words) Issue: Interzone 259
The narrator and his friend are
transported against their will to different places and times where they shoot
children in schools.
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The City of Your Soul by Robert Reed Time: 19m (6K words) Issue: F&SF 11.12|15
You take a plane flight to Seattle,
but disturbing news from Brazil bothers everyone on the flight. And beyond.
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The Hexagonal Bolero of Honeybees by Krista Hoeppner Leahy Time: 15m (5K words) Issue: Clarkesworld 110
In a post-apocalypse Earth, Gabhan and
his little boy Ciro compete with Mishka for a contract to pollinate trees.
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The Master's Voice by Brendan DuBois
Time: 16m (5K words) Issue: Analog 12|15
Today is Jake's 7th birthday (13 Earth
years), and the celebration formally makes him a man.
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The narrator attends a Catholic girl's
school. During recess, the girls play in an enchanted forest that transforms
them into something else.
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Rating: 1 -> Needs
Improvement
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Here is My Thinking on a Situation That Affects Us
All by Rahul Kanakia Time: 08m (2K words) Issue: Lightspeed 66
An intelligent spaceship from the
center of the Earth reflects on the meaning of life.
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The Deep Of Winter by Chris Butler Time: 35m (11K words) Issue: Interzone 259
In an alternate world, a group of men
go down into the abandoned undercity to search for two people who have
disappeared.
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Rating: Not Rated
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The narrator is a librarian who
acquires a mysterious book of poems and becomes obsessed with finding
information about the author.
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Eleven-year-old David's family are
cottagers resisting oppression by the Zunft, but today he has to fight with a
former friend.
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