. . . reviewed
God of the Naked Unicorn by Richard Lupoff [as by Ova Hamlet1] (Fantastic, August 1976) is one of a series of author parodies—although this one doesn’t concentrate one writer but mashes up Dr Watson and various pulp action heroes. The story begins with Watson, after another failed marriage, returning to Baker Street in search of […]
Illness in a Word by R. P. Bird (F&SF, April 1991) opens with Tsi-Tokkmani, the alien Maniquad narrator of the story, returning from a Council meeting with his human slave: I could see that my human was quite agitated.They are like children, even to their size. My body slave’s name was Holand. He was tall […]
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury (The Saturday Evening Post, September 23, 1950)1 opens with a concerned Lydia Hadley telling her husband George about what is happening in their house’s nursery, a holographic/sensory play area for their two children, Peter and Wendy. Lydia takes George to the nursery to show him and, once there, it switches […]
Lucie Loves Neutrons and the Good Samarium by Thoraiya Dyer (Clarkesworld #219, December 2024)1 opens with Izzy (the main character) with her wife Lucie at their house in France: Izzy simultaneously adores the French farming village, because stepping into her stone-lined cellar feels like stepping back four hundred years, and loathes the village, because her […]
Swarm X1048 – Ethological FieldReport: Canis Lupus Familiaris, “6” by F. E. Choe (Clarkesworld #210, March 2024)1 opens with a puppy being born “not long after the disaster”: Your mother huffs the air around you. She licks at your face, your belly, your tiny paws.And we watch, transfixed though we have watched countless births on […]
An Intergalactic Smugglers Guide to Homecoming by Tia Tashiro (Clarkesworld #211, April 2024)1 opens with Miko going through customs at a starport orbiting Terra Three: There are seven hundred aliens hidden in Miko’s backpack, and the Galactic Security Agent currently studying her passport (hopefully) has no clue. The agent is an alien themselves, some tentacular […]
A Thing of Beauty by Norman Spinrad (Analog, January 1973) opens with a very wealthy Japanese businessman called Mr Ito arriving in the office of Mr Harris, an American antiquities dealer in a near future USA. We find out in their subsequent conversation, after Mr Ito has gifted Harris a priceless and antique Grateful Dead […]
Five Fathoms of Pearls by James H. Beard (Unknown, December 1939) opens with Peter Hume staring at a wall in his house as if he can see something there. He subsequently goes out and rides through the wind and rain and dark to an inn, where he finds a cousin of his called Allen Dorn. […]
Johnny on the Spot by Frank Belknap Long Jr. (Unknown, December 1939) starts with the hard-boiled narrator describing his involvement with another man in a fatal shooting in an alley. The narrator then hides out in a dance hall where he overhears a ruthless older blonde telling a younger woman she is going to take […]
The Scalar Intercepts by Michael Cassutt (Asimov’s SF, January-February 2024) is a brief bit of ideation more than a story, and one which sees an AI report back to other AIs about the seven hundred or so humans left alive on Earth (there had been a past conflict between the two). The AI then reveals […]