Eric James Stone's "The greatest science-fiction story ever written" (flash fiction, humor, free)

An aspiring sf writer working for a quantum computing company is sick of rejection slips. During a discussion with a company engineer, later proposes a brilliant solution - a story that adapts itself automatically to reader, becoming the best story for that reader!

As we will learn, even this great a technology has issues...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, #467 (28 October 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site. [via artyw2@rasfw]
Rating: A.

John Gilbey's "Corrective action" (flash fiction, fatal software bug, free)

Untested upgrade of software controlling an airlock at some sort of private facility on moon killed a government safety inspector. Administration of the facility has been covering up the incident by doctoring records.

Another safety inspector catches the administration at its act, but gets only a smirk from facility's chief; what the hell can inspector do, apart from imposing a minor fine? What the chief doesn't know is that dead inspector was the "partner" of the visitor, & visitor is not about to let the facility get away with it...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, #464 (22 April 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Vaughan Stanger's "Dark they were, and strange inside" (flash fiction, weird physics, free): Dangers of blind dating

When Large Hadron Collider showed way to uncharted places in the universe, dating got interesting. And very dangerous. Here we see narrator's experiences dating a "dark" guy, & her friend's dating an "energetic" one...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, #467 (9 September 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.

Bruce W Ferguson's "Goliath" (flash fiction, humor, free)

Don't expect humanity to unite, even when faced with an extinction threat...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, #460 (9 July 2009).
Download full text from The Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation. [link via SF Signal]
Rating: A.

Paul Di Filippo's "A science-fiction fantasy" (flash fiction, free): An alternate history of science fiction & its development

Written in the form of a review of an imaginary book, "Making a Case for Morrisian Fiction: Why Heroic Epic Fantasy Is So Rare by Professor L McCafferty (University of Syrtis Major Press, 2011)".

OK read, if you enjoy familiar name calling in alternate history scenarios. E.g., "that beloved national institution, Lovecraft’s Yankee Ice Cream Company,
was founded by" H P Lovecraft!

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, #465 (24 June 2010).
Download full text from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Paul Di Filippo.

Robert Billing's "Harnessing the brane-deer" (flash fiction, weird physics, free): What if large masses could be made to show visible wave behavior?

When Santa Clause's sleigh developed trouble in Kent, UK on a Christmas night, a mere mortal got the opportunity to figure out what makes Santa's sleigh so magical it can deliver presents all over the world in such a short time! And an understanding of how to fix the present problem, though the presents will be delayed a few hours this Christmas...

See also.

1. Isaac Asimov's "Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain": Another story that features a gadget that can turn the Planck's constant into a variable!
2. James White's "Christmas Treason": Another (& hilarious) story involving worry about physical limitations of Santa's transport, & proactive work by some kids to ensure that at least their presents won't be missed!

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 25 December 2008.
Download full text from Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation.
Rating: B.
Related: Weird physics fiction.

Mercurio D Rivera's "Answers from the event horizon" (flash fiction, parallel universe)

Funny exchange between two species - one at about our level of development, other a super advanced civilization from a parallel universe. Former keeps asking questions the later finds silly - in a way that reminds me of William Morrison's "The Sack".

One of the species appears to be human, but I'm not clear which.

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 17 September 2009.
Rating: B.

James L Cambias' "Makeover" (flash fiction, humor): Changing yourself too much to suit your lady love considered harmful

Match making agency that uses brain scans in response to specific visual stimuli to profile you, & then match this profile against a database to find you a compatible partner, tells Mike any girl he likes will probably find him unattractive because of his geeky interest in toy trains.

So he undergoes a brainwashing medical procedure to get rid of his love for toy trains. That part goes well, only ladies are a bit more complicated than automated brain scan based match makers can account for...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 16 July 2009.
Rating: B.

Joseph Lachance's "Subject to Change" (flash fiction, humor, free): Could universe itself be "alive"!

This is not for everyone. But those with certain kinds of tastes can get a chuckle or two here.

Story is in the form of a string of serious-looking extracts from academic journals, slowly building up the case towards the possibility of life existing on a truly grand scale.

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 14 August 2008.
Rating: B.
Download full text from The Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation.

Michalis Barkoulas & Gemma Bilsborough's "En passant" (flash fiction, cloning): Nature vs nurture

During the first meeting of Franck with his clone "little Frank" who was raised by the cloning company, Franck keeps doing psychoanalysis of the clone, & keeps finding reflections what he considers his own best personality traits.

Truth is somewhat different, as the reader will learn later.

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 30 April 2009.
Rating: B.

Jack McDevitt's "The Candidate" (flash fiction, free): When an AI was a strong candidate for the office of US President!

I wanted to post this when I first heard of SP's election manifesto two days back, but had misplaced the URL. Points of manifesto most discussed in media: if we are foolish enough to vote SP candidates to parliament in the forthcoming elections, they will work towards eradicating English, computers, stock trading, & farm machinery from India - apart from working towards a variety of other retro goals. Sobering thought is: it's the fourth largest party in outgoing parliament, & one of the Big 2 parties in the largest state.

I'm sure someone has written a story on most of the goals of SP. But this post is about computers. How about replacing election candidates with software?

PS: For anyone interested, there is Hrishikesh Mukherjee's humorous movie "Chupke Chupke" (1975) on "we don't want English around here" theme. But that's about a language purist - a man upset by "corruption" of Hindi in Bombay by import of words from other languages - particularly English. SP's objection seems to be related to economic issues - "looking at rich world gives us complex, so let's bury our head in sand" type.

Story summary.

An AI with the personality of George Washington enters the fray, & surprises everyone with its acceptance as a valid & desirable candidate by stakeholders.

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 23 March 2006.
Rating: B.
Download full text from author's website. [link via Free Speculative Fiction Online]

Jeff Hecht's "The Neanderthal Correlation" (flash fiction, human evolution): Some truths we probably don't want to know!

A researcher is fooling around with genome data of humans & Neanderthals. She finds evidence of their interbreeding during a certain period. So she goes looking for traits humans have acquired as part of this interbreeding.

What she finds is that only a human subpopulation seems to have inherited the essentially-Neanderthal traits. And they are - "advanced mathematics skills, information processing, logic, analytical intelligence, concentration skills, obsession-compulsion & Asperger's syndrome"!

Key things that Cro-Magnons had & Neanderthals didn't were "genes linked to successful socialization & management skills."

And she's found that human genes have been asserting themselves over these acquired one! We as species are slowly but surely losing mathematical & logical reasoning, & such!

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 22 May 2008.
Rating: B.

Tony Ballantyne's "Takeaway" (flash fiction, uplift): Language skills = better pay

"because translation software looks at the whole context of language, it has enabled communication between species, the results of which are that whole ecosystems are changing due to animals exploiting new opportunities."

So we have ants employed in microprocessor factories doing jobs impossible to either humans or machines. But the wages they draw are very low - just enough to help them buy human food! Because they rely only on translation software, & have made no effort to understand the larger context & the pay they ought to be drawing.

And Mr Ho has finally convinced Ms Stephanie, using real-life ants' low-wages example, why learning French the hard way (without using automatic translators) will improve her prospects of earning more.

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 19 March 2009.
Rating: A.

Allan M Lees' "The Invisible Hand" (flash fiction, humor, free)

Narrator tells us how he turned his frustration as a scientific researcher longing for research grants into a rich businessman who's able to steer government funds for scientific research into his pet project...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature magazine, 5 June 2008.
Rating: B.
Download full text from The Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation. [via SF Signal]

Gareth Owens' "A New Note For Nat" (flash fiction, generation gap, free): What if adults couldn't hear kids' music?

This is a story that could have done Henry Kuttner proud - similar in spirit to some of his stories, & very well told. I'm surprised it didn't make it to this year's Hugo/Nebula lists, nor to any of the major "best of" anthologies.

Story summary.

We know human ear changes with age - we begin becoming deaf to certain tones. Assume there are tones only under-18s can hear, but not those over the threshold.

A shopkeeper uses a buzzer that gives out irritating static in this band to discourage youngsters from hanging out in his shop - something that puts off paying customers!

Kids take cue. Nat founds "Invisible Ear", a music band that can only be heard by kids!!! Soon you have videos, games, ... - with kids-only audio! It's a rage.

But age catches up with Nat. Near his 18th birthday, he himself cannot hear his work! Is forced to leave band he founded. Is inconsolable. Until his manager, the narrator, comes up with the trump card: his biggest fans - those who have been with him from start - are also growing up, & are complaining that their records are "fading"! New opportunities. Welcome to the world of grown ups...

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature magazine, 30 August 2007.
Download full text from The Science Fact & Science Fiction Concatenation.
Rating: A
Added to my best of the year 2007 list.

Gregory Benford's "Reason not to Publish" (flash fiction, science fiction): Who is God, & why did He create the universe?

This is not a story for sf novices. You must have already read a lot of genre fiction to not throw out this story as utter nonsense; I know I would have done it at that stage.

Story summary.

It's about a "mathematical physicist" who has observed jitters during a leisure walk in the woods: "jitter was not a fluttering bird, but an entire tree jumping in and out of focus... whole tree and all around it flickered, went grainy and sometimes vanished."

He has seen this behavior before - in computer simulations when the machine resources are low. Lot of investigations & observations at different places, & he realizes he & the world around him are parts of a computer simulation - computer at the edge of its capacity.

There is an implicit assumption in the story that Programmer God cares more about humans, than about rest of the Creation! Now with the human world population increasing, & computer resources already running low, God must delete some details.

How to survive so you don't get deleted? Make yourself interesting to Programmer God! How?

Collected in.

1. David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (Ed)'s "Year's Best SF 13" (2008).
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, December 2007.
Rating: B
Download full text. Note this download is of HTML that doesn't render well at least in Firefox. But it's easy enough to clean in a text editor, or via a script.
Note: Download link no longer exist; see Ross' comment at bottom.

Peter Watts' "Repeating the Past" (flash fiction, science fiction, free): Teaching the young irreverent the meaning of fear!!!

Two interesting observations, both for the better, about author's writing style - when I compare this story to better known "Blindsight":

1. This story uses clean language; no profanity. So if I liked the subject matter, I could have referred it to younger crowd.
2. While there is some jargon here, it's only to aid the story. Focus is on story telling. Compared to Blindsight, it's very clean writing.
   

Story summary.

Story is narrated by a survivor of Nazi concentration camps. The year is 2017. The old man is a retired doctor; so is his daughter - both specialists in brain editing, though daughter is more skillful!

Story concerns the daughter's son - an adolescent who has all but forgotten the concentration camps, & is rather irreverent towards its victims.

To teach him proper respect for the times, grandpa surgically modifies his brain - so he is "Jumping at shadows. Not sleeping at night." Basically behaving like a victim himself!!!

Collected in.

1. David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer (Ed)'s "Year's Best SF 13" (2008).
   

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature, 29 November 2007.
Rating: C
Download full text.

** Cory Doctorow's "Printcrime" (short story, science fiction)

An extreme case of Hollywood's persecution of file sharers. This future world has printers that can print anything (presumably given the description in a file) - an expensive medicine, jewelery, etc. Lobbying of design owners have ensured that these machines are outlawed in this dystopic society.

A man using it illegally is caught & severally punished. When he returns after spending a decade in prison, he is determined to ensure that when he next goes to prison, it's something worthy of imprisonment! He will now be printing these printers themselves, & flooding the society with them.

This sentiment - of unjust punishment for minor crime, & of protagonist's retaliation by actually doing something worthy of punishment, is also found in Larry Niven's "The Jigsaw Man".

See also the fanfic rejoinder to Printcrime - Peter Anderson's "The Copper Responds".

Fact sheet.

First published: Nature Magazine, January 2006.
Rating: B
Download full text.

Note: Why is this post so short?

Steven Longworth's "Succussion" (short story, humor): How humans acquired immortality!

I had never heard of the premise of this story - the theory behind homeopathic medication: "'Like fights like'. So if you are treating a fever you give the patient something that causes a fever, but ... you dilute it over and over again, and each time you dilute it the treatment gets stronger. With each dilution the solution is vigorously shaken, a process known as ‘succussion’. There are those who speculate that succussion causes the water molecules to ‘remember’ the active ingredient even when Avogadro says there is not a trace of it left. Dilution makes it stronger."

Well, millions of people world over have been taking homeopathic drugs for 200 years - taking medication for every ailment imaginable. Since everything you take, you eventually excrete, & earth eventually recycles - every step diluting it (hence making the drugs more potent!) - the world's water resources are now a rather potent homeopathic drug! No one now falls sick. People are effectively immortal!!!

Full text of this story is available for download.

Fact sheet.

"Succussion", short story, review
First published: Nature magazine, 16 August 2007.
Rating: B

Bruce Sterling's "Homo Sapiens Declared Extinct": AIs have taken over from humans!

Another hopeless dystopic story on why AIs are so much superior to wetware. In this story, humans go extinct in 2380 AD. And are not missed by AIs that have taken over & that behave remarkably like normal humans.

Full text of the story is available online.

Fact sheet.

"Homo Sapiens Declared Extinct", short story, review
First published: Nature magazine, 11 November 1999.
Rating: C

Ted Chiang's "Catching Crumbs from the Table": Humans live an uncomfortable existence in a mixed society with superhumans

This is not among the better stories by Chiang.

Story summary.

This is a world with humans & "metahumans".

Metahumans are brain-enhanced ones - with incomparably superior cognition abilities. Any human can become a metahuman via "the Sugimoto gene therapy", but it "must be performed before the embryo begins neurogenesis". Means a couple can choose their yet to be born child to be metahuman - only they won't be able to talk to child because of vastly different mental abilities! That is why most parents let their children born as ordinary humans.

So humans generally live off the crumbs of intellectual efforts of metahumans.

Near end, we see a wish among humans that some day their inferiority will end - when someone figures out a way upgrade grown humans. And this can come only from humans' effort, since metahumans are not going to do it - no payoff for them.

Collected in.

1. Ted Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others".
   

Fact sheet.

"Catching Crumbs from the Table", short story, review
First published: Nature magazine, 1 June 2000.
Rating: B
Related: All stories of Ted Chiang.

Arthur C. Clarke's "Improving the Neighborhood": A shorter version of "The Star"

Good thing about this story is - it's very tiny, hence doesn't bore. Pretty much everything here has already been told even in Clarke's other stories.

Story summary.
Plot is essentially the same as that of Clarke's "The Star". A big explosion that kills an entire sentient race; another race elsewhere in galaxy learns of it, & mulls over it.

Only the explosion is of earth, taking moon with it - "Double Nova". Probably during an industrial accident involving the tapping of zero-point energy; story only conjectures it might be an accident.

Story is told by a "germanium-based consciousness" somewhere nearby in galaxy - based on intercepted radio transmissions from earth, & also by observing the "Double Nova".

Their reaction is: good riddance (hence the title). Who cares for creatures that have recorded "countless episodes of violence, against their own species and the numerous others that occupied their planet".

See also.

1. Arthur Clarke's novel "The Songs of Distant Earth": Humans tap zero-point energy to power interstellar travel when Sun goes Nova.

Fact sheet.
Improving the Neighborhood, short story, review
First published: Nature magazine, 4th November 1999. "First science fiction Nature ever published."
Rating: B

The story appears in the following collections.

1. "The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke"

David Brin's "Reality Check": Reason we have never met aliens

Actually I didn't quite understand this story. Something related to virtual reality (VR), or "human consciousness uploaded to a computer" kind.

As far as I could understand, it makes the argument that at a rather early stage during their development, most intelligent races develops the device of virtual realism of pleasures - kind of always in pleasant dreams! And it pretty much marks the end of development of the race - hence we have never met aliens!

Full text of this story is available online.

Fact sheet.
Reality Check, short story, review
First published: Nature magazine, 16 March 2000
Rating: C

This story is included in following anthologies.

1. David Hartwell's "Year's Best SF 6"
   

Robert Metzger's "Perchance To Dream": Yet another confused "always dreaming" story

Best part of this story is: it's very short. And the funniest part is description of author at the bottom of the page: "Robert A Metzger is a hard-SF writer"; if he is, this story is certainly not an example of that.

An impossible to understand story, describing some kind of a doomsday scenario where there are very few real people - and they are living in constantly dreaming state - using some kind of ubiquitous virtual reality devices.

Full text of this story is available online.

Fact sheet.
Perchance To Dream, short story, review
First published: Nature magazine, 17 Nov 2005
Rating: C

David Eagleman's "A Brief History of Death Switches": A new kind of software application

Death switches of the title are a new kind of software applications. It asks you for a password once a week. If it doesn't get it for a while, it assumes you are dead! It them begins preprogrammed actions.

In the early days of application, people used to send "I’m dead" emails to loved ones! With newer versions, you get better options, like “Happy 87th birthday. It’s been 22 years since my death."

Then comes even more sophistication, like generating appropriate periodical messages to convince others that you are actually not dead!

Eventually, "Most people have died off, and I’m one of the few remaining. By the time I die and my own death switch is triggered, there will be nothing left but a sophisticated network of transactions with no one to read them".

So we leave a legacy for any future aliens, assuming the machines keep humming to infinity! "When an alien civilization eventually bumps into Earth, it will immediately be able to understand what humans were about, because what will remain is the network of relationships: who loved whom, who competed, who cheated, who laughed together about road trips and holiday dinners."

Full text of the story is available online.

Fact sheet.
A Brief History of Death Switches, short story, review
First published: Nature magazine, 19 Oct 2006
Rating: C

Ellen Klages' "Ringing Up Baby": Made-to-order baby, gone wrong

This beautiful little piece of chilling humor narrates the experience of a little girl helping her nanny order her baby sister!

Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
Narrator is an unnamed little girl. Looks like her mom is a very busy woman - mom/daughter meet Wednesdays for supper! Nanny has convinced mom to have a second child: "has arranged for a nice lady to plant Mother’s egg and do all the messy parts, then give the baby to us when it’s done."

She sits down with the nanny in front of the computer to order rest of the new baby. They have many choices:

1. Brother or sister: she wants sister "because a brother would be a pest and get into my best things, like Courtney Taylor’s brother Robby, who programmed her mobile phone to ring with a nasty farting sound."
2. Its birthday: Oct, "so her party won’t get in the way of Christmas" or her own birthday.
3. Skin color: "Babies only come in about six colours".
4. Hair & eye color.
5. Intelligence - e.g., stupid, or above average. Better intelligence costs more money.
6. Good at maths?
7. Bioimmunity: Better immunity costs more money.
8. ...

Midway through ordering, nanny gets a phone call, & goes to another room. That is when the little girls selects an interesting option - "bioluminescence" - they can mix some genes of a certain kind of jellyfish! "Once I have my baby sister, I will never need my night-light again. Nanny will be so proud."

This option was apparently on a popup screen; the girl is smart enough to restore screen the way nanny left. Presumably, she will get a bioluminscent sister!

Fact sheet.
Ringing Up Baby, short story, review
First published: Nature magazine, 27 April 2006
Rating: A

See also.

1. All stories about technology assisted human baby making.
2. This story ranked (by quality) among all stories.

Eileen Gunn's "Speak, Geek": Man, version 2.1

This very short story sounds like a satire. It is narrated by a genetically tweaked dog - who is now smart, & works as a coder!

Only the company that employs him, Lazy M, is not into programming computers, but programming genome! "Man 2.1" is their upcoming product - now nearing code freeze. And the narrator accidentally finds something called "Project Felix” that is an undocumented feature of Man 2.1 - an injection of some cat genome so men will become a little more free thinking!

If you are not a computer programmer, some of the language might appear geekish. If you are, this still is not a story I could enjoy.

Full text of this story is available online.

Fact sheet.
Speak, Geek, short story, review
First published: Nature magazine, 24 Aug 2006
Rating: C

Ted Chiang's "What's Expected of Us": sf meets philosophy!

This very short story - without characters or dialogs - is actually a very accessible argument on what ability to communicating with past implies about the nature of free will. Imagine what actual time travel will mean!

Full text of this story is available as a free download.

Story summary.
A new electronic toy comes to market, & is an instant rage. Predictor is "a small device, like a remote for opening your car door. Its only features are a button and a big green LED. The light flashes if you press the button. Specifically, the light flashes one second before you press the button."

Whatever you do trying to fool the device - waiting for light to come, doing it very quickly, whatever - you cannot beat it.

Isn't it a demonstration that there is no free will - everything is predetermined? What does this demonstration mean for society at large?

Fact sheet.
"What's Expected of Us", short story, review
First published: Nature magazine, 7 July 2005
Rating: A
Related: All stories of Ted Chiang.

See also.

1. Much of this story appears a part of the plot in Chiang's later novella, "Story of Your Life".
   

Henry Gee's "Are We Not Men": Defining the "man"

I would be reluctant calling it a story, though it is tagged as such. It is in the same category as Arthur Clarke's "The Curse" - a very short description, no persons or dialogs. If you are looking for entertainment, find something else.

I don't claim to have really understood it - so read the summary below with a pinch of salt! Full text of this story is available online.

Story summary.
Genetic analysis of people across the world proves we are not exactly human, but a mixed breed. And many hominid species still co-inhabit earth with modern man!

A few years after this fact becomes public, some 20 odd kinds of hominds join normal human race - among them Sasquatches, Sumatran Pendek, Malaysian Jive Monkey, eight-foot Kaptar from the Pamirs, & Tibestian Sand-Druid. They were apparantly hiding in jungles & caves till now.

Fact sheet.
"Are We Not Men", short story, review
Rating: C
First published: Nature magazine, 30 June 2005