I have been devouring short stories recently and have come across a few I can heartily recommend. And lucky us, these are all available online.
“A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica” (2008) by Catherynne M. Valente
A lovely, unique format, as described by the title, with the intertwining lives of rival cartographers battling across history. A sample:
One may only imagine an unremarkable Saturday supper in the ice shadows and crystalline sun-prisms in which Villalba, his apron stained with penguin oil, his thinning black hair unkempt, his mustache frozen, laid a frost-scrimmed china plate before Acuña. Would he have removed his glasses before eating? Would they have exchanged words? Would he have looked up from his sextant and held the gaze of the mild-eyed Maldonado, even for a moment, before falling to? One hopes that he did; one hopes that the creaking of the Proximidad in one’s mind is equal to its creaking in actuality.
“Celadon” (2009) by Desirina Boskovich
Simple story, but pretty and feeling both old fashioned and new all at once, like a classic SF tale. As a side line, an affecting portrayal of the complications of relativity on travel and relationships. Sample:
“We descended closer and closer, and the surface of the planet was this beautiful green. So we called it Celadon. We sent the bots down to do readings, investigate the surface, see if it was safe. We had to wait for a while, but I already knew. I felt it, somehow, you know? We were home. By that time, I was already expecting you.”
“Hard Time” (2005) by Mark W. Tiedemann
Big Brother meets Reality TV, with a dash of the Crime & Investigation network. Worth reading twice for the multiple layers.
The cell is six by six. Somehow, on television, it looks smaller. There is a cot that folds down from the wall, a steel sink, and a steel toilet bowl. Unlike standard cells, there is no desk. All I do in the cell is lie on the cot, eat twice a day from the tray that slides through the door and hangs there, wash my hands and face, and eliminate bodily waste. I am without hope. I am serving hard time. People see me and know that prison life is dull, empty, merciless. Hard time, authentic scenes of prison life, brought to you by your tax dollars, four hours a day, except on Sunday.
“A Keeper” (2004) by Alan DeNiro
An artist in Brasilia, bound to paint portraits of King Juan Juan, finds he has been enslaved by a virus from a keeper, something of a sexual pet master — but remembers nothing of it. Solving the mystery and saving his life, an old story but set in a fantastical version of Brazil in some indefinite future, with hints of greater depth and lots of stuff going on behind the scenes.
Brasilia is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. But wait, I do live there. I mean, here. My job feeds the bills. I am a painter in the King Juan Juan Center for the Arts. My body of work, like every other painter’s at the Center, consists entirely of portraits of King Juan Juan, which tend to adorn every third block of Brasilia, half the billboards, and most private and shared huts.
Because of the methane corrosion, I can say it is steady work.
“Let Yourself Look Spiny” (2008) by Richard Howard
Winner of the 2008 Weird Tales Spam Fiction Contest, this memorable short work manages to be both funny and creepy all at once. And if you’ve known anybody addicted to extreme piercing, this doesn’t feel all that outlandish.
“Bone Exposure is sort of like paleontology,” said Connie, pulling her jumper down and turning around. “Your bones are fossils waiting to be revealed. The process takes about eight hours and involves picking away the flesh covering the desired bones with scalpels and chemicals. So far we’ve been one hundred percent successful. Not one single person has come back to complain about re-growth.”
She’d just shown me the option I’d selected: a total exposure of the vertebrae of the spine. It looked incredible.
“The Limner” (2009) by Julian Barnes
Touching story about a deaf portrait painter in a conflict with his domineering client demanding how he is to be painted.
The fellow, like many another, had imagined that merely opening his mouth wider might be enough to effect communication. Wadsworth had watched the pen travel across the page, and then the fore-finger tap impatiently. “If God is merciful,” the man had written, “perhaps in Heaven you will hear.” In reply, he had half smiled, and given a brief nod, from which surprise and gratitude might be inferred. He had read the thought many times before. Often it was a true expression of Christian feeling and sympathetic hope; occasionally, it represented, as now, a scarcely concealed dismay that the world contained those with such frustrating defects. Mr. Tuttle was among the masters who preferred their servants to be mute, deaf, and blind—except when his convenience required the matter otherwise.
“Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse” (2007) by Andy Duncan
An awesome story even without the ending, but the revelation makes it emotionally satisfying. One of my favorites.
The back of the house was much shabbier than the front, and the yard was a bare dirt patch bounded on three sides by a high wooden fence of mismatched planks. More brick walls were visible through the gaps. In one corner of the yard was a large chicken coop enclosed by a smaller, more impromptu wire fence, the sort unrolled from a barrel-sized spool at the hardware store and affixed to posts with bent nails. Several dozen chickens roosted, strutted, pecked. Father Leggett’s nose wrinkled automatically. He liked chickens when they were fried, baked or, with dumplings, boiled, but he always disliked chickens at their earlier, pre-kitchen stage, as creatures. He conceded them a role in God’s creation purely for their utility to man. Father Leggett tended to respect things on the basis of their demonstrated intelligence, and on that universal ladder chickens tended to roost rather low. A farmer once told him that hundreds of chickens could drown during a single rainstorm because they kept gawking at the clouds with their beaks open until they filled with water like jugs. Or maybe that was geese. Father Leggett, who grew up in Baltimore, never liked geese, either.
Thanks to these folks for providing the stories above. I can tell you the free access has already produced a few sales and one subscription for me, with more likely to come.
Also thanks to the LA Times Jacket Copy blog for their recent article, “Where to find the best new short stories”.
