“The Monkey’s Paw” is a 1902 speculative fiction short story by W.W. Jacobs. It is about a family who discovers a magical talisman that grants 3 wishes.

Lucky Limbs?

When I was a kid someone gave me a “lucky” rabbit’s foot. I was elated! I put it on a little chain and carried it around in my pocket for days. I tried to use it to coerce other kids into giving me things (I was really little, remember.) It didn’t work, and it only served to make loads of people angry at me. I finally decided that it wasn’t lucky at all, and I threw it away. Sure, I was unhappy about the incident, but it was nothing compared to what the man in this story goes through!

Non-spoiler Summary in a Nutshell

One cold and wet night the White family is visited by Sergeant Major Morris, who has recently returned from India. He tells them about a magical monkey’s paw that grants wishes, but in a terrible way. He tries to destroy it but the White family will have none of that – they take the evil talisman off of his hands (Ha – pun intended!) Wow, what should they wish for? They wish for what most people would wish for: money! Unfortunately they get what they ask for, and now the big question is how to use the 2 other wishes.

My Two Cents…

• A deliciously creepy and chilling story! Don’t read it if you are all alone!
• I love Greek myths that show how people can’t escape their fate. “The Monkey’s Paw” is similar, but in a much more modern and terrible way.
• While the end of the story is very cool, it did stop quite abruptly. I wish… oops – I mean I would have liked it better if the ending would have told us a little bit more.

Interesting Tidbits About This Story:

• Page Count: 8
• Word Count: 3,918
• My Rating: A-
• Learn more about British author W. W. Jacobs at The Literature Network.

Where You Can Find “The Monkey’s Paw”:

• This story first appeared in the 1902 short story collection The Lady of the Barge.
• You can read a nice free version (complete with illustrations) online at the Scary For Kids web site.

Craving More Stories?

If you liked “The Monkey’s Paw” then you might also enjoy The Colour Out Of Space by H.P. Lovecraft – about a meteorite that falls from the sky in the 1880’s and the devastating consequences it has upon the people in a rural New England town.

Today we go down under for two flash fiction stories from the Australian web site Antipodean SF. Here are a pair of funny stories that both come from the January 2009 edition of AntiSF. Good stuff.

Instead of buying brand name clothes, a woman makes her own skirt and actually wears it in public! Let’s hope the Consumer Police don’t catch her!

Read The Rebel online for free.

Confusion, pain, bright lights, probing – sounds like an alien abduction… or does it?

Read Lost In Space online for free.

Have a great weekend!

“Fungal Gardens” is a 2009 science fiction short story by Ekaterina Sedia. It is about a college professor and his cop partner who discover a deadly fungus affecting geeks!

There is a Fungus Among Us!

David is a biology professor at the local community college – nothing too exciting about that. But when his partner Johnny, who works for the police force, discovers a dead man killed by a mysterious fungus David is called in to help solve the case. Soon afterwards solitary people start dying in some strange place all around the world. Even more strange is what they are doing when they die. Eventually the CDC gets involved and David discovers a very weird connection between all the cases – hopefully he’ll figure something out in time to save his friend!

My Two Cents…

• I am a huge fan of ants – aren’t they just so cool? I am always amazed by what they can accomplish by working so well together. Needless to say, this story really appealed to my insect-loving side.
• “Fungal Gardens” contains a bit of technical jargon related to microbiology. It adds an air of authority to the story, but can be a little much when trying to figure out the relationship between all the different types of fungus.
• The characters of David, Johnny and Alan really surprised me. They were very cool, down-to-Earth kind of guys who figured out something amazing.

Interesting Tidbits About This Story:

• Page Count: 11
• Word Count: 6,144
• My Rating: 4.0 out of 5
• Learn more about Russian-born Ekaterina Sedia at her web site.

Where You Can Find “Fungal Gardens”:

• This story first appeared in September 2009 on the Apex Book Company web site , where you can still read it online for free.

Craving More Stories?

If you liked “Fungal Gardens” then you might also enjoy The Giving Plague by David Brin – about a member of a famous research team that discovers a virus with a peculiar method of transmission.

Today I present two flash fiction stories from the web site New Scientist. Usually the flash fiction stories I read are written by up-and-coming authors, but these are by a couple of very well known science fiction writers: Stephen Baxter and Paul McAuley! Both of these stories go out on the limb a little bit and propose that humanity is really messing things up – both cosmologically and environmentally – and then imagine ways that things can be fixed. So, if your feathers get ruffled somewhat then maybe that is a good thing – at least one of my readers will be glad to hear it!

A hundred years in the future a simulation of William Thomson has been created to answer one all important question – and it is an answer that humanity desperately needs to learn!

Read Kelvin 2.0 online for free.

A young woman whose great-grandparents were victims of global warming strives to make the world a better place – in more ways than one!

Read Penance online for free.

Special thanks to Free SF Reader for recommending both of these stories. And if you like them then take a look at the other stories I’ve read by Stephen Baxter and Paul McAuley.

Have a great weekend!

Bizarrely Connected Stories: In which I find a strange theme connecting several previously reviewed short stories. Today’s feature: Ten Science Fiction Halloween Stories!

In honor of Halloween this coming weekend, I decided to share some of my favorite scary / Halloween-themed science fiction short stories. Now don’t forget, none of these are true horror stories (well, except for one) but I figured that they are creepy enough to qualify as good Halloween stories. So here we go – my list of 10 Science Fiction Halloween Stories:

• Through Thy Bounty by Lucy A. Snyder – mean aliens who love to eat human flesh!
• The Colour Out Of Space by H.P. Lovecraft – New England is blighted by a haunted meteorite!
• The Father-Thing by Philip K. Dick – You’re NOT my Dad!
• When Thorns Are the Tips of Trees by Jason Sanford – trees with ghosts in them!
• Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel – Frankenstein is in England bothering the Pride and Prejudice people!
• Memorare by Gene Wolfe – tombs in space!
• The Dead by Michael Swanwick – a zombie workforce!
• Shoggoths in Bloom by Elizabeth Bear – Researcher finds Lovecraftian water monsters!
• It’s a Good Life by Jerome Bixby – a cruel boy gets whatever he wishes for… so don’t make him angry!
• The Fog Horn by Ray Bradbury – ancient sea monster makes its yearly trek to try and woo a lighthouse!

If you know of any other science fiction short stories that would make for good Halloween reading then please share with us!

If you liked this article be sure to check out my other posts about Bizarrely Connected Stories.

“The Film-makers of Mars” is a 2008 science fiction short story by Geoff Ryman. It is about a film journalist who views an outstanding 1911 silent movie and learns the amazing secret of where it came from.

Non-Spoiler Summary in a Nutshell

Recently a bevy of early 1900’s movie reels have been turning up in Southern California. When a film restoration company cleans up the films and shows two of them at the L.A. film festival the audience is blown away by the amazing special effects in them – especially Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars. One of the skeptical journalists in the audience tells us exactly what he sees and how he is determined to prove that they are hoaxes. But what he ends up discovering is even more amazing than the movies!

Things I Liked:

• Santa’s Nosferatu elves
• Jahde Isthor
• All the weird inconsistencies between the old film and Burroughs book

Interesting Tidbits About This Story:

• Page Count: 7
• Word Count: 3,781
• My Rating: 4.0 out of 5
• Read Geoff Ryman’s bio at Tor.com

Where You Can Find “The Film-makers of Mars”:

• This short story first appeared in December 2008 on Tor.com, where you can still read it online for free.

Craving More Stories?

If you liked this story then you’ll probably also enjoy “Impossible Dreams” by Tim Pratt.

A couple of excellent stories from the very cool web site 365 Tomorrows.

A man is called in to hunt Time Killers – beasts that can see each direction in time and gorge themselves by eating chunks of it. But even the hunter has problems when a huge chronovore appears and gobbles up months of people’s memories!

Read Chronovore online for free.

One student is chosen to tell the University’s self-directed artificial intelligence that they are giving up on it… but discovers that it has been preparing itself for this day!

Read You’re In Good Hands online for free.

Have a great weekend!

“Article of Faith” is a 2008 science fiction short story by Mike Resnick. It is the tale of a robot who learns about God and wants to join the local parish – much to the chagrin of the human members of the congregation.

I’m A Sucker For Robot Stories

I admit it – ever since reading Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels 20 years ago I have loved robot stories. I especially like stories where the robot is striving to emulate human behavior in some way. From R. Daneel Olivaw to Data on Star Trek, I just can’t resist a good robot story – and “Article of Faith” certainly qualifies as a good robot story!

Are Robots Always Trying To Be More Like Humans?

Jackson is the new robot that cleans the church and tends to its grounds. But he is different than the previous cleaning robots – he is thoughtful and kind and asks some very deep questions concerning the nature of God. At first this is a pleasant surprise for Reverend Morris, who takes advantage of Jackson’s nature to practice his sermons. But as time goes on the Reverend learns that Jackson has bigger plans than just asking questions, and that makes the local congregation quite upset!

My Two Cents…

• I was surprised at how good this story was. I’m not sure why I was surprised, since I like most of Mike Resnick’s stories, but this one really caught me off guard. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about a robot who was interested in the nature of God and faith.
• I also felt a bit of anger by the prejudice displayed in “Article of Faith”. Sure – robot prejudice has been done before, but there was just something about this story that made it seem more wrong than other stories with similar themes.
• Reverend Morris and Jackson were both very deep and interesting characters. I totally enjoyed reading about the conversations they had, and the effects those conversations had upon each of them.

Interesting Tidbits About This Story:

• Page Count: 12
• Word Count: 6,048
• “Article of Faith” was nominated for the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Short Story.
• My Rating: 4.9 out of 5

Where You Can Find “Article of Faith”:

• This story first appeared in the October 2008 edition of Jim Baen’s Universe, where you can still read it online for free.

Craving More Stories?

If you liked this story then you might also enjoy:

• The Dyslexicon by Carl Frederick
• Helen O’Loy by Lester del Rey
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang.

Today I return to the excellent web site Flash Fiction Online to recommend two more of their science fiction stories. This time around my job has been much easier thanks to Jake, the editor of Flash Fiction Online, who very kindly emailed me a list of science fiction stories available on the site. Kudos to all the staff at Flash Fiction Online for a job well done – I know I plan on returning many more times!

A musician moves to a quiet planet inhabited by small aliens so that he can finish his concerto. Hmm… perhaps he should have learned more about how the aliens communicate before going there.

Read Quiet, Please! online for free.

In the colorful future created by science fiction, robots often perform a variety of duties – usually stuff that humans don’t want to do anymore. In this story Winston Sinclair meets a robot which has the most unusual job I’ve ever seen: delivering apologies to people!

Read Apologies All Around online for free.

Have a great weekend!

The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith is a 1993 collection which contains all of Mr. Smith’s science fiction short stories. Most of the stories in this collection, which are arranged in chronological order, take place in Cordwainer’s future universe of the Instrumentality of Mankind, although there are some stories which are not set there.

Several of the stories in this book have won or been nominated for awards, and since its publication the book itself placed 3rd in the 1994 Locus poll for best collection, and 18th in the 1999 Locus All-Time poll. Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that 96% of all Amazon.com readers have given it the highest rating possible: 5-stars! Not too shabby eh?

Anyway, here is a listing of the stories included in The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith: (I’ve linked to the ones that I have reviewed.)

1. No, No, Not Rogov!
2. War No. 8 1 -Q
3. Mark Elf
4. The Queen of the Afternoon
5. Scanners Live in Vain
6. The Lady Who Sailed The Soul
7. When the People Fell
8. Think Blue, Count Two
9. The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All
10. The Game of Rat and Dragon
11. The Burning of the Brain
12. From Gustible’s Planet
13. Himself in Anachron
14. The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal
15. Golden the Ship Was-Oh! Oh! Oh!
16. The Dead Lady of Clown Town
17. Under Old Earth
18. Drunkboat
19. Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons
20. Alpha Ralpha Boulevard
21. The Ballad of Lost C’mell
22. A Planet Named Shayol
23. On the Gem Planet
24. On the Storm Planet
25. On the Sand Planet
26. Three to a Given Star
27. Down to a Sunless Sea
28. Western Science Is So Wonderful
29. Nancy
30. The Fife of Bodidharma
31. Angerhelm
32. The Good Friends

If this collection looks like something you might enjoy then be sure to check it out at Amazon.com, or find a used copy on eBay.

Looking for more science fiction short story collections to read? Be sure to take a look at my other book reviews.