Non-Spoiler summary:

Foster is a young boy, who only wants one thing for his birthday: a nuclear bunker. Everyone else in the neighborhood has one, you see, except for him. His friends keep telling him he’s gonna die when the Reds drop the bomb. His teachers constantly scold him for failing his nuclear readiness exercises. On the TV, the Reds keep coming up with new, deadlier weapons every week.

Well, Foster’s had enough. He’s tired of being scared. He’s gonna do whatever it takes. He’s gonna scream, he’s gonna cry, he’s gonna cuss and plead, till he gets that bunker.

My thoughts while reading it:

‘What the hell, that’s no way to talk to a kid!’ ‘You shove that bunker where the sun don’t shine, Mrs Carlyle!’ ‘The Reds made a WHAT?’ ‘Dude, buy the damn bunker, it’s for your own safety!’ ‘Yaaaay!’ ‘Aaaawww’

The technical stuff:

• Word Count: 7,000 words
• Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Go check your dad’s old stash of scifi books. The best ones are probably written by this guy.

Where you can find it:

• In his collected works anthology The Father-Thing (available in every online bookstore worth its salt)
• This story is currently not available online. Which means you’re gonna have to buy it. And trust me, this is a sound investment

By-Line:
Konstantine Paradias is a short story science fiction and fantasy writer, who has his own blog, called Shapescapes. There you can find a free novel, called Stone Cold Countenance as well as a series of sci-fi comic book reviews. For comments, requests or plain old contact, you can find him at kosparadias@gmail.com

BestScienceFictionStories.com is excited to announce the addition of a new full-time blogger: Konstantine! Kostas (as he is known around here) is joining us from his home in Athens, Greece. He is no stranger to blogging or science fiction, just check out his cool web site, ShapeScapes, to find several good stories and reviews – including his recent review of the comic book The Metabarons.

Kostas has already submitted several guest posts here at BestScienceFictionStories.com and they have been a blast to read! So if you are interested in a new point of view, a great sense of humor and some really great reviews of science fiction stories then join with me in wishing him a warm welcome and a long reviewing life.

Welcome aboard Kostas!

Do You Have Arachnophobia?

Are you afraid of spiders? If you are then don’t feel bad because I have an older brother who is terrified of them too! I must confess that after reading this story I became a little jumpy at the sight of them. It is a great read though – especially if you already dislike the little buggers!

Non-Spoiler Summary

The leader, the gaunt man and the little man are chasing 3 fugitives on horseback when they happen on a great, gray valley. Yeah, it is a little bit mysterious as well as creepy – but that doesn’t stop the from charging into it. It is when they are past the point of no return that they start to notice weird things – like the mad dog that completely ignores them, and the increasingly jittery horses. But once they see the strange haze-balls blowing down the valley they start to get concerned… but will it be too little too late? Hmm – yeah, probably!

Some Interesting Tidbits

• Word count: 4,153 (7 pages)
• Special thanks to the members of the Classic Science Fiction group – whose engaging discussion of this story made me want to read it!
• Did you know that H.G. Wells is often referred to as one of the “fathers of science fiction?” Yep. You can learn more about this classic science fiction author on Wikipedia.

Where To Find The Valley of Spiders

• This short story was can be read for free online at The Literature Network.
• "The Valley of Spiders" is also included in the anthology Great Tales of Horror & the Supernatural.

Craving More SF Stories Like This One?

If you liked "The Valley of Spiders" then you may also enjoy “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs – about a family who discovers a magical talisman that grants 3 wishes.

Time travel stories have almost run their course: whether you’re reading The Time Traveler’s Wife or a classic by Jules Verne, it seems that man’s obsession with time travel has gotten tiring, if not overused. However, once in a while, there comes a story that makes you actually think: what if time travel was truly possible? What would happen? Where would you go?

In Tim Maly’s short Time, Again, we find ourselves looking at the world through the eyes of a man desperately in love, but confused in a world increasingly plagued by war. He is nameless, perhaps adding more to his believability. He loves a woman who travels through time, who loves the technology and is well versed in it.

Like The Time Traveler’s Wife, his likewise nameless wife comes back several times, and at different ages. She is young, full of life and brilliance; she is almost a child, but with wisdom beyond her years; she is his age, and his ardent lover. They make love, they kiss, they speak to each other as equals, she comforts him as she leaves.

However, unlike The Time Traveler’s Wife, Tim Maly’s story is short, succinct, and packed with emotion without going overboard. The story is not so much about the technology of time travel itself, but its impact. It is here where Maly works his magic with his prose: as the husband grieves and nurses his fears about the war, he struggles to remember the many times his wife returned, in different ways.

The past, present, and future tense all merge and interact, like a swarm of bees that is as incongruous from the outside looking in – but that forms a pattern that the reader/observer can easily follow. Maly’s prose is easy, and his imagery is vivid. He shows more, tells less, from the broken egg on the floor that rebuilds itself – a testament to a broken time machine and changed patterns of time – to his lead character’s eyes lingering over his woman’s body, even as she tries to preoccupy him with her knowledge of time travel.

The lead character is developed strongly, with an even pace. He comes off as a typical macho man who wants to control and understand everything, and yet who hides his broken heart. And yes, she does break his heart, in this story without end that travels eternally through time.

Maly’s story is surprisingly easy to follow, even with its jumps through tenses. His prose is his strongest point, as he shows how a brief tear in time changes lives completely.

You can read the whole story here http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TimeAgai.shtml

Inez Ponce de Leon has a background in molecular biology and science communication. She loves to write on a wide variety of topics, even Procera AVH.

Non-spoiler summary:

Ed Morris is a citizen of Earth, who works for an accounting firm on Ganymede. Every day, during his daily trans-solar commute, he is bombarded by animated billboards, radio and tv ads. When he has finally run this gauntlet, he reaches his home planet, only to be beset by swarms of robot salesmen, who pester him. Even at home, the barrage will not cease.

Ed Morris finally realizes he has had enough, so he pleads with his wife Molly to relocate to an extra-sola colony, where people live their lives in peace and quiet, ‘like they used to do in the 20^th century’. Molly won’t even consider it, when suddenly Ed’s worst nightmare comes to life, in the form of a Fully Automated Self-Regulating Android (Domestic use only).

What I think:

Opinions on Philip K. Dick’s tone of his work vary, but everyone can agree on one thing: the man writes like an angel; he is also terribly depressing. This story is both the best and the worst one in his anthology The Father-Thing (buy it now, it’s awesome). It’s the best because it actually addresses the contemporary problem of media saturation and the increasing aggressiveness of ad campaigns, which so far have intruded into every aspect of our lives. It’s also damn funny.

It’s the worst because of its ending. Its ending is, in fact, so depressing, that even Philip Dick apologizes for it at the end of the book.

Boring Technical Stuff:

• Word Count: 5,000
• Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. His work is legion and I suggest you start as soon as possible, or you’ll die unfulfilled.

Where you can find this story:

• In his collected works anthology The Father-Thing (available in every online bookstore worth its salt)
• This story is currently not available online. Which means you’re gonna have to buy it. And trust me, this is a sound investment

By-Line:

Konstantine Paradias is a short story science fiction and fantasy writer, who has his own blog, called Shapescapes (shapescapes). For comments or plain old contact, you can find him at kosparadias@gmail.com

Dr. Thorne has a great new machine – a Gene Code Reprogrammer. But the problem is that he has run out of funding, so he has turned to some questionable practices to get more money. Let’s just wait and see what happens, shall we?

Read Double Blind online for free.

Captain Branson has spent 100 years making the journey from Earth to New Terra. Now, as this historic journey is about to fulfill its long-awaited purpose he receives a message that is a quite dis-heartening… to say the least.

Read The Long and Short of It online for free.

Enjoy!

If you swapped minds with your dog, what would you do? Go to the mall, sneak into locker rooms, or chase cats all day? Now, what if you swapped minds with a duck? A cat? Or worse, a toaster?

This is the quandary faced by a nameless professor in Matthew Grigg’s short story, Professor Panini. The story starts when a self-made man, now a professor and researcher, works on exchanging the minds of a cat and duck using a machine. There are no details about how the machine works or what it looks like; suffice it to say that the experiment doesn’t go as planned, and hilarity ensues.

The professor has become a helpless, though intelligent toaster. In his immobile state, he starts looking for help in a myriad ways that the reader might not even imagine. Tossing toast, reprogramming the toaster, and even giving orders over the phone after a Rube Goldberg-like sequence of events all lead comically and slowly to a fun finale.

Will the professor escape the life of a stationary toaster, or will he forever be shooting out SOS bread messages through his apartment window?

Grigg’s prose is simple, sometimes too simple that you wonder if the lead character is actually a professor or some science enthusiast gone mad. However, this also bucks the trend of the jargon-spouting scientist who has nothing to talk about except science, making the short story a much easier read.

There are very few descriptions of the professor’s whereabouts, which might be disadvantageous, since the story could have profited from some descriptions that would allow us to exclaim, “Yes, let’s try the oven/window/fridge so we can get out of this mess!” along with the professor. Nevertheless, the professor’s thoughts and observations about his state allow us to glimpse another angle of the short story: one where an introspective life is necessary, since there is no other option but to think.

Without being weighed down by jargon, much less by conventional characters, Professor Panini becomes funnier and even more believable. It’s easier, after all, to imagine a professor eating his breakfast while starting up his experiment than it is to imagine a researcher stuck in a lab and electrocuting everything in sight.

Professor Panini does not have a dull bone in its short body. With only one character trying to shuttle between brilliant humanity and mere technology, you’ll find yourself thinking: if this is possible, how would I get out of the toaster?

You can read the whole story here http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/ProfPani724.shtml.

Inez Ponce de Leon has a background in molecular biology and science communication. She loves to write on a wide variety of topics, even Procera AVH.

The End of the Whole Mess is a post-apocalyptic short story by Stephen King, as told from the view point of Howard Fonroy, the older brother of one of the smartest (and few remaining) men on the planet.

Non-Spoiler version in a jiffy:

Howard Fonroy is a moderately successful writer, who has lived his entire life in awe (and fear) of his Lex Luthory-type genius of his brother, Robert. During his talks with Robert, the reader realizes that things have indeed taken a turn for the worse and that the world is teetering at the edge. Drastic measures are required, or else mankind will end up destroying itself pretty soon. Thus, Robert dedicates his life to finding a way out of this, convincing his brother to follow along with a madcap plan that actually works. In a surprising twist, not only does he make it, but everyone also lives happily ever after with nobody dying.

Hahahahaha…no. That’s not what happens at all.

My thoughts on the story:

Say what you will about Stephen King, but the man can write a wicked backstory for his characters. In the story’s few pages, you actually get emotionally invested in both characters and you end up loving the infuriatingly intelligent Robert. However, the story does seem to suffer from comic book logic syndrome, with an oversimplified solution and execution, which might put some of you hard scifi guys out there off. As for me, I absolutely loved this story and its ending sent chills up my spine.

Specs:

• Word count: 10,000 words
• The story was first published in Omni Magazine in 1986, and later published in the Nightmares & Dreamscapes collection (1993) and Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (2008).
• Stephen King is a world-renowned author. You’ve probably seen at least one movie version of his book. If you’ve never heard of him before, then welcome to earth, ye mighty alien overlords!

Where you can find this little gem:

• In the short story collection Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (2008), which I highly recommend
• And here (http://www.scribd.com/doc/17129794/The-End-of-the-Whole-Mess) for free.

Konstantine Paradias is a short story science fiction and fantasy writer, who has his own blog, called Shapescapes (shapescapes). For comments or plain old contact, you can find him at kosparadias@gmail.com

Molly Who?

Have you read Neuromancer? Did you like it? If so then this story will probably be right up your ally – in fact the opening line plays off that famous novel and one of its most memorable characters!

Non-Spoiler Summary

Mulan Rouge is an interesting woman, if you can still call her a woman, and her body has been altered quite a bit. She is dangerous too – ever since she got her first taste of controlled violence she has wanted more. She has worked for some shady characters, but the most shady has to be her current boss and his entourage of deadly toads. Now as she tries to protect him on a train ride to Laos she suddenly becomes suspicious of everyone else on the slug powered train – and that turns out to be a good thing… well, for her boss anyway!

Some Interesting Tidbits

• Word count: 4,684 (10 pages)
• This story has some explicit sexual scenes – so stay away if you don’t like that kind of stuff.
• You can learn more about science fiction author Lavie Tidhar on his web site.

Where To Find The Night Train

• This short story was first published in June 2010 on the web site Strange Horizons – where you can still read it online for free.
• It is also included in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection.

Craving More SF Stories Like This One?

If you liked "The Night Train" then you may also enjoy “The Shangri-La Affair”, also by Lavie Tidhar – about a special agent who travels to Southeast Asia to find a unique virus engineered to bring peace.

Currently on our website, there are over twenty people (professionals and fans) publishing articles, reviews, and translations. The website serves as a kind of a hub, centralizing in syndication selected content from their personal websites and blogs, and we are also actively publishing original articles, reviews, interviews, short stories, etc. So far, we have published 6 PDF freely available fanzine issues, which are heavily focused on speculative fiction and poetry plus a smaller portion of the usual type of content we use for the main website. Every one is volunteering for the love of their scope of interest. Two years ago, I named the whole thing “A Gathering of Troubadours” (Sborishte na trubaduri), so that’s our official name

Anyway, please support Petar and our international SciFi community by taking a look at Trubadurs.com. If you don’t read Bulgarian you can translate it on the fly by using Google Chrome to visit the site. I think you’ll be well rewarded for your efforts.

Enjoy!