Short Fiction - July 2016

[public domain image of Library of Congress building from freestockphotos.biz]

Short Fiction - July 2016
I'm a little bit late in my post for my July short fiction reading, but I've been reading all along. Unusually for me, this month I read three novellas, one of them approximately 40K words long, balanced on the other ends by lots and lots of flash pieces and even microfiction, which I count as under 500 words. The two standouts for me this month fall on either end of that spectrum, with one flash piece and one novella.

I have to admit, my long fiction reading is suffering as a result of this story-a-day project. But I think I have become addicted to the short form, so that may be the way it has to be.

"Morning Sun"
by Edward Ashton

Length: 971 words
Category: Short story (mainstream)
Where Published: Every Day Fiction
When Published: 2016-07-13
Link

This short mainstream piece is about a man who has both cancer and regrets. In that sense, it's not what I'd call an innovative story, but I felt as though every word in the story was the right choice. The author conveys so much in a few words.

"Combat Shopping"
by Elizabeth Moon

Length: 20,450 words (est. based on sample page count)
Category: Novella (science fiction)
Where Published: Escape from Earth (anthology), SFBC
When Published: 2006
Link: N/A

This novelette appears in the anthology Escape from Earth, in which editors Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois were charged with finding stories with a traditional juvenile sensibility of longing to "see what's happening out there." I haven't read all the stories in the anthology yet, but Elizabeth Moon's "Combat Shopping" certainly filled the bill. Twelve-year-old Andi Murchison longs to get her pilot's license as a possible means to escape her stifling life in a habitat on Jupiter's moon Ganymede. When she defies her adoptive mother's orders to take the test, it sets off a chain of events that reveal some unexpected secrets about her situation. I loved the way Andi takes charge of her own destiny, yet doesn't forget her responsibilities to others, particularly her adoptive siblings.



Other stories read in July 2016:

(alphabetical by author)

- "Vent Act" by Graham Brand (2016)
- "Companion Trilogy: Bareheaded" by Mike Buckley (2016)
- "Companion Trilogy: Companion" by Mike Buckley (2016)
- "Companion Trilogy: Companionless" by Mike Buckley (2016)
- "A Patch of Dirt in Paradise" by Lee Budar-Danoff (2016)
- "Interrogation Cupcakes" by Alexander Burns (2016)
- "Goosed" by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks (2016)
- "Heroes Be Damned" by Jareb Collins (2016)
- "2 AM at a Motel in the City" by Cory Cone (2016)
- "Sunrise" by Madeline Curtis (2015)
- "The Big Blow-Up" by Dave D'Alessio (2016)
- "Momentum" by Kris Dinnison (2016)
- "A Study in Grey" by Sarah Doebereiner (2016)
- "The Redaction of Flight 5766" by Eric Gregory (2006)
- "Retirement Plan" by Jack Hillman (2016)
- "Choose Your Kid's Adventure" by Meghan Renee Jenkins (2016)
- "Stan" by Rosalie Kempthorne (2016)
- "Great Expectations" by M.E. Kerr (2001)
- "Frog Soup" by Floris M. Kleijne (2016)
- "Never Will I Ever" by Kaleigh Longe (2016)
- "Repeat One" by Andrew Neil McDonald (2016)
- "The Cost to Be Wise" by Maureen F. McHugh (1996)
- "GI Jesus" by Susan Palwick (1996)
- "On Impulse" by Rita A. Popp (2016)
- "Candle, Card and Mirror" by Stephen S. Power (2016)
- "Killing the Morrow" by Robert Reed (1996)
- "Slow Bullets" by Alistair Reynolds (2015)
- "I Blame the Kardashians" by Tess Riesmeyer (2016)
- "In the Depths of the Museum" by R. Rozakis (2016)
- "Lonesome" by Tarah Scalzo (2015)
- "Future Fragments, Six Seconds Long" by Alex Shvartsman (2016)
- "Strawberry Kisses" by Carl Steiger (2016)
- "Expendable" by Katherine Toran (2016)
- "The Happiest Place" by Carrie Vaughn (2009)
- "Drink Me" by H. Victory (2016)
- "A Piece of Her Self" by Liz Walker (2016)
- "The Passing of the Book" by Gerald Warfield (2016)
- "A Wrinkle Ironed Out" by Alison Wilgus (2016)
- "Insurrection" by Oscar Windsor-Smith (2016)
- "Blind Side" by Peter Wood (2016)



List of the sources from which these stories came:

(alphabetical by anthology title, magazine title, website name, etc.)

- Abyss & Apex, 3rd quarter 2016
- Daily Science Fiction, July 2016
- Diabolical Plots, July 2016
- Escape from Earth (anthology), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, 2006
- Every Day Fiction, July 2016
- Mash Stories, August 2016
- On the Fringe (anthology), edited by Donald R. Gallo, 2001
- One Teen Story, Oct 2015; Dec 2015; June 2016
- Realms of Fantasy, Feb 2009
- Starlight 1 (anthology), edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, 1996
- Sybil's Garage, no. 3, 2006
- Trigger Warning: Short Fiction with Pictures, July 2016
- Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry, June 2016


Read more!

An Evening with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Last night my husband and I went to see Neil deGrasse Tyson speak at Jones Hall here in Houston. I'm not sure we've ever paid to hear someone just speak before; the closest was when we paid a small amount to see William Shatner speak for an hour at a convention we were already attending anyway. Neil DeGrasse Tyson tickets cost, shall we say, not a small amount.

And it was completely worth it. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, honestly. Would it be like an episode of Cosmos? Would it be a rant about politicians who refuse to consider evidence that's right in front of their eyes?

Actually, no -- it was more like stand-up comedy for scientifically minded people. The "backbone" of the talk was basically how movies look to NDT: what's right, what's not right but still cool, and what's so scientifically wrong that it's difficult to get past it. Spoiler alert: Armageddon did not fare well, but that wasn't a surprise to me, considering that the husband is an asteroid scientist, and the (to me) well-known Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop apparently uses that film to talk about everything that's wrong with science in Hollywood. (Yes, we do still own a copy of that movie. Science aside, it's a lot more entertaining than it's summer-twin-release, Deep Impact.)

Interspersed with the movie still frames and clips were.... several beer commercials! Probably the most "political" line of the evening was when NDT said, in response to a beer commercial in which primordial creatures don't like the taste of their water and so wait through a zillion years of evolution until Guiness is invented, that it's a sad state of affairs when a beer commercial is more scientifically accurate that some school curricula in this country. (We're looking at you, Southern states!) Apart from that, though, the evening was just a fun look at what movies do and don't get right, and what we can and can't forgive them for getting wrong.

I laughed like crazy. And here were the two best parts of the evening: 1) this man clearly loves science and the wonders of the universe; and 2) the atmosphere at Jones Hall before the talk. NDT fans clearly view this guy as a rock star, and he is. Of science.

And just for fun, off the top of my head, other movies referenced (for both good and bad) included:

• Back to the Future
  
• Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
  
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  
• Contact
  
• Gravity
  
• Interstellar
  
• The Lion King
  
• Love Story
  
• The Matrix
  
• Star Wars (the real one)
  
• Titanic
  
• West Side Story
  
• The Wizard of Oz
  

If you ever get a chance to hear this man speak, I highly recommend it.

[Edited to add: I should have mentioned that this appearance was put on by the Society of the Performing Arts (SPA) in Houston. Thanks, SPA!] Read more!