#853 The Love Machine- Julia Elliott

#853 The Love Machine- Julia Elliott

The story is told by a robot inside a college laboratory. It is a project on Artificial Intelligence and we see the process from inside the head of the one being experimented on, or built, or evolving depending on how you look at it. It has been programmed to “feel” love, or something closer to infatuation. First, it “loved” a lab assistant but when that got violent, it was reprogramed to “love” a toy dog.  

As it is being taught more about the world and the human condition, its ability to grasp what love is, and its reaction to it gets more intricate. Like humans, at first the feelings are basic, and their manners mimic those it learns from others. Later it gets more individual, and instead of seeing the programming, it feels more like self-determination. But as it gets more complicated, it boils down one basic idea:

“Nevertheless, I wanted to fuse with her in some meaningful way.”

Love among robots seems pointless, and teaching a robot to learn to love like a human does seems cruelly unfair, since the anatomy isn’t there to ever completely sate those “desires.” But, it begs the question: Isn’t human love itself pointless and unfair even to humans?

Notable Passage: “What are the relationships among love, knowledge, language, and consciousness?”

Rating: 7-8-8-7 Total= 30

#848 Runway Blackout- Tara Betts

#848 Runway Blackout- Tara Betts

Fashion models as we know it are a thing of the past. Inter-racial coupling has created many interesting cross-traits, some bad and some good. The most interesting has been the passing and growing trait of shapeshifting. A generation of shapeshifters called: Therianthropes, because of their special abilities have taken over the fashion world. They can be anyone at any time.

“No more worries about weight complaints, skin discolorations, or scars. In fact sometimes, an entire magazine only required one model for all the issue’s glossy pages.”

The common trait among Therianthriopes was their black ancestry. So when they weren’t shifting, most of them donned a black form. Thus, one day the most popular shifter, Voile, a visionary proposed a radical plan. She wanted all models to stop shifting and work the upcoming fashion week in only their black skin. She wanted to show the world the beauty of their true selves. Some balked at the idea, having become exceedingly wealthy pretending to be something they were not, but most agreed.

At first it seemed like a great coming out party, and fashion week was fine, but the aftermath was a disaster. The fashion executives stopped booking the Therianthropes claiming that they were freaks and stealing jobs from legitimate beauties. Funny how the rules change when you refuse to.

Rating: 8-9-9-8 Total= 34

#846 In The Slopes- China Mieville

#846 In The Slopes- China Mieville

The island town of Elam has always been an important site for archeology. The volcano has entombed many important artifacts and ancient wonders. It was always the oddly sized and shaped temples and the weird figures in the artwork that made the place mysterious. But in fact, those oddities were not a mythology but proof of extraterrestrial beings coexisting with humans.

When archeologist finally unearthed an alien body mummified trying to protect human figures from a lava flow, the island became something different, and became McCullough’s new home. 

“Seeing such things in glass cases, reading the captions that described them, McCulloch has been awed enough. Now he saw one delivered. He had to hold his breath.”

Now a “local” he runs a store and welcomes new teams as they come and go. There are currently two rival dig teams trying to uncover new artifacts. There is a dangerous rivalry happening around the digs and new science in the embalming process that is starting to cause trouble in town. Locals are split and history is lost.

Rating: 7-8-7-7 Total= 29

#841 Paycheck- Philip K. Dick

#841 Paycheck- Philip K. Dick

This is one of PKD’s classic stories. It deals with time viewing and technology. Jennings is an electrical mechanic, probably the best out there. He wakes up from a high-security job with Rethrick construction. Due to the nature of the work and the heavy government attention on it, Jennings’ memory has been wiped clean. He has lost the last two years of his life, but the job was done and he is about to be paid handsomely.

Instead of the money he was promised, the clerk tells him he opted to be allowed to take out a bag full of object from the plant. He made this decision before his memory was wiped, so he has no idea why he wouldn’t take the money. He soon realizes however, the seven seemingly benign objects he took out are clues to getting back to the Rethrick plant, he just doesn’t know why yet.

“The decision had actually been his. Amazingly, after two years of work he had preferred a handful of trinkets instead of fifty thousand credits. But more amazingly, The handful of trinkets was turning out to be worth more than the money.”

Besides being a great sci-fi story about time viewing, there is a serious anti-government tilt here. The world has changed into a heavy police state, and where the church used to be the antithesis of government, corporations have taken their place.

“It was the government against the corporation, rather than the state against the church.”

The revolution apparently is fomenting inside of places like Rethrick Construction. Jennings wants in, and since he’s the only one who knows how to run the Time Scoop machine…the future looks good.

Rating: 7-9-9-9 Total= 34

#819 Little Brown Mouse- Tunde Olaniran

#819 Little Brown Mouse- Tunde Olaniran

Thomas developed a special ability, although he sees it as a burden and his family and his doctors see it as a mental problem. He is a seer or sorts. When he touches somebody or an object handled by somebody else, he can see thoughts from their minds. The process is mentally jarring, and what his physical self experiences can best be described a seizure. One day he has an episode and falls in front of his house as a strange apparition appears that he thinks is death.

“Thomas’s nightmare spoke to him from beneath her veil. Her eyes were beautiful and terrible, and he knew they would see him no matter where he ran or hid. Red and gold layers moved like water, and she floated toward him. The fan of long, shimmering spines atop her head grazed the doorway, trembling delicately.”

The apparition is no death but something far greater and enlightening. If Thomas can just let go, he can use his “affliction” for larger things. What most see as an abnormality, others can see as a blessing.

Rating: 7-7-6-7 Total= 27

#791 Lalibela- Gabriel Teodros

#791 Lalibela- Gabriel Teodros

Lalibela is a “Town in northern Ethiopia famous for its eleven monolithic rock-cut buildings (how they were built is unknown).”

Gebre Mesqel Lalibela is a member of the royal family, but with his powerful partner Kibra and his mind, he will help unlock great truths, technology and start renaissance.  “His imagination was a threat to the establishment.” He discovers time travel by observing known physical properties. In his travels he sees the mistakes that the human race will make (have made) and although he tries to fix the doomed course of history, he feels overwhelmed and powerless. Perhaps a strong pair can be more effective than even the strongest individual.

I love when a good Sci-Fi story is deeply grounded in human history. And if you’re going to be deeply grounded in human history, what better place than Ethiopia. “Like the history of all humanity, it was buried in Ethiopia under nothing but a thin layer of dust.” The town of Lalibela is a real town and the monoliths still stand there defying historic understanding. In this story they are imagined as a spaceport, and things like a Mesqel, a religious staff, is now used also for time travel. These details help layer this story.

Although I find the concepts in this story inspirational and the ideas beautifully presented, as a short story it falls apart a bit. If Lalibela were to realize the things he did, this story should be longer. More space is needed to let this all unfold. As it is, I loved the first half, but the exposition made a promise that the denoument didn’t really fulfill. And at times, especially the visit to Gondor, year 3000, it got a little preachy for me.

As a reader and a person I’m glad this story was written, as someone trying to analyze short fiction, I’d like to see this given more time and turned into a much longer piece, or series, or a novel.

Notable Passage: “It’s like three heavens just opened up and became one. In the stars, on the earth, and within ourselves.”

Rating: 7-9-6-6 Total= 28

#789 The Condition of New Death- China Mieville

#789 The Condition of New Death- China Mieville

This is a mind experiment in perspective. There is a new way people see death, it is called New Death. People dies the same ways at the same rates and in the same places, but the manner in which the living perceive of the dead bodies has changed. It began with the death of one M. Morris.

“With great alarm, Mr. Morris began to walk around the body, but he stopped when, in his words ‘those feet wouldn’t stop pointing at me.’ Ms. Morris’s body appeared to him to be swiveling like a needle on a compass, her feet always facing him.”

“Stated most simply, New Death is the condition whereby human corpses now lie always on a horizontal vector—no matter the angle of the surface or the substance of the matter below them-and now orient so that their feet are facing all observers, all the time.”

The mind experiment comes in when you realize that even on video, no matter which angle you look from, that angle will be feet first, even when recorded at the same time. 

This phenomenon, not possible in our real physical word, is however a common occurrence in first-person-shooter video games. So, this could be seen as a satire on a society that is unable to unplug. That a society’s perspective has been shaped so much by the viewpoint of our personal electronic devices that it has become itself reality or at least a substitute for it that is so good, the people cannot differentiate one from the other. I say, not entirely far of from where we are now. Perspective becomes reality. 

Rating: 8-10-7-7 Total= 32

#764 Hollow- Mia Mingus

#764 Hollow- Mia Mingus

The human race has been separated into two: The Perfects and the Un-Perfects or cripples. The U.P.s are despised for not being perfect and eventually in a holocaust-like event, rounded up and mass-murdered. Before being completely expunged from existence, they were sent to a newly inhabitable planet called Hallow, to exist under military guards in permanent exile.

“There had been talk at one point that the regime would send all the criminals there to be quarantined  and die, but everyone knew the regime needed the free labor in the prisons too much to send their criminals away.”

They eventually overtook there captors and destroyed communication with the Perfects who never learned of the uprising. They kept sending new U.P.s to Hallow where they were taken care of as Arrivals. Now, fifty years later, a letter came with an Arrival announcing the first visit from earth in all this time. The U.P.s know this means death and destruction of the culture they have built free from oppression. They must decide whether to stay and fight or flee to regroup and save their history.

Notable Passage: “How do you teach a history of hate in the name of love?”

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32

#761 Polynia- China Mieville

#761 Polynia- China Mieville

“They’d started as wisps, anomalies noticed only by weather watchers. Slowly, they’d grown, started to glint in the early-winter afternoon. They solidified, there sides becoming more faceted, more opaquely white. They started to shed shadows…Social media went mad with theory. The things were dismissed as mirages, hoaxes, advertising gimmicks for a TV show. They were heralded as angels, abominated as an alien attack or a new superweapon.”

Thus fifteen years ago, strange ice-bergs appeared over London, impossibly levitating in mid air, 9/10^th of which are not to be seen. At first they are the only thing the city can think about. What are they? Where are they from? What do they mean? Eventually curious climbers venture into the unknown never to be seen again. They still float there as life goes on, one more unexplained mystery for humans to ponder and fight over, selfishly wanting to know its secrets.

Rating: 9-8-8-8 Total=33

#760 The Evening and the Morning and the Night- Octavia Butler

#760 The Evening and the Morning and the Night- Octavia Butler

A portion of society is stricken with Duryea-Gode Disease, a genetically transferred condition that devolves into animalistic violence and cannibalism. It is supposed to be a cross between Huntington’s Disease, Phenylketonuria disorder and Lesch-Nyhan disease, but sounds to me like it turns people into flesh eating zombies.

The people that have the gene are aware of it and know that as some point they will “drift” into a spiral ending in murder, self destruction or imprisonment in centers designed to house them. It’s a horrible death sentence that causes those with the gene to commit suicide, or at the very least not have children to pass it along. But human nature as it is, some still have children.

Lynn and Alan live in an apartment together with 4 other DGDers. They find comfort in each other. Eventually they decide to visit Alan’s mother who is in a high end facility for those who have already drifted. What they find there is both a revelation and somewhat hard to handle. The decisions they will have to make about their future gets more and more complicated.

Notable Passage: “If you work hard enough at something that doesn’t matter, you can forget for a while the things that do.”

Rating: 7-8-7-7 Total= 29

#756 Beyond Lies the Wub- Philip K. Dick

#756 Beyond Lies the Wub- Philip K. Dick

I guess “You are what you eat” is an apt adage for this story. Men and local creatures are loading a cargo ship when one crew member comes walking back with a huge pig-like creature called a Wub. It is a greatly respected animal around here and the crew member bought it for fifty cents. Looking like a pig, and being four-hundred pounds of potential food, Captain Franco wondered how it would taste.

Aboard the ship they had suffered some food spoilage, and the Captain now looked towards the wub again for a food source. Except the wub isn’t really a pig, it is a highly evolved race and has learned to defend itself with reason. It had accessed the minds of the passengers and “spoke” to the captain using some sort of ESP. Trying to philosophize his way out of the boiler, the Wub uses mythology to illustrate his usefulness. Ever wonder whether we’d still consume animals if they talked like us? Well, some life forms have a strong survival instinct.

Rating: 7-8-7-7 Total= 29

#736 In Spite of Darkness- Alixa Garcia

#736 In Spite of Darkness- Alixa Garcia

The Suns have been quieted and the land has fallen into darkness. The humans have lived without solar warmth for eight years. Luminescent beings called Sol gatherers hide from them afraid they will be stolen and disappear forever.

 “The Sol Gatherers were effected by mood—fear and love being the strongest emotions that could make their firelike skin radiate.”

Mikra, born on the first day of the war and at the beginning of the current darkness is a mixture of Sol Gatherer and Pattern Keeper. For generations the Sol Gatherers had flown together to different dimensions in search of suns and returned to share their magnificence. This time, however they have not returned and the child gatherers are without teachers and the lineage is in danger of being broken.

This could be a morality play about human disrespect and destruction of the planet, or it could be a parable about forgotten culture. Either way it’s a powerful story about hope and perseverance in the face of utter darkness.

Notable Passage: “…and like any movement toward an unfolding future, so thundered down the unknown hand of destiny.”

Rating: 8-8-9-8 Total= 33

#733 Blood Child- Octavia Butler

#733 Blood Child- Octavia Butler

In this reality a group of humans fled earth as refugees and now live on another planet with superior beings. They are large slug-like creatures that, after seeing the violence in human nature, keep them in preservations. They allow humans and themselves to live together as host families. “Host” also being literal as they are used to incubate their young. When old enough, they are implanted with baby slugs.

“They don’t take woman” he said with contempt

“They do sometimes.” I glanced at him. “Actually, they prefer woman.

You should be around when they talk among themselves.. They say woman have more body fat to protect the grubs. But they usually take men to leave

The woman free to bear their own young.”

“To provide the next generation of host animals,” he said, switching

from contempt to bitterness.

In the family we see, Gan has just become implantation age and is chosen by his host slug for the job. There is a theme of subservience, with most humans living off the eggs of slugs that keeps them in a dreamlike trance and also helps them live longer. That theme turns into one of choice and free will as Gan has second thoughts about the situation.

There is a lot packed into this story. In the preface to this collection Butler, talks about her struggle with the short story:

“The truth is I hate short story writing. Trying to do it has taught me much more about frustration and despair than I ever wanted—yet there is something seductive about writing short stories. It looks so easy. You come up with an idea, then ten, twenty, perhaps thirty pages later, you’ve got a finished story.”

For the most part, I have had some trouble with stories that pack in so much, with stories that could and should be turned into longer pieces. However, this story I like both at this length, and could also see it expanded to a larger format. Perhaps it’s the genre. It’s more about the conceptual situation you’d want to hear more about than the characters themselves. Either way, good start to this book. 

Rating: 8-8-8-8- Total= 32

#728 Operation Haystack- Frank Herbert

#728 Operation Haystack- Frank Herbert

This is another Frank Herbert story about an intergalactic Investigation and Adjustment team. We see some familiar characters like Umbo Stetson, and Lewis Orne. Instead of Orne being on some planetary mission, the story begins with him being transported back to the League Capitol planet or Marak in a life sustaining medical pod. His condition is critical, and it doesn’t look like he is going to make it.

Being mourned for his sacrifice and service, Orne impossibly held onto life. Little by little, he was patched up using “spare parts” and fourteen months later walked out under his own power. He was immediately given a new assignment spying on the High Commander’s family under suspicion for conspiracy of treason. There was a battle being waged between powers, planets, and genders, and with enough Herbert twists and turns to make any Sci-Fi reader satisfied.

Notable Passage: “No political compromise is ever totally right…You keep patching up things that always have flaws in them. That’s how government is.”

Rating: 7-7-7-6 Total= 27

#711 William and Mary- Roald Dahl

#711 William and Mary- Roald Dahl

William has died leaving his wife behind. A week after his death she receives a letter from his attorney that he had been instructed to give her upon his death. The letter describes his decision to allow his brain to be used for an experiment. It was to be removed from his body and kept alive using a heart pump and other artificial devices.

“The big difference, of course, would be that we have severed every single nerve that leads into it…and this means that your thinking would no longer be influenced by your senses. You’d be living in an extraordinarily pure and detached world. Nothing to bother you at all, not even pain…No worries or fears or pains or hunger or thirst.”

He would be left with the brain in a basin of fluid and one eye so he could see the world, but nothing else. Mary was shocked and disgusted. But she went to see the brain after reading about it. After getting over the initial grotesque nature of the situation, she was overwhelmed with a renewed sense of affection for her husband. All the things she despised about him were now taken away, leaving her free to do all the things he wouldn’t allow.

“No arguments and criticisms, she thought, no constant admonitions, no rules to obey…no pair of cold disapproving eyes.”

But with one eye, and no way of communicating, she could also make him see whatever she wished, for as long as the brain could stay alive. Revenge is sweet.

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32

#693 Missing Link- Frank Herbert

#693 Missing Link- Frank Herbert

After a ship crashes on a remote planet, two government sectors are racing to control jurisdiction and the fate of it’s inhabitants. Admiral Stetson is with a new recruit, Orne. They are part of an Investigation and Adjustment crew, but for the moment are preparing to visit the planet as an R & R unit (Rediscovery and Readjustment). This is a very high stakes situation and could go catastrophic at any time.

“We both know we’re going to rediscover one planet too many some day.”

Orne is dropped onto the planet to make contact, evaluate the local population and discover the fate of the lost ship. If he gets in any trouble, they come get him and blow up the planet. If he discovers a warlike civilization, they come get him and blow up the planet. If pretty much anything weird happen, they come get him and…well, you see the pattern. 

The whole operation rests on the wits and logic of a rookie operator.

Rating: 7-7-7-7 Total= 28

#665 You Take the High Road- Frank Herbert

#665 You Take the High Road- Frank Herbert

Lewis Orne was on his first assignment re-discovering and re-educating a far off planet. He is to make sure there are no dangerous signs of a warring society. Without any evidence of war or armies or aggression he presses the panic button and reinforcements show up, but with no evidence, he is on the hot seat. He can’t prove that these people are violent, but he has a hunch, and has to prove that to the investigator from I-A. The I-A officer is skeptical, assuming that Orne is nothing more than a mere nervous first timer. When he asks what gave him a bad feeling, Orne responds:

“They have no spirit, no bounce. No humor. The atmosphere around this place is perpetual seriousness bordering on gloom.”

After investigating himself, the I-A team finds subtle but sure-fire evidence of military presence and Orne is validated and promoted. Would these people even know what peace was without war?

“The most important point on the aggression index: peaceful people don’t even discuss peace. They don’t even think about it. The only way you develop more than a casual interest in peace is through the violent contrast of war.”

Rating: 7-6-7-6 Total= 27

#637 Old Rambling House- Frank Herbert

#637 Old Rambling House- Frank Herbert

It was a deal too good to pass up. The Grahams lived in a trailer, once finding it fun to ramble around. Traveling from place to place. Now Martha is pregnant and finds all the traveling too much. They have been contacted by a strange foreign couple—from Basque, they say—who wish to trade them their house for the Grahams trailer. It is an extremely unbalanced deal, the house is worth at least ten times the trailers value.

When they go with the Rushes to see the house they feel uneasy, but when they see it, they are overwhelmed. Once they agree to the deal, something strange happens. The house shakes and they are flying through space. The deal they made was not for the house but for their identities. They are now part of a galactic society in a different galaxy than earth. They must take over the Rush’s position in this society as traveling tax collectors. 

There is one final snag the Rushes did not take into account, and it will become a problem when the baby gets older.

Rating: 7-7-6-7 Total= 27

#609 A Matter of Traces- Frank Herbert

#609 A Matter of Traces- Frank Herbert

This is the official minutes for a meeting of “The Special Subcommittee on Intergalactic Culture.” They are convening to look into the finances of the “Historic Preservation Teams of the Bureau of Cultural Affairs.” Thankfully this story is more entertaining than such a meeting would actually be if it really existed.

The testimony relates the story about a cultural and planetary pioneer. On a new planet with strange vegetation and animal life he invented a devise to harness a large amoeba-like beast of burden to help clear land. The device is simple and obvious, but it wasn’t so obvious at first:

“Sometimes the obvious isn’t so obvious until someone’s showed it to you.”

More fun than the sci-fi look at fictitious planets, is the satire about government committees. This one has an official saboteur in order to have built-in excuses for not getting anything done.

Notable Passage: “People had to help each other…and they had to live honest because their lives depended on it. It’s only after we get civilized that we feel free to cheat.”

Rating: 7-6-7-7 Total= 27

#574 Cease Fire- Frank Herbert

#574 Cease Fire- Frank Herbert

Corporal Hulser was stationed at an Observation Post in a remote area. He used to be a chemist and was probably too smart to be a military grunt. At the moment, he was under attack by something that his sensors thought was too small to be a human. He survived the attack but was struck by a brilliant idea.

“It was one of those things that had to remain dormant until the precisely proper set of circumstances.”

It took some convincing by his superiors, but his idea, if successful, could end the war. He thought of a way to project onto a field, and explode any organic munitions, including gas, oil, coal, etc. This would make attacks by weapons using these things impossible. He was given the green-light to produce this projector in a project called Operation Big Boom.

When his invention proved successful, the military brass were not happy. They knew the harsh truth that better weapons didn’t put an end to war. Once one side made something, so would the other. This would only change the way war happened.

“Violence is a part of human life. The lust for power is a part of human life As long as people want power badly enough, they’ll use any means to get it—fair or foul!”

Rating: 7-9-9-7 Total= 32