Dan’s Comments (group member since Aug 20, 2024)

Dan’s comments from the Science Fiction: The Short Stuff group.

I will nominate "Invisible Empire of Ascending Light" (2008) by Ken Scholes and "Calved" (2015) by Sam J. Miller. Both can be found in the ebook Forever Magazine, Issue 1, February 2015. The latter story took third place in the 2016 Asimov's Readers awards.

This novella was first published in the August 1967 issue of Galaxy Magazine. It proved immensely popular, and Silverberg expanded and published it as a novel the following year. I have read both versions and consider them both to be excellent, five stars each. The additional material really changes the story considerably. We are only considering the novella in this group.

The story is about a penal colony like Australia was, a place one could send criminals to in order to remove them from society. Only in this case the criminals are sent back in time to a period when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. There are no other humans these criminals can mess with, just themselves.

If you try to buy the novella for Kindle under the Silverberg name you won't get it. You'll get the novel instead, which although very good, is very different as well. You'll also pay at least $7.49 for that pleasure. Instead, I recommend getting the novella. It's published for Kindle in a magazine titled Forever Magazine, Issue 16, May 2016, which is available for just $2.99. I think you will find it well worth the price.

"A hanged corpse is found dangling in the street, unnoticed by many passers-by."

This month's short story group read selection is another audio story narrated in The Lost Si-Fi Podcast. In fact, it's the first (or earliest) one of the podcast. Check it out; the reader really does this one justice. The story itself is vintage, paranoid Dick, a version of Invasion of the Body-Snatchers. Set in the 1950s this story is so dated it has become modern, if one equates the aliens to MAGAs.

September's novelette group read is Never Gut-Shoot a Wampus by Winston K. Marks. I selected this novelette having recently encountered it on the The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. It's a really good story to listen to. Despite that, I have mixed feelings about this podcast. I've only listened to four or five episodes so far, but every single one is in the realm of soft SF, not hard SF. In fact, the podcaster is choosing only stories that have something to do with heterosexual lust, male on female, and this story is the third or fourth example of that in a row. The SF seems to be a trapping only for the protagonist to get his perv on.

This is the first I have ever heard of this particular author. The one photo I know of that exists of him is featured on our group home page this month. He wrote approximately 60 short stories for the pulps, all but four of these published between 1953 and 1959. The other four were from 1940, 1941, 1967, and 1968. Marks had a career and writing was just something he did on the side, except perhaps for that 1950s period.

I plan to give this story a close read. It first appeared in the February 1955 issue of Imagination and has been made into a Project Gutenberg free (or very low cost) chapbook available for Kindle.

Looks good, David. At first I was going to disqualify the Stephen King entry, but I looked up some info about the story and see it takes place in the 24th century. Say hi to Buck Rogers for me! That's therefore inarguably SF. It's funny. I read Skeleton Crew in the 1980s, but sure don't remember that story! Thanks for the nominations.

Please nominate up to two works of science fiction shorter than a novel that you think our group would enjoy reading and discussing together this October. Since it's October, I want to add a restriction: let's look for horror-based SF, something like "Alien" scary. Deadline: the end of September 15, 2025.

And with that, I must close the nominations. I'm four days overdue already!

For the short story I am nominating The Hanging Stranger by none other than Philip K. Dick, paranoic par excellence.

For the novelette, let's read or listen to Never Gut-Shoot a Wampus by Winston K. Marks.

I am halfway through the story and find myself wondering why it's such a classic. The starting premise is that people become irrationally fearful of complete darkness, that a day or two of it, even if they know it's coming, would drive them permanently and irrevocably insane? Really? Why not just turn a light on? Sounds like a good chance to catch up on some reading to me.

I'm not getting this.

It is possible to pull up the September 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and read "Nightfall" there for free. However, I am not certain that is Asimov's preferred version. It is unarguably the one he wrote at the age of 21 that garnered him such fame, but I believe he revised it slightly when older.

I'm obtaining the story through a Kindle book for $5.99 titled Nightfall and Other Stories that features the "definitive" version, whatever that means, along with 19 other Asimov stories. I read "Nightfall" as a teenager in the book I mentioned and linked to in my previous message this thread, but I didn't much care for the story when I was fourteen. I remember it being about the sun going out for no reason and a cult being involved for no apparent benefit to the story. I had no idea why the story was considered such a big deal. I wonder if I will like it more now almost fifty years later since I will no doubt be able to understand it better.

I have too, Rosemarie. I think that was the very first story Leinster published in the science fiction genre. It sure is a weird one. I liked that short story more than this novella, which I give three stars, meaning I liked it, but was not crazy about it. The story was okay, considering it was very early science fiction writing, but not something I can get too excited about or recommend. The story was 106 text pages long, about as long as a novella can be, and felt more like a novel to me.

Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Terry Bisson passed away last year at the age of 81. I notice he's a month younger than my father, who is still alive.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story and give it a solid four stars. It was about bears learning how to tend fires and a beloved mother who lived in a nursing home being at death's door. I note the story was not the least bit science fiction, more fantasy, I would say, perhaps even weird fiction, though the explanations were too complete for that genre really.

Terry Bisson was clearly a highly intelligent, straightforward person of just the right number of words. I really liked his interview, from the link at the end of the story, and found his observation that his story had no suspense and couldn't have that element very interesting. I've never thought about the effect of deliberately avoiding suspense before.

Thanks for that David. Check out this first sentence: "I was driving with my brother, the preacher, and my nephew, the preacher’s son, on I-65 just north of Bowling Green when we got a flat."

That's all I need to read to know that I'm safe in the hands of someone who writes well and that I will probably enjoy this story. In one sentence he introduces three characters and tells us the situation, They're driving north on an interstate somewhere in the midwest. I don't really know where Bowling Green is, but I know I-65 is a north-south running interstate not too far west of Atlanta-Knoville, which has I-75, which I do know. And the brother is a preacher, so he probably has the gift of gab and might be a bit annoying to the other two, maybe holier-than-thou? And they have a problem to solve: flat tire. Should not be that big a deal, right?

I am halfway through it now. It has taken a strange turn. It seems to be more about the Medic and the stowaway's relationship now. I don't think that's enough of a subject even for a 100-page novella. So I wonder what the next turn will be. It's set in a richly portrayed planetary system with lots of disputes going on. Leinster could take this anywhere.

Another surprise to me is how completely buried in SF tropes this story is. Leinster wrote in a lot of genres. I was expecting him to be a kind of jack-of-all-trades writer, master of none. But he really has the SF writing thing down.

I searched on "This World is Taboo" in Kindle, found there was a free copy available, and downloaded it.

It's an interesting story so far. I am two chapters, which is 25% of the story, in. The premise is that Med Ships visit worlds in order to help ensure the health status of member planets. This Med Ship has only one doctor and an intelligent pet called a tormal. It visits a world called Weald where this crazy fear of a plague (Covid anyone) runs rampant. The plague is believed to turn people's skin blue, thus great political hay can be made from making enemies of blue-skins.

(view spoiler)[The Med Ship leaves the world in some disgust to go try to help another world when a stowaway girl is discovered aboard. She won't tell the truth about why she wanted to leave Weald. (hide spoiler)] And so on it goes. It's an interesting story, well told, so far. I have no idea where it's headed.

The novella This World Is Taboo ran unopposed this month in the poll, which is how it won. Hey, I have no illusions my nomination could have withstood competition. I know I am probably the only Murray Leinster fan in our group.

The reason for that, I hypothesize, is because science fiction is only one of the genres Leinster wrote in, and perhaps it is fair to say it wasn't even his main one. I've read more Leinster adventure and western stories than I have SF by him. And who but me reads pulp adventure tales these days, or westerns for that matter? In fact, I'm going through an obscure collection of five of Leinster's adventure tales on my nightstand right now. They're really good. His SF is okay too.

The Genius Beasts & This World is Taboo first featured Leinster's novella as one half of an Ace double book in 1961. The story first appeared under the title "Pariah Planet" in Amazing Stories, July 1961.

Many people assume the two are the same story, but they're actually not quite. The difference is more than just in the title too. "Pariah Planet" has 34,091 words, but "This World is Taboo" has an additional 1,891 words sprinkled throughout the story, bringing the total to 35,932. The edits that add the words reportedly did a lot to make the story clearer and stronger. That's why I was so particular to nominate the longer novella.

According to AI, "Pariah Planet" by Murray Leinster tells the story of a medical officer named Calhoun, who investigates a planet gripped by fear of a group called "blueskins". These blueskins, survivors of a plague on the planet Dara, are ostracized and feared by the inhabitants of the planet Wield. Calhoun, accompanied by his tormal companion Murgatroyd, must navigate the xenophobia and paranoia to understand the situation and potentially help resolve the conflict. The novella explores themes of prejudice, social isolation, and the consequences of unchecked fear and hatred.

Sounds like a fun read to me!

"Nightfall" is a 1941 science fiction novelette by the American writer Isaac Asimov about the coming of darkness to the people of a planet ordinarily illuminated by sunlight at all times. It was adapted into a novel with Robert Silverberg in 1990, but we don't care. We are reading the novelette, which has appeared in many anthologies and six collections of Asimov stories.

In 1968, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted "Nightfall" the best science fiction short story written prior to the 1965 establishment of the Nebula Awards and included it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929-1964. I don't know why they called it that though. This "short story" is about 12,000 words long making it unambiguously a novelette. Volume 1 included both short stories and novelettes, but Asimov's story should have been called a novelette.

Who's down for another Asimov read this month. I know I am. I read this story when I was about 12 and it didn't impress me much then. How will I feel about it now, fifty years later?

Bears Discover Fire is a science fiction short story by American science fiction author Terry Bisson. It concerns aging and evolution in the US South, the dream of wilderness, and community. The premise is that bears have discovered fire, and are having campfires on highway medians.

It was originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in August 1990. As our short story selection this month this really looks good.

This was so nothing of a story for me that I hardly remember any of it. I want to do a reread before I comment further, so that I can be sure I am being fair. I rounded up to three stars. A reread either keeps it there or moves it down to two for me.

I asked Google AI if F. Scott was ever in Los Angeles during the 1930s. Here is the reply:

Yes, F. Scott Fitzgerald was in Los Angeles during the 1930s, specifically from 1937 until his death in 1940. He moved there to work as a screenwriter, primarily for MGM, during the latter part of the decade.

Fitzgerald's time in Los Angeles was marked by both professional struggles and personal challenges, including his ongoing battle with alcoholism and the end of his marriage to Zelda Fitzgerald. He worked on various film projects, but his attempts to establish a successful screenwriting career were largely unsuccessful. Despite his frustrations with Hollywood, he did find some enjoyment in the city, including his relationship with columnist Sheilah Graham, and he did spend time at popular Los Angeles haunts like the Clover Club and the Trocadero. He also began work on his unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, which was set in Hollywood.

I'm so late getting to this. I prefer to read these at the beginning of the month in order to encourage other members to participate in the group reads. It's what a good moderator does. But I have had such a busy month. I'm actually designing and selling stamp albums on eBay if you can believe that! Well, just two copies so far. But that has taken considerable time.

Anyway, I found a copy of this story for free on Amazon for download to my Kindle. I swear that at the beginning of July the story was costing 99 cents. Free now. Strange!

Hmm, Rosemarie gives it three stars. We usually match pretty well. I hope I can give this four.