Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" (short story, horror, free)

This is not science fiction. It's creepy horror. A mad man is telling us how he murdered an old man because the victim had blue eyes of a vulture!

Fact sheet.

First published: 1843.
Download full text.
Download MP3 from Internet Archive.
See a movie adaptation at YouTube.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Edgar Allan Poe; from 19th century.

Poul Anderson's "Genius" (novelette, superman): Who is observing whom, in this lab experiment?

This is said to be the "first stand alone piece of short fiction" by Anderson.

I personally found it a somewhat boring read. Content of the story is mostly in the form of infodump - a character lecturing another one, plus description of author's idea of a utopia.

Story summary.

In far future, human empire extends to tens of thousands of planets in galaxy, has some interactions with alien empires, & it is a fairly static society with thought conditioning of populace to ensure they don't think inconvenient thoughts.

And the "psychotechnological" ruling elite conduct laboratory experiments on humans, as one would on rats: dump a couple of thousand men, matching some profile, with their memories wiped out, into some experimental environment, & observe their behavior!

One such experiment has been going on for 1500 years on "Station Seventeen": a virgin earth-like world, complete with a moon, seeded with a few thousand geniuses. And the experiment didn't turn out the way the experimenters expected...

Collected in.

1. Everett F Bleiler & T E Dikty (eds)' "The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1949".

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, December 1948.
Download MP3 of an old time radio drama based on this story titled "Planet of Geniuses". [via SFFaudio]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Poul Anderson.

Everett F Bleiler & T E Dikty (eds)' "The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1949" (anthology): Annotatated table of contents & review

According to Wikipedia, "It was the first published anthology to present the best science fiction stories for a given year. The stories had originally appeared in 1948 in the magazines".

Several well known classics here. I seem to have read several of these years back; currently reading just the half dozen unread ones.

Table of contents.

1. [ss] Ray Bradbury's "Mars is Heaven!" (A); download radio adaptation; Planet Stories, Fall 1948.
2. [novelette] Henry Kuttner & C L Moore's "Ex Machina" (as by Lewis Padgett); Astounding, April 1948: One of the funny Galleghar stories. I read it long back; don't recollect much now.
3. [ss] Murray Leinster's "The Strange Case of John Kingman" (A); Astounding, May 1948: First contact, but no space ships, no space travel, not even any obvious aliens...
4. [ss] Erik Fennel's "Doughnut Jockey"; Blue Book, May 1948: Don't recollect anything now.
5. [ss] Martin Gardner's "Thang" (C); download: Big fish eats smaller one; & is food to even bigger one...
6. [ss] John R Pierce's "Period Piece" (as by J J Coupling) (A); Astounding, November 1948: A modern man in 31st century makes a curious discovery.
7. [ss] Fredric Brown's "Knock" (A); download text/radio adaptation; Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1948: A smart man reclaims earth from invincible aliens.
8. [novelette] Poul Anderson's "Genius" (B); download radio adaptation; Astounding, December 1948: When lab "animals" were observing their experimenters...
9. [novelette] Ray Bradbury's "And the Moon be Still as Bright" (A); download radio adaptation; Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1948: Some Mars colonists are feeling guilty...
10. [ss] Isaac Asimov's "No Connection"; download; Astounding, June 1948: Planning a second taking of Americas, from across the pond...
11. [novelette] Wilmar H Shiras' "In Hiding" (A); Astounding, November 1948: A young boy who's "different" is forced to conform...
12. [novelette] Henry Kuttner's "Happy Ending" (A); Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1948; humor: When a man got what he "desired"!

Fact sheet.

First published: 1949.
Related: Works of Everett F Bleiler; anothologies & collections; fiction from 1940s.

Fredric Brown's "Knock" (short story, alien invasion, free)

Going by the comments online, it appears to be among the better known stories of Brown. Not a very believable conclusion, but light fun read.

Story summary.

Aliens called "Zan" have raided earth. They took a few hundred animal specimen alive - among them a man & a woman, & killed off all other life on earth. These specimen, including the humans, have now been put as exhibits in a zoo on earth, & this advanced raiding party of aliens is preparing to claim earth as permanent residence.

The man will pull off a coup of sorts, scaring aliens enough with his
ingenuity to make them leave earth...

Collected in.

1. Everett F Bleiler & T E Dikty (eds)' "The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1949".

Fact sheet.

First published: Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1948.
Download full text.
Download audio of X Minus One radio adaptation of this story from Internet Archive. (alt MP3 link)
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Fredric Brown.

Malcolm Jameson's "Brimstone Bill" (novelette, humor, free): Crooks are useful too!

A part of the story deals with sound engineering - how high frequency, inaudible, sounds affect us. I've no idea if there is any truth in that part.

Story summary.

A corrupt politician in high office collects protection money from a little world called Juno in asteroid belt. He maneuvers a spaceship returning home, with a lot of unspent sailors' salary, to land here for hull cleaning, a process that will ground the ship for a month, giving town ample time to clean the purses of the crew.

But ship captain has a weapon up his sleeve...

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, July 1942.
Download full text as part of the scans of the magazine it originally appeared in.
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Analog/Astounding issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Malcolm Jameson.

Robert F Young's "The Servant Problem" (novelette, first contact, free): When servants thought they were masters!

Village idiot is also the village inventor. When he mysteriously received plans for a knot-tying machine on an April Fool's Day, he had to build that machine. And what kind of knots did it tie!

Fact sheet.

First published: Analog, November 1962.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg.
Download audio from LibriVox.
Rating: B.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Robert F Young.

Free fiction: Damon Knight

@QuasarDragon.

Isaac Asimov's "Silly Asses" (flash fiction, satire, free)

It's a commentary on the first nuclear (weapons?) tests - wise alien's reaction to discovery that the man has detonated a nuclear device on his own world.

The SFFAudio link below has more on the immediate political background to the story.

Fact sheet.

First published: Future Science Fiction, February 1958.
Download full text & audio from SFFAudio. [via QuasarDragon]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Isaac Asimov.

Fredric Brown's "Sentry" (flash fiction, war, free)

In a long drawn galactic war, the "good" side is still not used to the sight of ugly monsters that comprise the enemy.

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, February 1954.
Download full text & audio from SFFAudio. [via QuasarDragon]
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Fredric Brown.

Free fiction: Brian Aldiss

@QuasarDragon.

Free fiction: Ray Bradbury (mostly old radio adaptations)

@QuasarDragon.

Free fiction: Lots of stories of Greg Bear & H P Lovecraft

@QuasarDragon.

Free fiction: X Minus One: Lots of old classics' radio adaptations

@QuasarDragon.

Free fiction: Text & audio of several stories of Alan E Nourse

@QuasarDragon.

Some online stories of Clifford D Simak - text & audio

@QuasarDragon.

Murray Leinster's "Planet of Dread" (novelette, free): Adventure on a world of giant insects & fungi

How many variants of the excellent "The Mad Planet" (download) did Leinster pen? I know of at least two novelette or novella length sequels, plus a fix-up novel, besides the current one.

May be I've read too much of the series. It's readable & fast moving - among my faster finishes of a story of this length. But it's very pulpy & with sensibilities of a different era.

Story summary.

With mankind spanning the galaxy, a group of revolutionaries escape their world, & intend to lie low elsewhere for a while. During a port, their ship is hijacked by a local fugitive - the hero of the story who's eventually overpowered. For complicated reasons, they land of an uninhabited world to maroon the hijacker - only this world turns out to be a forgotten & unfinished terraforming job of mankind, & a nightmare world now.

They'll have adventure there, & strike treasure left by a shipwreck 150 years old, & finally all will end well.

Fact sheet.

First published: Fantastic Stories of Imagination, May 1962.

Download full text from Project Gutenberg.

Download audio read by Phil Chenevert from LibriVox. [via QuasarDragon]
Rating: B.

Related: Stories of Murray Leinster.

Free fiction: Some stories of Robert Sheckley - text & audio

@Quasar Dragon.

Related: Stories of Robert Sheckley.

Kurt Vonnegut's "The Epizootic" (short story, life insurance, free)

I wonder if this is a commentary on something observed in depression era US?

Epizootic of title is an epidemic affecting the bright, ambitious married men with more than one child. To ensure comfortable life for their family as their jobs are threatened, far too many men have been committing suicide to claim the life insurance money for their families!

Fact sheet.

First published: Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction" (2011).
Download full text & audio from Short Story Radio.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Kurt Vonnegut.

Free audio fiction: Some readings & adaptations of various stories of Heinlein

@Quasar Dragon.

Hugo Awards 2013 - novelettes: nominees, my ranking, & winner

Five nominees, of which 3 are online. I finished 2 - ok reads, but I get a feeling there are better ways of spending my time. I left another one unfinished, & didn't bother to look up the remaining 2.

Caution: Both stories I finished involve homosexual love. Was that the flavor of the season?

List below is in order of my preference, best first, unread last. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there.

1. Thomas Olde Heuvelt's "The Boy Who Cast No Shadow" (B); download: This is actually a several years old Dutch story, probably translated to English last year - hence eligible.
   
   Two teenage boys, bullied by their peers because they're "different", try coming to terms with their differences...
2. Seanan McGuire's "In Sea-Salt Tears" (B); download; fantasy: One of the many clans of Faeries living (among humans?) on US west coast is living a life of punishment for past hunting sins. This is a coming of age story of a girl from this clan.
3. Catherynne M Valente's "Fade To White": download text/audio; Clarkesworld, August 2012: It comprises of many vignette sized & independent sections. I gave up after may be 3 or 4 of them; just could not get into the story. Apparently describing a media-driven society.
4. Seanan McGuire's "Rat-Catcher"; Yanni Kuznia (ed)'s "A Fantasy Medley 2": Not read.
5. [winner] Pat Cadigan's "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Edge of Infinity": Not read.

Related.

1. Official announcement of 2013 nominees @The Hugo Awards.
2. My reading of Hugo awards 2013 nominees: short stories.
3. Other Hugo nominees & winners.
4. "best of" lists.

Hugo Awards 2013 - short stories: nominees, my ranking & winner

Note 22 April 2013:  I'm not clear what happened. This article was posted yesterday & appeared ok. But I just noticed it stopped appearing at the site & Blogger had changed its status from Published to Draft! I'm just hitting the Publish button again.
---

Only 3 nominees this year, 2 online. All originally published during 2012.

None really worked for me, though Bodard's has an idea briefly taken up near the end of the story that I could identify with - intelligently adapting an artifact of an alien civilization isn't easy; for best results, you better be born in the culture that originated it! Artifacts carry around their cultural origins in many ways.

List below is in order of my preference. Links on author or publisher fetches more matching fiction.

1. Aliette de Bodard's "Immersion" (B); download text/audio; Clarkesworld, June 2012: Not sure what to think of it. And it certainly didn't touch me at any emotional level.
   
   There is a gadget - an "immerser". "Wear" it & you become someone else, whatever avatar you choose. And you can wear it at varying levels of power that determines how much you will be aware of you real self when wearing it.
   
   Set aboard a "station" that makes money from "Galactics", a technologically advanced stream of humanity that has split from earth.
   
   There is a minor side story of a woman who married to a different culture, felt completely lost, tried to fit in so much she lost her own original self.
2. Kij Johnson's "Mantis Wives" (B); download text/audio; Clarkesworld, August 2012; macabre: The story doesn't really say anything, but uses nice language & is comprised of many tiny episodes.
   
   Mantis, an insect whose female eats the male after copulation. Could the mantis develop this killing into an art? Story describes many ways the female could slowly torture & kill her mate!
3. [winner] Ken Liu's "Mono no Aware" (B); Nick Mamatas & Masumi Washington (eds)' "The Future is Japanese"; apocalypse: Tries too hard to arouse your emotions. And too dramatic near end, for my taste.
   
   Life on earth is about to be destroyed by an asteroid(?) impact & the world knows it early enough. It's about reactions in a small Japanese town to this news, & later escape to a distant star in a solar-sail powered generation ship of the only human survivors - mostly Americans, plus a few others, among them a child from this Japanese town

Related.

1. Official announcement of 2013 nominees @The Hugo Awards.
2. Other Hugo nominees & winners.
3. "best of" lists.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Year of the Big Thaw" (short story, first contact, free)

A farmer is telling how come he doesn't know where his son was born...

The plot itself is ordinary, but I loved it because of its beautiful but peculiar language, probably an old English dialect.

Fact sheet.

First published: Fantastic Universe, May 1954.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Download audio read by Greg Weeks from LibriVox.
Rating: A.

Fritz Leiber's "The Creature from Cleveland Depths" aka "The Lone Wolf" (novella, gadgets, free): Who could imagine mobile phones would be so evil?

Well, the story is from long before mobile phones were around, so the gadget (the "tickler") here looks different & works differently.

It begins as an organizer - you tell it to remind you of certain events, & it will at the right time. Reminding is by telling about the event in your ear via an in-ear headphone, plus an insistent "tickling" using two rollers mounted on your shoulder. It runs a very long (audio) magnetic tape - one run lasts a week, with buttons to forward quickly to a certain time. To set an event, you move it specific date/time next week, then speak of the event into it. After you've set the events, the device runs the tape continuously. But most of it is blank, so you don't hear anything till an event is due.

Soon improvements in upgraded versions give it a life all its own, threatening the very human existence...

Very funny early parts & ending, but I thought it was draggy in the middle as the mood begin to set for impending disaster.

Notes.

1. "Depths" of the title has cold war linkage - "Free World" vs Soviet Union. Because of bomb scare most people live in massive underground caverns that double as bomb shelters. Only a few "outers" live on the surface.
2. "Creature" of the title is an advanced form of the tickler gadget.

See also.

1. L Sprague de Camp's "Alanias" (download as part of a larger package): Another story where a voice whispers propaganda into your ear without your conscious self realizing you are being manipulated.

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, December 1962.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks. [via Becky@ClassicScienceFiction]
Download audio version read by Gregg Margarite from LibriVox.
Alternate audio link at Internet Archive.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Fritz Leiber.

Jack Vance's "Potters of Firsk" (short story, free): Hero peacefully frees a tribe from oppression by its ferocious neighbors

This is standard Jack Vance - colorful communities & their customs, medieval side by side with modern. But it has a macabre thread running all through. Kept me engaged all the way.

Fact sheet.

First published: Astounding, May 1950.
Download full text as part of the scans of Astounding (British ed), June 1951.
Download MP3 of a radio dramatization by Dimension X from Internet Archive.
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Related: Stories of Jack Vance.

"Astounding Science Fiction" (British Edition), June 1951 (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents & review

Links on author fetch more matching fiction by author. Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there. For read stories, my rating appears in brackets. Where I'm aware of alternate availability of a story on the web, I include those links too.

Table of contents (best first, unread last).

1. [novelette] Poul Anderson's "The Helping Hand" (A); read online: International "aid" considered harmful...
2. [ss] Jack Vance's "The Potters of Firsk" (A); download radio adaptation: Hero peacefully frees a tribe from oppression by its ferocious neighbors.
3. [ss] Miles M Acheson's "The Apprentice" (B): Adventure on Venus...

Fact sheet.

Labeled: "VII, No 10 (British Edition)".
Download scans as a CBR file. [via Bob@pulpscans]
Note: Link points to a RAR file that contains target CBR, probably to work around some hosting service file naming constraints.
Related: Stories from the Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell, old "pulps", 1950s.

Free fiction: Audio: Henry Kuttner's "Raiders of the Spaceways"

@Protecting Project Pulp. [via QuasarDragon]

Stanley G Weinbaum's "Pygmalion's Spectacles" (short story, virtual reality, free): A man falls in love with a shadow

Reality recording device here is very unusual & I've never seen it discussed before. A kind of liquid compound holds the recording, instead of your DVD. Put a special mask on, with hollow lenses into which is poured the magic liquid. Electrolysis transforms the liquid, resulting in playback.

It's frame story, mostly a love story set in a utopia of primordial Eden.

Fact sheet.

First published: Wonder Stories, June 1935.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Project Gutenberg of Australia, Munseys.
Download audio from LibriVox.
Rating: A. 
Related: Stories of Stanley G Weinbaum.

Brian David Johnson (ed)'s "The Tomorrow Project" (anthology, free): Annotated table of contents & review

Entire anthology is online at Intel. Individual stories - both text & MP3 versions - are also online at Intel.
Caution: Intel page linked has been behaving erratically today; several links returned 404. Links with individual stories below also have been extracted from this page, & at least text links seem to be working at the time of this post. Say your prayers before clicking the links!

Editor is an Intel employee, cover says "Presented by Intel", & editor informs us that "All four stories in this collection are based on technologies Intel is currently developing in our labs." So presumably near future science fiction. All are also ... sort of ... geeky, with emphasis more on technology than plot.

Table of contents.

List below is in order of my preference, best first.

1. [ss] Scarlett Thomas' "The Drop" (B); download text/MP3: Romance in an even more gadgety near future.
2. [ff] Markus Heitz's "The Blink of an Eye" (B); download text/MP3: A description of the ultimate smart house...
3. Ray Hammond's "The Mercy Dash" (B); download text/MP3: Future of wearable, mobile, & car computers. Story is about a couple's need to reach a hospital several hundred kilometers away as quickly as possible in a car.
4. Douglas Rushkoff's "Last Day of Work" (B); download text/MP3: First we reach singularity - machines improve by themselves. Then plenty - machines are still servile. Then nirvana - transformed to some non-material state, with a consciousness blended with rest of mankind.
   
   Full of a lot of modern jargon.

First published: 2011?

Murray Leinster's "Operation Terror" (novel, alien invasion, free)

Good paced action adventure, but with a farcical & utterly unbelievable ending.

It features a softer version of a death ray, & a ray to explode gunpowder at a distance.

Story summary.

An alien ship has landed in a lake at the heart of a what is being developed as a national park in the US. Creatures come out of it, explore around. They have a "terror beam" weapon: a searchlight like thing. Whenever the beam touches anyone, it excites all sorts of nerve endings in a way so confusing the person eventually paralyzes - temporarily, till the beam is shut off. Immediate vicinity of landing is evacuated; military cordons off the region.

But among the trapped are a man named Lockley rescuing a stranded girl Jill. Story unfolds from Lockley's perspective, as the couple try getting out of region & make guesses about the nature of aliens & their weapons.

See also.

1. Arthur Clarke & Michael Kube-McDowell's "The Trigger": What would the society be like if we had a weapon that could remotely trigger gunpowder explosion?
2. Murray Leinster's "Invasion" (download): Another similar "Martian" invasion of US.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1962.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Feedbooks.
Download audiobook from LibriVox.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Murray Leinster.

Scarlett Thomas' "The Drop" (short story, free): Romance in an even more gadgety near future

While the story itself is not too remarkable (though it's more interesting than others I've seen from Intel so far), what I found interesting was: this is the first story I've seen so far that describes a plausible thought-control interface for gadgets. How to, e.g., send SMS via your wrist watch (assuming you still wear it) - i.e., texting from devices that don't have a keypad.

Fact sheet.

First published: 2011? At Intel website.
Download full text/MP3 from Intel website.
Rating: B.

James H Schmitz's "Legacy" aka "A Tale of Two Clocks" (novel, space opera, free): Many groups are after the ancient treasures

One of the more mundane works of Schmitz, though an action packed one.

Story summary.

A star-traveling humanity has discovered a treasure left on some world by long gone "Old Galactics". Treasure comprises of a number of "plasmoids" - a kind of artificial-life agricultural robots. They can produce so much food, we'll never have to worry about it, etc. But the process of human acquisition of them had shut them off, & no one knows how to turn them on again.

Currently they're in custody of the government, but sundry other groups want them too. And what will happen when varied groups begin doing their own underground tinkering to revive these ancient living machines...

See also.

1. James H Schmitz's "Harvest Time" (download): The story where "plasmoids" were first discovered.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1962.
Download full text from Baen Books, Project Gutenberg, Manybooks.
Download audiobook from Internet Archive, LibriVox.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of James H Schmitz.

Nebula Awards 2011 - short stories: Nominees & my rankings

Official announcement.

Seven stories, all first published in the US during 2011. Nothing really outstanding. I found two completely unreadable; rest are at least readable.

All the ones I finished, except Yu's, are in sad mood, about various kinds of tragedies.

Where I have a separate post on a story, link on story title goes there. My rating appears in brackets. Links on author or publisher yield more matching fiction. All stories are online, & download links are included.

Nominees (7 stories, best first).

1. Nancy Fulda's "Movement" (B); download text & audio; Asimov's, March: Life of a girl inflicted with "temporal autism".
2. David W Goldman's "The Axiom of Choice" (B); download; New Haven Review, Winter: A personal tragedy & a man's pain coping with it. Has unusual FORTRAN-style presentation.
3. E Lily Yu's "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" (B); download text/audio; Clarkesworld, April: Wasps colonize bees territory. Imaginative but with lousy ending.
4. Ken Liu's "The Paper Menagerie" (B); download; F&SF, March/April: Emotional & sad story of a Chinese peasant girl - losing her parents, being sold as a slave to a Hong Kong household, being sold as a "wife" to an American man, & finally being rejected by her American son who disliked his Chinese origins.
5. Tom Crosshill's "Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son" (B); download; Lightspeed, April: A woman has sold her 8 year old son to a scientist for experiments. Scientist who plugs him into a virtual reality environment, only we are not clear if it is virtual reality or alternate realms. Where multiple copies of child's consciousness experience multiple terrors.
6. Adam-Troy Castro's "Her Husband's Hands" (C); download; Lightspeed, October: Left partway through. This is macabre stuff. A soldier lost all of his body except hands, which were reanimated & returned to his wife. How should the wife be interacting with these living disembodied hands?
7. Aliette de Bodard's "Shipbirth" (C); download; Asimov's, February: Left partway through - something incomprehensible & apparently gory about future star-faring humans.

Fact sheet.

1. Other categories in this year's Nebula awards: [novelette], [novella].
2. This year's other awards: BSFA short fiction.
3. Previous Nebula award nominees & winners.
4. My "best of 2011" list.
5. Fiction originally published during 2011.
6. "Best of" lists.

E Lily Yu's "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" (short story, colonization, free): Wasps colonize bees!

Interesting colonization story - wasps are colonists & bees are natives whose territory they're colonizing. But resolution is by invoking deus ex machina, & that spoiled the ending for me: colonists are removed from the scene by a higher power, & rebels are killed by weather!

Fact sheet.

First published: Clarkesworld, April 2011.
Download full text/audio from publisher's site.
Rating: B.
Nominated for Nebula Award 2011 in short story category.

H G Wells' "In the Abyss" (short story, hard sf, free): Exploring the bottom of the ocean

An early description of a submarine for exploring the sea surface 5 miles below the water surface. I've'nt read Jules Verne's "20000 Leagues under the Sea"; so no idea if there is any similarity.

Story summary.

Lt Elstead of British navy will be going down in a spherical cabin made of heavy steel that's mostly air & would naturally float. Cabin is padded inside, because passenger is likely to be thrown around in the device that lacks any controls its human occupant exercise. The cabin has two windows of thick glass.

It's tied with a 5 mile rope of some kind of a floatable material to a massive deadweight of lead. At the interface of dead weight & rope is a "clockwork", an automatic mechanism that steers the human cabin up & down as follows:

1. After the deadweight reaches the sea bottom, clockwork triggers the winding of a winch that pulls the rope down, with it bringing the human floating cabin to sea bottom. I don't recall how the deadweight determines that it has reached the bottom; may be a timer.
2. 30 minutes after bringing the cabin down, the clockwork automatically activates a knife that cuts the rope that connects it to cabin; so cabin rises to surface by its buoyancy where it will be retrieved by a waiting ship. Ship is also used for initial lowering of the contraption into the sea. (Why not rewind the winch & let buoyancy raise the cabin? Saving the rope?)

Of course, things don't go as planned. Our explorer meets the intelligent denizens of sea bottom & ends up visiting their city.

See also.

1. H G Wells' "The Land Ironclads" (download): Another hard sf story by author, now describing an early version of a battle tank.

Fact sheet.

First published: Pearson's Magazine, August 1896.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg of Australia.
Download full text as part of the scans of Amazing Stories, September 1926 (about 80GB, with this as the sole complete story!)
Download audio as part of this collection from Internet Archive.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of H G Wells.

Mari Ness' "And the Hollow Space Inside" (short story, cyborg, free)

We've come a long way since C L Moore invented cyborgs in "No Woman Born". Moore's version was an extreme one: only brain of a fire victim could be saved; so she got a steel body. Since then, most (but not all) cyborgs have had an intermediate form - some parts of the body are mechanical.

I liked this story for a single reason: this is one of the rare stories that looks at the other extreme form of cyborgs as the central idea: what if someone is born deformed, where deformity is a complete lack of brain tissue? In this case, the baby is saved by providing computer to complete the individual.

The story, however, does not share the spirit of Moore's original. Moore doesn't demand the reader's sympathy; we're happy & inspired to meet a complete & competent individual. This one is more like many modern stories of the ilk - emotional scenes galore.

Fact sheet.

First published: Clarkesworld, February 2012.
Download text/audio from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2012" list.

"Clarkesworld", January 2012 (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents & review

This is among the most interesting issues of Clarkesworld I've ever seen. Two quite decent stories. Last one below is readable, but has too many fancy things & situations to hold my interest.

Whole magazine, fiction & other stuff, is here. I've only read fiction.

PS: They normally have 2 stories per issue, except December which has 3. I don't know why this issue has 3.

1. [ss] Gwendolyn Clare's "All the Painted Stars" (A); download: An alien ("Sheekah") fighter pilot is itching for a fight, & gets involved in it. And finds a second purpose in life...
   
   Added to my "best of 2012" list.
2. Rahul Kanakia's "What Everyone Remembers" (B); download: This story is a ... sort of descendant of James Blish's "Surface Tension". Post-apocalypse, a woman is preparing to carry on the human line via humanized cockroaches.
3. Aliette de Bodard's "Scatterd Along the River of Heaven" (B); download text/audio: A freedom fighter who had to live in exile once freedom came, seen at her funeral from the eyes of a grandaughter she never knew.

Related: Fiction from Clarkesworld.

Rich Horton (ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2012" (anthology)

Horton posted the ToC a couple of days back. 29 short stories picked by the editor from among those first published during 2011. I think it's several months before the book is actually available in a store.

Where I'm aware of online availability of a story, I include the link too. Links on author, publisher, or editor fetches more matching fiction.

Table of contents (29 stories, best first, unread last).

1. [ss] Chris Lawson's "Canterbury Hollow" (B); download; F&SF, Jan/Feb: Love story of a "balloted" couple - in world with too much population & too few resources; so periodically, ballots are drawn to decide who is to be prematurely killed!
2. Nina Allan's "The Silver Wind"; Interzone, March-April: Not read.
3. John Barnes's "Martian Heart"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Life on Mars": Not read.
4. Jonathan Carroll's "East of Furious"; Conjunctions:56, Terra Incognita: The Voyage Issue, Spring 2011: Not read.
5. Suzy McKee Charnas' "Late Bloomer"; Ellen Datlow (ed)'s "Teeth": Not read.
6. C S E Cooney's "The Last Sophia"; download; Strange Horizons, March 7: Not read.
7. Alan DeNiro's "Walking Stick Fires"; Asimov's, June: Not read.
8. Bradley Denton's "The Adakian Eagle"; George R R Martin (ed)'s "Down These Strange Streets": Not read.
9. Alexandra Duncan's "Rampion"; F&SF, May-June: Not read.
10. Neil Gaiman's "'And Weep Like Alexander'"; Ian Whates (ed)'s "Fables from the Fountain": Not read.
11. Theodora Goss' "Pug"; Asimov's, July: Not read.
12. Gavin Grant's "Widows in the World"; download (in two parts); Strange Horizons, February 7 & 14: Not read.
13. Yoon Ha Lee's "Ghostweight"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, January: Not read.
14. Kat Howard's "Choose Your Own Adventure"; download; Fantasy, April: Not read.
15. Karen Joy Fowler's "Younger Women"; download; Subterranean, Summer: Not read.
16. Kij Johnson's "The Man Who Bridged the Mist"; Asimov's, October-November: Not read.
17. Vylar Kaftan's "The Sighted Watchmaker"; download; Lightspeed, December: Not read.
18. Margo Lanagan's "Mulberry Boys"; Ellen Datlow (ed)'s "Blood and Other Cravings": Not read.
19. Marissa Lingen's "Some of Them Closer"; Analog, January: Not read.
20. Kelly Link's "The Summer People"; Kelly Link & Gavin J Grant (eds)' "Steampunk!": Not read.  
21. Paul McAuley's "The Choice"; Asimov's, February: Not read.
22. K J Parker's "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong"; download; Subterranean, Winter: Not read.
23. Robert Reed's "Woman Leaves Room"; download; Lightspeed, March: Not read.
24. George Saunders' "My Chivalric Fiasco"; Harper’s Magazine, September: Not read.
25. Rachel Swirsky's "Fields of Gold"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Eclipse 4": Not read.
26. Lavie Tidhar's "The Smell of Orange Groves"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, November: Not read.
27. Catherynne M Valente's "The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland, for a Little While"; download; Tor.com, July 27: Not read.
28. Genevieve Valentine's "The Sandal-Bride"; download; Fantasy, March: Not read.
29. E Lily Yu's "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, April: Not read.

Related.

1. 2011 edition of this anthology series.
2. Competing "best of 2011" anthologies: Dozois', [Strahan's], [Hartwell/Cramer's].
3. All anthologies (annotated but infrequently updated list of anthologies & collections).
4. My "best of 2011" list. 
5. Fiction originally published during 2011.
6. "Best of" lists.

Gardner Dozois (ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction, Twenty-Ninth Annual Collection" (2012, anthology)

His original post is supposed to be at Facebook, but I cannot see that; don't have a/c. The ToC below is seeded from SF Signal, then material added by me.

The book collects editor's choice of short stories originally published during 2011. Book itself is will likely be available mid-2012.

I've read all but perhaps a half dozen authors. There are may be 2 or 3 whose occasional stories I've really liked in the past. I'll not approach this anthology with high expectations, though I've read only one story so far.

Of 35 stories, 8 are from 3 original fiction anthologies edited by Jonathan Strahan. Then comes Asimov's - 6 stories, F&SF - 5 stories, Clarkesworld - 4 stories, & Tor.com 3 stories. Interzone, Analog & Subterranean get 1 story each. All other sources, mostly sundry original fiction anthologies, together have 6.

Table of contents (35 stories, best first, unread last).

Links on author, publisher, or editor fetches more matching fiction. For stories I've read, my rating is in brackets. Where I'm aware on an online copy of the story, I include the link too.

1. [ss] Chris Lawson's "Canterbury Hollow" (B); download; F&SF, Jan/Feb 2011: Love story of a "balloted" couple - in world with too much population & too few resources; so periodically, ballots are drawn to decide who is to be prematurely killed!
2. Paul Mcauley's "The Choice"; Asimov's, February 2011: Not read.
3. Catherynne M Valente's "Silently And Very Fast"; download text - part 01, 02, 03; Clarkesworld, October/November/December 2011: Not read.
4. Kij Johnson's "The Man Who Bridged The Mist"; Asimov's, Oct/Nov 2011: Not read.
5. Robert Reed's "The Ants Of Flanders"; F&SF, Jul/Aug 2011: Not read.
6. David Moles' "A Soldier Of The City"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Engineering Infinity": Not read.
7. Stephen Baxter's "The Invasion Of Venus"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Engineering Infinity": Not read.
8. [novelette] Karl Schroeder's "Laika's Ghost"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Engineering Infinity": Not read.
9. Damien Broderick's "The Beancounter's Cat"; download; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Eclipse 4": Not read.
10. Gwyneth Jones' "The Vicar Of Mars"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Eclipse 4": Not read.
11. Elizabeth Bear's "Dolly"; download audio; Asimov's, Jan 2011: Not read.
12. John Barnes' "Martian Heart"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Life on Mars": Not read.
13. Alastair Reynolds' "Ascension Day"; Scott Harrison & Lee Harris (eds)' "Voices from the Past": Not read.
14. Lavie Tidhar's "The Smell Of Orange Groves"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, November 2011: Not read.
15. Maureen Mchugh's "After The Apocalypse"; from author's collection with same title: Not read.
16. Jay Lake's "A Long Way Home"; download; Subterranean, Winter 2011: Not read.
17. Geoff Ryman's "What We Found"; F&SF, Sep/Oct 2011: Not read.
18. Dave Hutchinson's "The Incredible Exploding Man"; Ian Whates (ed)'s "Solaris Rising": Not read.
19. Paul Cornell's "The Copenhagen Interpretation"; Asimov's, Jul 2011: Not read.
20. Peter S Beagle's "The Way It Works Out And All"; F&SF, Jul/Aug 2011: Not read.
21. Michael Swanwick's "The Dala Horse"; download; Tor.com, 13 July 2011: Not read.
22. Ken MacLeod's "Earth Hour"; download; Tor.com, 22 June 2011: Not read.
23. Carolyn Ives Gilman's "The Ice Owl"; F&SF, Nov/Dec 2011: Not read.
24. Jim Hawkins' "Digital Rites"; Interzone, #237 (Nov/Dec 2011): Not read.
25. Pat Cadigan's "Cody"; Stephen Cass (ed)'s "TRSF: The Best New Science Fiction", #1 (2011): Not read.
26. Yoon Ha Lee's "Ghostweight"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, January 2011: Not read.
27. Tom Purdom's "A Response From Est17"; Asimov's, Apr/May 2011: Not read.
28. Ian McDonald's "Digging"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Life on Mars": Not read.
29. David Klecha & Tobias S Bucknell's "A Militant Peace"; download text/audio; Clarkesworld, Nov 2011: Not read.
30. Michael Swanwick's "For I Have Laid Me Down On The Stone Of Loneliness And I'll Not Be Back Again": Not read.
31. Michael Flynn's "The Iron Shirts"; download; Tor.com, 4 May 2011: Not read.
32. [novelette] Alec Nevala-lee's "The Boneless One"; Analog, Nov 2011: Not read.
33. [novelette] Ian R MacLeod's "The Cold Step Beyond"; Asimov's, Jun 2011: Not read.
34. Ken MacLeod's "The Vorkuta Event"; Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers (eds)' "Postscripts #24/25: The New and Perfect Man": Not read.
35. Peter M Ball's "Dying Young"; Jonathan Strahan (ed)'s "Eclipse 4": Not read.

Related.

1. Entire "The Year's Best Science Fiction" series; works of Gardner Dozois.
2. Competing "best of 2011" anthologies: [Horton's], [Strahan's], [Hartwell/Cramer's].
3. All anthologies (annotated but infrequently updated list of anthologies & collections).
4. My "best of 2011" list.
5. "Best of" lists.

Jack Vance's "Sjambak" (short story, free)

One of the minor stories of Vance. A TV journalist exposes a jihadi conspiracy...

Fact sheet.

First published: If, July 1953.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks. [via John@ClassicScienceFiction]
Download audio from LibriVox.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Jack Vance.

Robert Sheckley's "Bad Medicine" (as by Finn O'Donnevan) (short story, humor, free): A neurotic gets the wrong treatment

Elwood Caswell has strong homicidal urge towards his friend Magnessen. Recognizing his own problem, he goes out & buys "the Rex Regenerator, built by General Motors" - a "mechanotherapist". Only there was a problem in delivery - the model he was delivered is meant to cure Martians.

So the machine will treat Elwood strangely...

Fact sheet.

First published: Galaxy, July 1956.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks. [via John@ClassicScienceFiction]
Download audio from Project Gutenberg.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Robert Sheckley.

Murray Leinster's "Operation: Outer Space" (novel, space opera, free): Party explores 3 earth-like worlds

It's not a bad read. But not among the better stories of author, either. Leave logic somewhere, & enjoy the roller-coaster with a mad scientist who can put together the first-ever FTL ship in a few weeks, a super-businessman, & some others in exploring 3 earth-like worlds in far-away star systems: a glacial world, a world with large cattle herds ready to be hunted, & a world that has never known life.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1954.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks, Feedbooks.
Download audio from LibriVox.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Murray Leinster.

"Clarkesworld", #60 (September 2011) (magazine, free): Annotated table of contents & review

Whole issue is online. This post is about fiction in the issue. Two stories, both minor - though Mellor's is at least readable if you have some experience reading science fiction.

Table of contents (only fiction, best first).

1. Greg Mellor's "Signals in the Deep" (B); download: Main thread is about a mother & her teenager son - their estrangement & then coming together. In the background of mysterious alien signal stations in outer Sol & a lot of techno-babble (designer babies, cyborgs, solar sail, ...).
2. Robert Reed's "Pack" (C); download text/audio: Cannot make out the head or tail of it. A pack of dogs seems to conning (hunting?) a man with the help of a woman (witch?).

Related: Fiction from Clarkesworld.