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Elliptical Billiard Balls: Eccentric Short Stories in Sci-Fi, Tech and Alternate Worlds
From boardrooms to befuddled aliens, what if the high-tech absurdities of modern life accelerated to warp speed?
The stories in Neil Rackham's debut science fiction collection, Elliptical Billiard Balls, explore the worlds of business and tech - not to mention English-speaking dogs and aliens who communicate via smells - to create strange new futures.
A cash-strapped religious order turns to a consultant to transform its fortunes; two implanted microchips overcome their differences to take control of their host human; a time-travelling statistician builds herself a sexy, lucrative new life and learns how to cover her tracks; and an Al-equipped lawyer creates Veritrue, an app that fact-checks politicians' and others' media utterances and reports back in real time on screen.
None of these worlds is the reality we live in, but each one has its own strange internal logic and carries hints and shadows of things to come...
Elliptical Billiard Balls is an ideal pick for fans of Love, Death & Robots, readers who enjoy the hilarious action-packed storytelling of Douglas Adams, and anyone captivated by Martha Wells’ unique, witty perspective on artificial intelligence.
The stories in Neil Rackham's debut science fiction collection, Elliptical Billiard Balls, explore the worlds of business and tech - not to mention English-speaking dogs and aliens who communicate via smells - to create strange new futures.
A cash-strapped religious order turns to a consultant to transform its fortunes; two implanted microchips overcome their differences to take control of their host human; a time-travelling statistician builds herself a sexy, lucrative new life and learns how to cover her tracks; and an Al-equipped lawyer creates Veritrue, an app that fact-checks politicians' and others' media utterances and reports back in real time on screen.
None of these worlds is the reality we live in, but each one has its own strange internal logic and carries hints and shadows of things to come...
Elliptical Billiard Balls is an ideal pick for fans of Love, Death & Robots, readers who enjoy the hilarious action-packed storytelling of Douglas Adams, and anyone captivated by Martha Wells’ unique, witty perspective on artificial intelligence.
- GenresScience Fiction
207 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 9, 2026
4 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Neil Rackham
38 books72 followersAuthor of the Spin Selling. Find out more about Spin Selling at http://www.huthwaite.co.uk/training-s...
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 23, 2026
Like LinkedIn got possessed by the AI from Dungeon Crawler Carl.
Elliptical Billiard Balls is a funny collection of 11 short science fiction stories.
Usually with a compendium of short stories, you have the weak ones propped up by the few strong ones, that you just have to endure to read the full thing.
Honestly, all of these are strong in their own ways.
There's stories about aliens, and dog's sense of smell, there's religious business consultants, media and AI, CFO = Chief Fashion Officer, and all sorts of other eerily real dystopian takes on the corporate world, technology and the future.
I think what Rackham has done (very well to say this is his first foray into non-fiction writing) here, is blur the lines between absurdity, and reality into what is a Douglas Adams-esque narrative style that really works.
Rackham said that he wrote most of these stories in airports, on the way to or from his travels for work. You can really feel that corporate slavery tugging at the real world with absurdity in the pages.
If you are also a cog in the corporate machine, or just enjoy a light science fiction read with a bit of humour thrown in, I think this would go down well. It's short, it's easy, it's punchy.
4.0/5.0
Disclosure: I was paid to review this book (but these are my legitimately honest thoughts and I would have very nicely offered to pay for the book and not accept a penny instead of pushing an inauthentic opinion).
Elliptical Billiard Balls is a funny collection of 11 short science fiction stories.
Usually with a compendium of short stories, you have the weak ones propped up by the few strong ones, that you just have to endure to read the full thing.
Honestly, all of these are strong in their own ways.
There's stories about aliens, and dog's sense of smell, there's religious business consultants, media and AI, CFO = Chief Fashion Officer, and all sorts of other eerily real dystopian takes on the corporate world, technology and the future.
I think what Rackham has done (very well to say this is his first foray into non-fiction writing) here, is blur the lines between absurdity, and reality into what is a Douglas Adams-esque narrative style that really works.
Rackham said that he wrote most of these stories in airports, on the way to or from his travels for work. You can really feel that corporate slavery tugging at the real world with absurdity in the pages.
If you are also a cog in the corporate machine, or just enjoy a light science fiction read with a bit of humour thrown in, I think this would go down well. It's short, it's easy, it's punchy.
4.0/5.0
Disclosure: I was paid to review this book (but these are my legitimately honest thoughts and I would have very nicely offered to pay for the book and not accept a penny instead of pushing an inauthentic opinion).
Did Not Finish
March 15, 2026dnf @16%
Randomly picked this up and was a little too weird for me. The stories were interesting though.
Randomly picked this up and was a little too weird for me. The stories were interesting though.
April 10, 2026
A great collection of interesting sci-fi short stories.
Some rather intriguing concepts, ever wondered what dogs would say if they could speak?
Perhaps you have wondered what a business consultant in an ecclesiastical scenario would be like?
Really enjoyed the view of tech entrepreneurs being juxtaposed with the fashion industry
Some rather intriguing concepts, ever wondered what dogs would say if they could speak?
Perhaps you have wondered what a business consultant in an ecclesiastical scenario would be like?
Really enjoyed the view of tech entrepreneurs being juxtaposed with the fashion industry
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews