Useless Cogs

by Stephen L. Thompson

Useless Cogs is a collection of forty, science fiction stories by Stephen L. Thompson. The stories range from only a few dozen words to a few thousand and are filled with time travelers, AIs, clones, aliens, even sexbots, although not often as you would imagine. As examples, there’s a time traveler that’s always a step behind, an AI that’s late on rent, and a sexbot with bad software. Some of the stories are humorous, some horrifying, and some … depend on your point of view. One of the stories you’ll find “Monkey See, Monkey Record” From his dorsal orifice, Yurgint burbled, “What are they doing?” “I don’t know,” Ghirewt replied. “It must be some sort of ritualized greeting. Try to imitate it.” # Later, it was determined that there were 137 video clips – since everyone at the encounter recorded it – of the two aliens raising their tentacles as if they were also recording the event with invisible smartphones.

112 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 21, 2020