David’s Comments (group member since Sep 10, 2024)

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

I just finished the story, and for me it's just OK, not one I'd ever be tempted to read again. The darkness, the nihilism, the misogyny and the violence was just too over the top for me.

I did find it interesting to compare the dystopia in this story with the dystopia in a story we read about a year ago, The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. Both stories present technology as God, but two very different types of God.

It's longer than you think, Dad! It's longer than you think!

I finished an audiobook telling of The Jaunt last night and surprisingly thought the story was quite good. 4 stars from me. I'm a little surprised that this story didn't win any major awards.

The middle part got bogged down a bit as King set up the framed story, which I think could have been just as effective with half the detail that was provided. All was forgiven when I got to the absolutely chilling twist ending (actually, a double twist in my mind) that will remain in my mind for a long time . Classic sci-fi fused with existential horror.

Nice explicit shout-out to Alfred Bester and implicit shout-out to Ray Bradbury.

I think this could have been easily expanded into a full-length novel.

Dan wrote: "I ordered Skeleton Crew last week, used, for about $5 including tax and shipping. Then I realized, how silly of me. I could no doubt have requested it be sent me by my local library an..."

I should have my library copy within two weeks. I'm looking forward to reading this.

Dan wrote: "I am about halfway through my reread of this. It's even better this time.

.."

I was hoping to get to read this novella this month, especially since I nominated it, but it's been too busy. I'm hoping to get to it in early October and will post my thoughts then.

Dan wrote: "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...."

I originally thought about suggesting Mr. Harrigan's Phone, since the plot is centered on using a modern technology as the vehicle for supernatural occurrences, but after reading the story, it just seemed like strictly horror to me, so I went with The Jaunt instead.

I'll nominate:

I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison for short story, first published in If: Worlds of Science Fiction, March 1967 and won the Hugo for Best Short Story in 1968 and

The Jaunt by Stephen King for novelette, first published in The Twilight Zone Magazine in the June 1981 issue, and which never won any major awards as far as I can tell but is considered a cult classic in the horror infused science fiction world.

I'll nominate Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg, first published as a novella in Galaxy Science Fiction in August 1967, later on in 1968 it was expanded to a novel.

A link to the original issue of Galaxy Science Fiction can be found here:

https://archive.org/details/galaxy_v2...

Other pdfs or online text of the story are probably available, and are likely easier to read, but it's kind of fun to flip through the original issue of the magazine.

Dan wrote: "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."

I wondered about this as well when I first read the story, and it seems to me that its science fiction elements lie in a specific type of speculative premise: a sudden, unexplained, and significant evolutionary leap in a species and how this sudden change in a wild animal population disrupts the known natural order and even affects human society, as news channels report on it and people react in various ways (from scientific curiosity to frustration), leading ultimately to the narrator's mother's acceptance of this change and wanting to get close to it. I think it's the same sort of thing that we see in The Chrysalids, Children of Time, and the first part of 2001: A Space Odyssey, for example.

I'm looking forward to reading this one at some point this month. The only Murray Leinster I've read is the story A Logic Named Joe, years ago when I was first starting to read science fiction, and gave it a solid 3 stars.

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,

Bowling Green is in southern Kentucky, about 67 miles from the Tennessee border and 25 miles south-west from Smiths Grove, where the narrator of the story lives.

I agree with your assessment that Bisson writes well. I haven't read anything else he's written, but am looking forward to.

Text and audiobook (narrated by Stephan Rudnicki) of Bears Discover Fire short story can be found here:

https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...

I'll nominate

Understand by Ted Chiang (originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1991, nominated for the 1992 Hugo Award for Best Novelette and won the 1992 Asimov’s Reader Poll) and

Bears Discover Fire by Terry Bisson (1990 Nebula for Best Short Story and 1991 Hugo for Best Short Story)

I got my audiobook edition for free on Audible.

Dan wrote: "This story had a few repetitions, I thought, but was otherwise about as close to perfectly written as I can imagine a story being. I wonder where the controversy comes in. It seems as straightforward, realistic, and airtight a story as one could write...."

The Wikipedia page on this story mentions some of the criticism, parts of which seems justified to me, particularly:

In 1996, critic and engineer Gary Westfahl wrote that because the story's premise is based on systems that were built without adequate margin for error, the story is "good physics", but "lousy engineering", and that it frustrated him so much he decided it had been "not worth [his] time".

I don't necessarily agree with that 100% (I do feel it is a good story), but can understand his frustration with the premise, especially for a hard science fiction work.

Thanks for the article on Tom Godwin, Dan.

For those of us who enjoy audiobooks, LibriVox.org carries the following Godwin titles:

"The Barbarians"
"Cry from a Far Planet"
"Space Prison"
"The Helpful Hand of God"
"The Nothing Equation"

"The Barbarians" is apparantly the sequel to "Space Prison". I have not read or listened to any of these, but probably will at some point to see how they compare to The Cold Equations.

I have just finished A Rose for Ecclesiastes and was very impressed. I would rate the story 4 stars. Well worth reading!

I've finished listening to the novelette, and all the rest apparently of Ballard's short work in the audiobook edition of The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard, which IMO is an excellent collection with excellent narration.

The novelette is intensely interesting but also quite pessimistic. As Dan mentions in his intro to the story, there is not much of a plot to it, it seems to me to be mainly a mood piece. I expect I'll have more to say about the story, once I've thought about it for awhile longer.

One interesting quote from Ballard in an interview in 1977 is this:
If I were asked to pick one piece of fiction to represent my entire output of 7 novels and 92 short stories it would be ‘The Voices of Time’, not because it is the best (I leave that for the reader to judge), but because it contains almost all the themes of my writing — the sense of isolation within the infinite time and space of the universe, the biological fantasies and the attempt to read the complex codes represented by drained swimming pools and abandoned airfields, and above all the determination to break out of a deepening psychological entropy and make some kind of private peace with the unseen powers of the universe.

Dan wrote: "In order to read the 1966 version, the novella, rather than the novel, you will need to pick it up in an anthology. That isn't hard; it's been anthologized often. Here are some of the more common places:

World's Best Science Fiction 1967
Nebula Award Stories 3
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume Four
Breakfast in the Ruins and other stories
The Best of Michael Moorcock..."

Thanks, Dan. I will be reading the novella from The Best of Michael Moorcock. Also, I think the correct volume of "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame" is #3 not 4.

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Fictio...

I'll nominate the following two:

"The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin, for short story. Originally published in the August, 1954, edition of "Astounding Magazine". Wikipedia says "In 1970, the Science Fiction Writers of America selected it as one of the best science-fiction short stories published before 1965, and it was therefore included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964. It has been widely anthologized and dramatized." At the end of the Wikipedia article is a link to the text of the story;

and

Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly. Won the 1996 Hugo for Best Novelette. Originally published in the June 1995 edition of "Asimov's Science Fiction" and is included in the 1996 Year's Best SF edited by David G. Hartwell. Is also available from Audible.

Both titles fall under the category of hard science fiction.

Dan wrote: "I have never read anything else by Brown, an oversight I clearly need to correct...."

One of the creepiest of his science fiction stories is Answer. It might be his shortest, as well, a grand total of 254 words, and can be read here: https://www.roma1.infn.it/~anzel/answ...

What Mad Universe, a full length novel, is another fun one. Very humorous in spots.