ORBIT – Otherworldly Reads, Bold Ideas, and Tales. SF & F Short Stories and Novelettes discussion

After reading his latest novelette at asimov's science fiction may/june 2025 I decided to read his every SF work. So, I visited his site, https://www.raynayler.net and got his entire bibliography. Here it is:
Fiction

"The Tin Man's Ghost" (SF Novelette) Asimov's May/June 2025
Where the Axe is Buried, (novel) MCDxFSG / W&N April 2025
"The Demon of Metrazol" (SF SS) Asimov's March/April 2025
"A Grey Magic" (SF SS) Asimov's September/October 2024
"Charon's Final Passenger" (SF SS) Asimov's, March/April 2024
The Tusks of Extinction, (SF Novella) Tordotcom, January 2024
"Berb by Berb" (SF SS) in Asimov's, November/December 2023
"The Job at the End of the World" (SF SS), Tordotcom August 2023
"The Case of the Blood Stained Tower" (SF Novelette) in Asimov's March/April 2023
The Mountain in the Sea (SF Novel) MCDxFSG October 2022
​"The Empty" (SF SS) in Asimov's November/December 2022
"Fostering" (SF SS) in Vice.com (Terraform) July 2022
"Mender of Sparrows (SF Novelette) in Asimov's March/April 2022
"Rain of Days" (SF SS) in Clarkesworld March 2022
"The Summer Castle" (Horror SS) in Nightmare #113 February 2022
"Muallim" (SF SS) in Asimov's November/December 2021
"Scissors" (Horror SS) by Anastasia Bookreyeva (as translator) in ​Samovar October 2021
"Yesterday's Wolf" (SF SS) in Clarkesworld September 2021
"Año Nuevo" (SF Novelette) in Asimov's May/June 2021
"Sarcophagus" (SF SS) in Clarkesworld April 2021
"The Shadow of His Wings" (SF SS) in Analog March/April 2021
"Terra Rasa" (SF SS) by Anastasia Bookreyeva (as translator) in Clarkesworld, February 2021
"A Rocket for Dimitrios" (SF Novella) in Asimov's January/February 2021
​"Evrim's Children" (SF SS) in Dark Matter Magazine January/February 2021
"In the Petrified Forest" (Mainstream SS) in Cobalt #61 December 2020
"Outside of Omaha" (Horror SS) in Nightmare #96 September 2020
​"Architecture" (Mainstream SS) in Queen's Quarterly Volume 127 #3 Fall 2020
"The Swallows of the Storm" (SF SS) in Lightspeed #122 July 2020
"Father" (SF SS) in Asimov's July/August 2020
"Albedo Season" (SF SS) in Clarkesworld May 2020
"Eyes of the Forest" (SF SS) in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction May/June 2020
"Return to the Red Castle" (SF SS) in Asimov's March/April 2020​
"The Disintegration Loops" (SF SS) in Asimov's November/December 2019
"If I Were You" (mainstream SS) in Yemassee, webzine, ​November 2019
"The Death of Fire Station 10" (SF SS) in Lightspeed #113 October 2019
"Beyond the High Altar" (Horror SS) in Nightmare #84 September 2019
​"The Ocean Between the Leaves" (SF novelette) Asimov's July/August 2019
​"Fire in the Bone" (SF SS) in Clarkesworld January 2019
"Incident at San Juan Bautista" (SF SS) in Asimov's November/December 2018
"A Threnody for Hazan" (SF Novelette) in Asimov's March/April 2018
"Winter Timeshare" (SF SS) in Asimov's January / February 2017
"The Cigarette Machine" (Graphic SS) in Pinball #5, webzine, 2016
"Do Not Forget Me" (SF SS) in Asimov's March 2016
​"Mutability" (SF SS) in Asimov's June 2015
The Idiot Birds (Horror / Slipstream SS) in nthposition.com, online, 2009
"Catch" (Noir SS) in Crimewave #7: The Last Sunset, June 2003
"Because I Could Not Stop For Death" (Noir SS) in Cemetery Dance #38, spring 2002
"The Bat House" (Noir SS) in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, April 2002
​American Graveyards (Detective novella) TTA Press: Witcham, Ely, UK, October 2001
"Population Zero" (Noir SS) in Blue Murder #20, webzine, 2001
"Sleepwalking" (Noir SS) in Blue Murder #18, webzine, 2001
"How They Kill You at Thousand Palms" (Noir SS) in Plots With Guns, webzine, May-June 2001.
"Saturday Night Special" (Noir SS) in Ellery Queen, February 2001
"Hang on St. Christopher" (Noir SS) in Plots With Guns, webzine, January-February 2001
"Cutting Wood, Carrying Water" (Noir SS) in Crimewave #4: Mood Indigo, November 2000
"The Ride" (Noir SS) in The Edge: Tales of Suspense #5, September 1999
"The Watchman" (mainstream SS) in Berkeley Fiction Review #18, May 1998
"The Ropes of the Lasso Inn" (Horror SS) Deathrealm #30 Winter 1996/1997
"Waiting" (Mainstream SS) Lines in the Sand, 1996

I was surprised that he had so many non-SF works from 1996 to 2015 and decided to concentrate on SF first

The list of his SF works:
The Tin Man's Ghost a Novelette at Asimov's May/June 2025
Where the Axe is Buried a Novel at MCDxFSG / W&N April 2025
The Demon of Metrazol a Short story at Asimov's March/April 2025
A Grey Magic a Short story at Asimov's September/October 2024
Charon's Final Passenger a Short story at Asimov's, March/April 2024
The Tusks of Extinction a Novella at Tordotcom, January 2024
Berb by Berb a Short story at Asimov's, November/December 2023
The Job at the End of the World a Short story at Tordotcom August 2023
The Case of the Blood Stained Tower a Novelette at Asimov's March/April 2023
The Mountain in the Sea a Novel at MCDxFSG October 2022
The Empty a Short story at Asimov's November/December 2022
Fostering a Short story at Vice.com (Terraform) July 2022
Mender of Sparrows a Novelette at Asimov's March/April 2022
Rain of Days a Short story at Clarkesworld March 2022
Muallim a Short story at Asimov's November/December 2021
Yesterday's Wolf a Short story at Clarkesworld September 2021
Año Nuevo a Novelette at Asimov's May/June 2021
Sarcophagus a Short story at Clarkesworld April 2021
The Shadow of His Wings a Short story at Analog March/April 2021
A Rocket for Dimitrios a Novella at Asimov's January/February 2021
Evrim's Children a Short story at Dark Matter Magazine January/February 2021
The Swallows of the Storm a Short story at Lightspeed #122 July 2020
Father a Short story at Asimov's July/August 2020
Albedo Season a Short story at Clarkesworld May 2020
Eyes of the Forest a Short story at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction May/June 2020
Return to the Red Castle a Short story at Asimov's March/April 2020​
The Disintegration Loops a Short story at Asimov's November/December 2019
The Death of Fire Station 10 a Short story at Lightspeed #113 October 2019
The Ocean Between the Leaves a Novelette at Asimov's July/August 2019
Fire in the Bone a Short story at Clarkesworld January 2019
Incident at San Juan Bautista a Short story at Asimov's November/December 2018
A Threnody for Hazan a Novelette at Asimov's March/April 2018
Winter Timeshare a Short story at Asimov's January / February 2017
Do Not Forget Me a Short story at Asimov's March 2016
Mutability a Short story at Asimov's June 2015

A high percentage of the sf has been published in Asimov’s.

Stephen wrote: "A high percentage of the sf has been published in Asimov’s."

Yes, Asimov's 20, the next largest Clarkesworld only 5

Thanks, guys. A great new(ish) SF author! One of my faves.

Mutability a Short story at Asimov's June 2015 the debut SF story. I guess it's too complex for its own good. It starts with a narrator describing a coffee shop where he likes to work or observe other consumers and their interactions. A new woman comes and asks to come with her - at her apartment, she shows him a photo where they two are together. None of them remembers it, moreover, they are dressed in clothes obsolete last 400 years (I thought the setting was our times/near future). Moreover, the more I read the less I understand this setting. 3*

The story can be read here https://www.raynayler.net/mutability....

Do Not Forget Me a Short story at Asimov's March 2016 this is a much better story. It uses a matroshka structure - a man comes to his house and tells his wife a story he heard from a great poet (Omar Khayyam?), who tells a story of a brigand and so on. The innermost story is good as well. 4*

The story can be read here https://www.raynayler.net/do-not-forg...

Oleksandr wrote: "Do Not Forget Me" a Short story at Asimov's March 2016 this is a much better story. It uses a matrioshka structure - a man comes to his house and tells his wife a story he heard from a great poet ...."

Thanks for this. New to me: a first-rate alternate-history, of how strange a real immortal might be. One of Nayler's best shorts, I think. He really is a master story-teller. An easy 4+ stars for me.

Yes, a very good story, 4 stars. Thanks for the pointer.

More first-rate Nayler SF shorts: the Istanbul Protectorate series,
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?...
Which opens with "Winter Timeshare" (2017), set in the future of that series, likely before Nayler worked out the details of the series. Two lovers meet in Istanbul for their winter vacation. Bittersweet slice of life. I just reread it: an even better story than I recalled. 4+ stars. Not to be missed.

Some of these stories can be found at Nayler's website, https://www.raynayler.net/ in the Stories Online section. They are all worth reading, but this might be my favorite. Along with a related story, set in an alternate postwar Albuquerque, whose title escapes me. And I just got reminded of some urgent chores.....

Winter Timeshare a Short story at Asimov's January / February 2017, as Peter correctly noted, the first in the Istanbul Protectorate series. I guess it should read after A Threnody for Hazan, which gives more background info but was published a bit later. I call this kind of story a-day-in-life, the unique SF idea to show an ordinary life in extraordinary circumstances, like mentioned in another thread 'It's a Good Life' by Jerome Bixby.

Here we have a regular meeting of two post-humans in Istanbul. For this they use temporary bodies (so they mostly live/work in VR) and a lot of 'ordinary humans', locals hate them, for they live in different worlds. This time, one of them (gendered female) has to use a 'blank' male body. They want to get the most from their short encounter... 3.5*
read it here https://www.raynayler.net/winter-time...

I read Winter Timeshare, a good interesting story. I’m not familiar with the series it belongs to. I’ll read more.

A Threnody for Hazan a Novelette at Asimov's March/April 2018 this is the proper entry story for the Istanbul Protectorate series. It follows life and discoveries of Hazan, the scientist who (with a lot of others) gave the world the concept of connectome (the map of the synaptic connections, which is pure information and thus can exist as a process outside the body). It is written by a man, who met her accidentally, but fell in love (not as much passion as caring) with her. From the title and the word threnody (I had to check the dictionary), readers can expect that the story will end in tragedy. 4.5*
https://www.raynayler.net/a-threnody-...

Incident at San Juan Bautista a Short story at Asimov's November/December 2018 August is the man living in the post-Civil War USA. He is a dentist, an emigrant, a deserter and an assassin. In the latter capacity, he goes from NY to San Juan Bautista and now is in a room with a woman, planning his next move. The woman, Madeleine, talks to him and it turns out that not only she knows everything about his plans but also that (view spoiler)[she actually is able to temporarily inhibit all bodies around except the assassin (hide spoiler)] 4*
https://www.raynayler.net/incident-at...

The Ocean Between the Leaves a Novelette at Asimov's July/August 2019 [the Istanbul Protectorate] Feride is a local in Istanbul, she worked at a garden till she pricked her finger on the thorn of a rose, and fell asleep got a severe infection, ending up in coma at a hospital. She is an orphan, and after she went into coma, Fahri, her "brother she had never met", turns out. He is working “from one blink to another", finding out bodies with uploaded minds which stayed overdue and severing the link. For he is in a blanc body himself (view spoiler)[in reality he is Feride's mind. As an experiment, the Institute thought of giving terminally ill a temporary body for a few days. Feride got such a body and ran away instead of returning it. (hide spoiler)] Another great story. 5*
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...

Oleksandr wrote: "The Ocean Between the Leaves a Novelette at Asimov's July/August 2019 [the Istanbul Protectorate] Feride is a local in Istanbul, she worked at a garden till she pricked her finger on the thorn of a..."

Thanks for reminding me of this one. Nayler is a wonderful writer. Even if I can't quite believe this one. Still, not to be missed. 4 stars for me.

The Disintegration Loops a Short story at Asimov's November/December 2019 [The Event], [The Disintegration Loops] this is the first of the series of alt-history stories set in the 1950s in the world, where the USA discovered a flying saucer in 1938 and reverse-engineered a lot of high tech. It helped to win WW2 and dominate the globe. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Sylvia Aldstatt was part of General Hedy Lamarr’s Technical Corps during WW2 and after the war she took part in experiments with an alien tech of unknown properties. She was the sole survivor of it and the tech, as it turned out, helps read memories of the deceased. In this unique capacity she is hired by OSS and her personal holder is Alvin Greenly. He is a good guy, even if she teases him with phrases like “That you can’t spell OSS without the SS.” (in this world after WW2, US helped to restore pre-1939 borders, fighting the USSR together with the former Wehrmacht).
Now Sylvia has to 'read' a newly found corpse of a young woman, who supposedly worked with Soviet spies.
A great start of the series
4*
text: https://www.raynayler.net/the-disinte...

Regarding The Disintegration Loops series: currently, SFDB, after Asimov's (where they were published) calls them after the first story. However, they mentioned only a subset of stories in that universe, which are linked by the protagonist, Sylvia Aldstatt. There are other stories, starting with Father a Short story at Asimov's July/August 2020, where the world is present but not Sylvia. These stories I gather under the title the Event how the 1938 discovery is known (in later stories, starting in 2025)

This post will be updated
Timeline of [The Event], [The Disintegration Loops]
1938 - a damaged flying saucer found at Arizona desert
1939 - WW2 starts
1944, Fall - the US uses deathrays to kill everyone in Berlin
1945 - Afterwar (against the USSR) quote: obody knows yet that the allies will turn on one another: that the war will go on for another year as Patton and our allied forces, plus what’s left of the German Wehrmacht, recommissioned by Patton as the Free German Army, drive Stalin and his Red Army back out of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Prussia, out of the Balkans and the Baltic states. And the war will go on in the Pacific after a shattered Japan surrenders, as we join with Chiang Kai-shek in his butchery of the Chinese Communists.
1945 - a military coup in Moscow Patton pushed them back to the gates of Moscow and they signed the truce, what have we seen? Just them trying to rebuild their country after the Nazis tore it apart. With Stalin dead, and Zhukov at the reins, they’ve been pretty much minding their own business in the ruins.”

The Death of Fire Station 10 a Short story at Lightspeed #113 October 2019 a story in three conversations, the first concerning the station from the title. The conversation's participant is the first officially registered AI sentience. The Fire Station 10 was one of 'low sentience' AIs destroyed during the rebuilding of a district. A great story with open questions. 5*
text+audio: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...

Oleksandr wrote: "This post will be updated
Timeline of [The Event], [The Disintegration Loops]
1938 - a damaged flying saucer found at Arizona desert
1939 - WW2 starts
1944, Fall - the US uses deathrays to kill eve..."

Thanks for this. I'd wondered about the timeline for this series. It would be great if Nayler collected and commented on the series, perhaps as a fixup novel? Meanwhile, time to reread what we already have....

The Swallows of the Storm a Short story at Lightspeed #122 July 2020 this is his 2nd story for this magazine and its structure is similar: a collection of hearings about accidents. This time the accident is that some living bodies seemingly shout with extremely high-speed small-caliber bullets. The main researcher, Nino Makhviladze, first met with this phenomenon when she was 11 years old in her native Georgia (the one in the Caucasus). She grew up, received her PhD, as a sideline studied this issue, as such cases became ever more common, affecting people as well. Another solid SF. 4*
text and audio https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...

Fire in the Bone a Short story at Clarkesworld January 2019 the female narrator works in a harvester on an alien planet, with singing night-worms. Later, with other people, they meet at an estate to celebrate the largest harvest ever, and the way she is served by robots as well as robots in the fields, readers get an antebellum US South expression. This is the last feast for the narrator, for she plans to leave to study on another planet. Later, she goes in an old church, where on the windowpanes the story of the planet, with the past robot rebellion, is told. She also meets there with her secret robot lover. (view spoiler)[a new robot rebellion starts but is quickly suppressed. Her robot lover is dying and informs her:
She held up her hand, fingers spread, palm toward me—not to ward off the inevitable blow, but to show to me the crimson that now coated it.
“This red is proof,” she said. Her voice was weak, but held certainty. “Of the fire in my bones. No matter what you name us, no matter how you twist your history, we are the humans. And you . . . ”
I silenced her with a thrust of my blade, as polished and as metal as my hand. (hide spoiler)]. Ok, the end was unexpected, but overall it wasn't a very memorable story, with slave South allusions too thick. 3.25*
text and audio https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/nayl...

Evrim's Children a Short story at Dark Matter Magazine January/February 2021 the story starts with a catastrophe experienced by a person named Ervim - just a few lines, no details. Then we fast-forward to 400 years later, and Mae emerges from hibernation on the spaceship Fram. Evrim prepares breakfast for her. Readers find out that "Evrim as being both the ship Fram and the ship’s android avatar". Then the story of what happened in these four centuries is told. 3.5*
text and audio https://darkmattermagazine.shop/blogs...

Eyes of the Forest a Short story at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction May/June 2020 Sedef is on her mission outside, under the supervision of Mauled by Mistake. The story starts with Mauled saving Sedef and treating her wounds with nanobot patches. However, Mauled is also hit, and there is no more nanobots, so Sedef has to journey the forest to get a new batch. The uniqueness of the forest that symbiosis, not competition, is the basis of its environment. So, there are no predators, but there are scavengers, symbiotic cleaners of the dead. An interesting story but there are problems with story flow for me. 3.25*

Return to the Red Castle a Short story at Asimov's March/April 2020​ [the Istanbul Protectorate] Irem returns to Istanbul after centuries, when her mind traveled at lighspeed to be uploaded to blank bodies, created by previously sent robotic spaceships on planets selected for possible colonisation. Unknown to senders, terrorists inserted errors into the code and none of the selected worlds are suited to unmodified humans. Now, Irem is back but the world has changed since her departure 500 years ago. at the same time, there is a person from her past - an android teacher from her orphanage. When she meets him, it turns out that he has somehow lost memories of his past, so Irem investigates. This story sounds as a whole novel, maybe we'll see it one day. 4*

The pdf with the text was available for a short time from Asimov's, because they post all their nominees.

Father a Short story at Asimov's July/August 2020 [The Event] the narrator is an older version of a seven-year-old boy, with whom the story is happening. The year is 1956 and despite an alt-history, there is a version of rockabilly madness with greasers and hotrods, even if the latter are flying ones. The boy lost his dad in the Afterwar, before his birth, and now there was a lottery program at Veterans Affairs, distributing reprogrammed robots that also took part in the wars as Fathers to kids whose dads had been killed in those wars. This is a shiny metal thing with a limited vocabulary, but the boy needs a father, so replacement works, even if there is a lot of opposition in society and some of it brutal. This was the story that discovered Nayler for me - I have read a few by him before, but this was an eye-opener. 5*

Oleksandr wrote: "Father a Short story at Asimov's July/August 2020 [The Event] the narrator is an older version of a seven-year-old boy, with whom the story is happening. The year is 1956 and despite an alt-history..."

Yes, one of his great stories!

Peter wrote: "Yes, one of his great stories!"

I'm curious whether [the Event] stories are actually in the alt-alt-history :) because with have Father where we have robot-like robots, while in The Tin Man's Ghost, which is in [The Disintegration Loops], they are more like androids

A Rocket for Dimitrios a Novella at Asimov's January/February 2021 [The Event], [The Disintegration Loops] the first SF novella of the author. The story starts with Sylvia Aldstatt on a Willys terraplane trying to run away from pursuers. With her is the OSS agent Alvin Greenly, who is wounded... back down for a few days - Sylvia, with almost a battalion of bodyguards, comes to Istanbul. Here, I guess, we get a link to [the Istanbul Protectorate]. Her goal is to question another dead man - Dimitrios Makropoulos. He is described as The man you see on the slab before you is a professional of a kind that is far too common in this part of the world. His type is the true cause of violence and chaos in Europe and Eurasia. He was not a spy. He was not an assassin. He was not a politician. He was not a part of any mafia. No. Instead, he was the connective tissue between all of it. He was the link between all of them—the cowardly politicians, the organized crime interests, the spies, the violent fanatics. His kind is the sinew on which assassinations, political coups, and sabotage rely. He was a middle-man. A broker in information and innuendo, an arranger of deals. He knew people, found things, made sure other things were not found. He never risked himself: he allowed others to take the risks. He had no allegiance to any cause: he saw allegiance and causes as pathways to what he wanted. The Serbian nationalist, the Greek heroin-smuggler, the Bolshevik, the Nazi: it was all the same for him. They had ideologies: he had self-interest, and self-interest alone. There are thousands like him: they infest this part of the world like cockroaches in a cheap hotel. And it is suspected that he knew the location of another flying saucer crash in the Black Sea. To whom could he have sold the information? 4*

I appreciate the reviews. I haven’t read most of these stories but will want to do so, sooner or later.

Stephen wrote: "I appreciate the reviews. I haven’t read most of these stories but will want to do so, sooner or later."

Yes, he is worth reading.