David H. > Recent Status Updates

The Big Terrarium: 3 humans put into alien terrarium, fun ending.

Summer Guests: Man encounters 2 tiny aliens/elementals, but there's suspicion.

Captives of the Thieve-Star: A proto-Witches of Karres. Amusing.

Caretaker: Marooned explorer doesn't realize what he sees.

One Step Ahead: Terran Confederacy very distrustful, twists on twists.

Left Hand, Right Hand: Survey ship captured, trying to escape.

The End of the Line: Genetically-bred space-explorers make a plan to escape the Central Government.

Watch the Sky: A selfish colonial official tries a hoax to get more power, and it backfires--or does it?

Greenface: A horror story of a creature stomping around the hunting camp.

Rogue Psi: Attempting to stop the rogue psi stopping Earth's space efforts.

The Custodians: Interesting action story (creative alien), but the ending revelation feels like it needed more setup to me.

Gone Fishing: A mad(?) scientist appears to have discovered a matter transmitter, but the ruthless businessman has the tables turned on him. Honestly kind of cool by the end.

The Beacon to Elsewhere: A long infodump setup leads into a fun bit of SF action, though the ending felt weak to me

Agent of Vega: A Zone Agent (telepathic spies) is sent after his archnemesis.

The Illusionists: A new Agent is attempting to stop the dead telepathic spirit controlling a world from killing everyone.

The Second Night of Summer: Fantastically written, a young boy and a "Grandma" itinerant peddler meet in a sleep village/alien invasion site.

The Truth about Cushgar: Decently done story of vengeance.

The Demon Breed: A short novel, also featuring Nile Etland from "Trouble Tide." The hero is extremely competent which is fun, though there's a few coincidences that made me roll my eyes. However, it was honestly quite fun, and several developments were unexpected.

The Other Likeness: Another chase story from Schmitz, but a fun one with a 'twist' reframing at the end that I liked.

Attitudes: Kinda so-so, plagued by a tad too much competence vs. Azard's plans.

Trouble Tide: This was a fun one--illegal operation going on, with some funky biology going on.

A Nice Day for Screaming: This fantastic title is wasted on this story, which is also hampered by its abrupt twist ending/joke.

The Winds of Time: A passenger on this spaceship is not quite what he seems.

The Machmen: Cyborgs (mach-men) chase our hero, who manages to stop them in the end.

The Searcher: Private eyes & smugglers facing off get interrupted by an ancient energy alien, and a cat-and-mouse chase begins.

Grandpa: Reread. The giant lilypad/raft known as "Grandpa" is acting differently, but Cord figures it out.

Balanced Ecology: Ilff and Auris's diamondwood farm is threatened but the farm watches out for them in the end.

The Hemingway Hoax - Haldeman: I don't normally care about Hemingway but I was really intrigued by how strange this story got. Fantastic.

Rainmaker Cometh - McDonald: Very atmospheric, pun intended.

Hot Sky - Silverberg: It could've been interesting except for the plotholes.

White City - Shiner: Hilarious. Nikola Tesla has one more trick up his sleeve.

Love and Sex Among the Invertebrates - Murphy: Sad but lovely.

Inertia - Kress: Very nicely written, though I had trouble with some of the central premise.

Learning to Be Me - Egan: Creepy creepy mind stuff. Oh boy.

Cibola - Willis: Reread. I'm not convinced this is even SF/F.

Walking the Moons - Lethem: Very brief piece, I guess it's satire.

The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks, A Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk - ab Hugh: Too graphic for me in a couple scenes, but otherwise quite fun! Animals can talk due to a plague.

Tower of Babylon - Chiang: Reread. A retelling of the Tower of Babel. Fantastic.

The Death Artist - Jablokov: Decadent art in the FUTURE!

The First Since Ancient Persia - Brunner: Special virus. Almost horror, silly ending.

The All-Consuming - Shepard & Frazier: A man obsessed with eating everything comes to an understanding.

Personal Silence - Gloss: A peace activist meets an unusual girl.

Invaders - Kessel: A meta-story about invasions & SF escapism.

The Cairene Purse - Moorcock: In a reduced future, a man looks for his sister in Aswan, who bears a tale of her own.

We See Things Differently - Sterling: Felt like a rehash of other stories I've read.

And the Angels Sing - Wilhelm: Eddie encounters some weirdness and beauty in his life, which leaves him behind.

Past Magic - MacLeod: Weird clone thing, some weird implications.

Bears Discover Fire - Bisson: Fantastic story, everyone should read.

Mr. Boy - Kelly: An absolutely gonzo story about a boy's relationship with his mother, in a way.

The Shobies' Story - Le Guin: The power of a story to ground you when all seems lost.

The Caress - Egan: Well, that's a freakin' creepy thing to do, good lord. Art for art's sake.

A Braver Thing - Sheffield: I was remarkably engaged with this story of a boy and his friend who have very different outlooks in the end.

1992 through 2000

1981 through 1991

1969 through 1980

1953 through 1968

Permanent Summer - Stanifer: The universe is shattering, all in service of a physicist keeping his daughter alive.

Midway's End - Mushanski: A carney is punished the carney way.

The Mylar Chamber - Roskams: Trippy story about a TV show host obsessing about his image in a weird room.