DEPARTAMENT DE FILOLOGIA READING ANGLESA I DE GERMANÍSTICA SF SHORT FICTION: UNIVERSITAT 50 TITLES AUTONÒMA DE BARCELONA Sara Martín Alegre (ed.) 2016 READING SF SHORT FICTION: 50 TITLES Sara Martín Alegre (ed.) Contents Sara Martín Alegre, “SF Short Fiction: Another Kind of Anthology” ................................ 1 Brian Aldiss, “Super-Toys Last All Summer” (1969).......................................................... 5 Isaac Asimov, “Nightfall” (1941) ....................................................................................... 7 J.G. Ballard, “The Voices of Time” (1960) ......................................................................... 9 Iain M. Banks, “A Gift from the Culture” (1987) ............................................................ 11 Harry Bates, “Farewell to the Master” (1940)................................................................ 13 Elizabeth Bear, “Tideline” (2007) ................................................................................... 15 Bruce Bethke, “Cyberpunk” (1983) ................................................................................ 17 Terry Bisson, “Bears Discover Fire” (1990) ..................................................................... 19 Leigh Brackett, “No Man’s Land in Space” (1941) .......................................................... 21 Ray Bradbury, “A Sound of Thunder” (1952) ................................................................. 23 Pat Cadigan, “Is There Life After Rehab?” (2005) .......................................................... 25 John W. Campbell, “Who Goes There?” (1938) ............................................................. 27 C.J. Cherryh, “Cassandra” (1978) .................................................................................... 29 Ted Chiang, “Exhalation” (2008) .................................................................................... 31 Arthur C. Clarke, “The Star” (1955) ................................................................................ 33 Lester Del Rey, “Helen O’Loy” (1938) ............................................................................. 36 Samuel Delany, “Aye, Aye, Gomorrah..”. (1966) ............................................................ 38 Philip K. Dick, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966) ................................. 40 Tananarive Due, “Patient Zero” (2010) .......................................................................... 42 Greg Egan, “Learning to be Me” (1990) ......................................................................... 44 Harlan Ellison, “‘Repent, Harlequin!’, Said the Ticktockman” (1965) ............................ 46 Carol Emshwiller, “Creature” (2002) .............................................................................. 49 Karen Joy Fowler, “Standing Room Only” (1997) ........................................................... 51 Tom Godwin, “The Cold Equations” (1954) ................................................................... 53 Lisa Goldstein, “The Narcissus Plague” (1995) ............................................................... 55 Kathleen Ann Goonan, “A Short History of the Twentieth Century” (2014) ................. 57 Nicola Griffith, “It Takes Two” (2010) ............................................................................ 59 Eileen Gunn, “Coming to Terms” (2004) ........................................................................ 61 Robert Heinlein, “All You Zombies…” (1958) ................................................................. 63 Nina Kiriki Hoffman, “Futures in the Memory Market” (2010) ...................................... 65 Nalo Hopkinson, “The Easthound” (2013)...................................................................... 67 Kij Johnson, “26 Monkeys also the Abyss” (2008) ......................................................... 69 Gwyneth Jones, “The Tomb Wife” (2008) ...................................................................... 71 Mary Robinette Kowal, “Evil Robot Monkey” (2012) ..................................................... 73 Nancy Kress, “Out of all them Bright Stars” (1985) ........................................................ 75 Yoon Ha Lee, “A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel” (2011) .................................... 77 Jack London, “The Scarlet Plague” (1912) ...................................................................... 79 H.P. Lovecraft, “The Colour Out of Space” (1927) ......................................................... 81 Ken MacLeod, “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359?” (2007) ....................................................... 83 Anne McCaffrey, “The Ship Who Sang” (1961) .............................................................. 85 China Miéville, “An End to Hunger” (2001) .................................................................... 88 C.L. Moore, “Shambleau” (1948) .................................................................................... 90 Andre Norton, “All Cats Are Grey” (1953) ...................................................................... 92 Joanna Russ, “When It Changed” (1972) ........................................................................ 94 Geoff Ryman, “Have not Have” (2001)........................................................................... 96 Robert Silverberg, “Passengers” (1970) ......................................................................... 98 James Tiptree Jr., “The Women the Men Don’t See” (1972) ....................................... 101 Kurt Vonnegut, “2BR0TB” (1962) ................................................................................. 103 Kate Wilhelm, “Mrs. Bagley Goes to Mars” (1978) ...................................................... 105 Connie Willis, “Daisy in the Sun” (1982)....................................................................... 107 Author List (and Student Collaborators) ...................................................................... 109 Selected Short Fiction in Chronological Order ............................................................. 111 Disclaimer and Creative Commons License .................................................................. 113 Sara Martín Alegre, “SF Short Fiction: Another Kind of Anthology” The booklet here offered is the product of the activities carried out in the elective course ‘English Prose: Considering Science Fiction’, which I have taught in the Spring semester of the academic year 2015-16 within the four-year BA in English Studies of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. A series of successful previous projects produced with students1 convinced me of the suitability of the idea I had for this specific course: publishing a guide for readers focused on SF, but on short fiction, rather than novels. The internet is full of websites recommending SF books (also films, TV series, comics, video games...) but as I prepared material for the course, I missed very much information on short fiction. There are, as we SF readers know, plenty of anthologies but none of them were exactly what I had in mind. I simply did not have the time and the resources to embark on producing my own anthology and, so, I thought of assembling a sort of alternative anthology. In this, we would offer information about the stories rather than the stories themselves, as it is usually done for longer works, such as novels. Call it an alternative anthology (or a poor reader’s anthology...). Short fiction is an essential aspect of SF, as any SF reader knows. The genre, it could be argued, grew out of this genre rather than the novel. Despite the example set by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells in their 19th century scientific romances, what we call SF is a product of the magazines, beginning with Hugo Gernsback’s seminal Amazing Stories (1926). 90 years later, the main magazines—Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, Strange Horizons, Interzone... — continue relying on short fiction, offering a steady flow of all its varieties. The task of the editors is, necessarily, fundamental, both for the magazines and for the countless book anthologies. The name Gardner Dozois, just to name the most important living editor, is, no doubt, as important as that of any major SF writer. Although most readers understand that the differences between the novel and the short story are much deeper than just length (also that short fiction is NOT the novel’s poor relative), length does matter. Both Hugo and Nebula Awards distinguish between novels (above 40,000 words) and short fiction, sub-dividing this category into the novella (17,500/40,000 words), the novelette (7,500/17,500) and the short story 1 See: Sara Martín Alegre (ed.), Gender and Feminism: The Students’ View. (February 2015), https://ddd.uab.cat/record/129180 (31 undergrad students offer their own views on gender and feminism); Sara Martín Alegre (ed.), Charming and Bewitching: Considering the Harry Potter Series (2014) https://ddd.uab.cat/record/122987 (33 undergrad students discuss Harry Potter in a thrilling collection of academic papers); Sara Martín Alegre (ed.), Addictive and Wonderful: The Experience of Reading the Harry Potter Series (2014), https://ddd.uab.cat/record/118225 (More than 50 university students describe their experiences of growing up with Harry Potter and becoming readers). 1 Reading SF Short Fiction: 50 Titles, Sara Martín (ed.) (7,500). Readers can tell when short fiction is a novella (it can be nicely stretched into a slim volume)