Daily Science Fiction, January 2022

I thought about doing this last year, but never started. I've been on the Daily Science Fiction mailing list for a couple of years now. I don't always read them that day, and usually never read more than three or four stories. But at about 1000 words per story, a month of stories is about 20,000 words (plus "Author's Notes"), which is novella length. Not quite a short novel. I should read more of what they publish if I want a better chance of selling them a second story.

Summary: Fantasy - 9, Science Fiction - 7, Humor - 1,
Unclassified/Experimental/Out There - 1 (I'd otherwise classify as fantasy)

Week One

January 3, 2022: "Werewolf" by U. M. Celovska. Every full moon, a wolf becomes a man, and helps it to hunt other wolves. Then it becomes a wolf which helps the pack avoid the traps. I liked it.

January 4, 2022: "The Devil You Don't Know" by Dave Hendrickson. A devil (not The Devil) comes to the narrator in a dream like a telemarketer from hell. I like that idea (as did the author in his notes). He makes an offer that's basically as indeterminate stay of execution and promises to wipe the knowledge of the deal from memory so they don't fret it until they're dying day. But after the offer is declined, the devil doesn't wipe that memory away. He'll call again sometime to see if the narrator changes his mind. Enjoyable.

January 5 , 2022: "The Ansible" by Chloe Smith. Science-fiction. An "ansible" is a device in hard-sf that allows some kind of communication or information to break the rules. Here it is used as a lamp where the lamp represents the woman left behind thinking of him. He thinks of her often in the first few months but years are passing for her. Her light must burn for a long time when he thinks of hers, while his would only flicker. Except that it doesn't. I like the setup, but not my kind of story. And I'm curious what it would be like to be on the other end, seeing that light, forgetting about it, then finding it again years later. (Make a note of this.)

January 6 , 2022: I didn't get an email for this date. I don't see one in the Trash bin, either.

January 7 , 2022: "Cures for Hiccups" by Rachel Rodman. Reads like a "listicle" with 80 entries. Probably should've been a "top ten" list, but that would've been too short. And it might work better as a stand-up comedy routine. It's a little too repetitive (even with humor, there's a limit) "backwards". The genre trivia while occasionally humorous is somewhat random, with multiple, multiple references to Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings, and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, not to mention Oedipus and the Sphinx. I don't know if I don't like stories like this one or just this one. It was too long. Like this summary. Backwards.

Week Two

January 10, 2022: "Leader of the Pack" by Alter S. Reiss. When Greg Lee talked, people listened. In a war-torn future, a virus that had been aimed at humans infected other primates as well and decimated their communities. Those are social animals and solitude is harmful to them. They tried robotic substitutes but that was worse. Until Lee changed the parameters. There was less uneasiness when the AI were subordinates. If they just sat and ate leaves, things were better for the living survivors. Note that this has wider implications (as mentioned). One of the better ones.

January 11, 2022: "Shattered Petals of Celadon" by M. K. Hutchens. Heart boxes and tangible emotions. Experimental and out there. Interesting but not in a great way.

January 12, 2022: "Help Her Fit In" by Tamlyn Dreaver. Msisiki, aka Missy, is a changeling or fairy or alien with pale green skin and green hair. She's also a child. She's adopted as the narrator's sister, and the two go to school together. It's the story of an outsider trying to fit in but doesn't really, only with a fairy instead of a human girl. Author is Australian, which explains "Mum". Okay. It didn't end, really.

January 13, 2022: "Invasion" by Candice R. Lisle. Very short, five paragraphs, maybe 10 sentences. Kell, who looks like a swamp monster, comes to earth for a tour. Jeanette is his tour guide. They go to a fish market in China Town where the merchant gives Kell a live sea urchin. Kell gets on his spaceship and takes a bag of sea urchins with him. Jeanette thinks this is the beginning of the invasion of Earth. I believe I have just typed almost the entire story. As my editor once told me, "there is no conflict in this story". I checked the rating: it was 3.7 out of 7. Most stories I've noticed are in the 4.1 - 5.4 range.

January 14, 2022: "A Stirring of Wings" by Ken Altabef. An old blind man in a castle who can perceive birds as silver streaks with a ruby heart. Winter is a long, cold and dark time, and he's waiting for the first birds of spring to return. There is nothing stirring in the castle, not even a mouse. Then he perceives something. It's a person in a metallic suit (knight? robot?) who calls the man "Monseigneur Salazar" and who has come to kill him. The man (who up to this point I thought was going to be revealed as a dragon) is almost ready to die, but instead manages to use magic to prevent his death. Maybe he'll let the next assassin take him. This was average -- I knew the man had to be magical to survive the winter alone but we really know nothing about him or the assassin, who I believe had a gun.

Week Three

January 17, 2022: "Flesh of My Fin" by Susan Fay. Appropriate name? As soon as I read the beginning of this mermaid tale, I double-checked the name because it seemed a little familiar. But, no, it's a mermaid story, and I suppose there are only so many ways to start them. Anyway, the mermaid reveals her secret to her daughter after the death of her husband. The daughter realizes that she'd known but the mother gaslighted her as a child. (The term is older than the Internet, but that's where it's gotten the most use in recent years.) The daughter is grown now, and the two decide to return to the sea. No surprises in this one.

January 18, 2022: "Commuting" by S A McKenzie. Lucy Channing is about to step on the 8:05 train when she sees the body on the floor of the carriage (England?). Everyone steps around it. Lucy pales like this is her first time experiencing it. Passengers talk about rumors about how to avoid being taken (and how often they are taken). The passengers seem to embody the rumor they speak of, so it's more of a hope that it works. Trains now run on Demonic energy, but as a result, 1 out of every 20,000 riders is taken. Hugo Morgan strikes up a conversation with Lucy, suggesting that there are ways to evade being "taxed". It doesn't end well for him.

January 19, 2022: "Last Flight" by Bret Parent. A man watching from behind a rusted-out sedan spots an unmoving bird, making chirping noises. He appears to be some kind of survivalist in a "post" world. He even refers to the bird as "or something that looks like a bird". He finally puts the bird of its misery, but smashing it reveals gears and circuits. Then he hears the sirens. They're coming for him. I read this one twice. After the lighter stories, this one was heavier, and I didn't want to shortchange it. Good story.

January 20, 2022: "Mind the Meniscus" by Jason P Burnham. Another very short story, maybe 100 words. It reads like a scene from something bigger. Something in on the hull of a ship. It asks that the ship not travel FTL, which is not possible. "They" won't find it in sub-light. What won't? Wait, you don't know what's out here? Breach. Not much to like or hate.

January 20, 2022: "Counterparts" by Andrew Hansen. The Counterparts are ethereal duplicates of people made of water, steam, dust or must. Kids love playing with themselves. But their existence is ephemeral, temporary. They disappeared after a few months, leaving gaps in some people's lives. The set-up is great, but the ending doesn't quite make sense. I thought I misunderstood until I read the author's notes, and it didn't seem to fit. Maybe it's me.

Week Four

January 24, 2022: "God 47" by Laila Amado. Apparently, the story was inspired by a license plate. A few hundred words about a god who is created and then unspools himself into something or other. I didn't get it.

January 25, 2022: "2021" by Sean Vivier. Someone is talking to God about the plot of 2021 and how bad it was. Framed to take in various left-wing arguments as fact, leaving God to apologize, but He's working with what he's got and from the notes people had on 2020, which is even more left-wing polemics. This is the first time I've ever given one of their stories a rating of 1 that I recalled. It has an average, as at this writing, of 3.7, so maybe we won't see more of these too soon. THen again, according to the author's notes, this is a sequel to the story 2020.

January 26, 2022: "Teleportitus" by Mark S Bailen. This one's cute. Herk works at DMV and Liza works for Mr. Vanik at Food Basket. Herk likes Liza, but whenever he thinks about her during the day when he's in his kitchen, he teleports. But he always ends up at Food Basket, in the frozen food aisle, naked. It's works out, sort of. Even though Herk is diagnosed with "teleportitus", I counted this as fantasy.

January 27, 2022: "Turning the Tide" by Dawn Vogel. Short (250 words). R & D is making clones to go to war. This batch is different and the suits are all cheering. Replicas will infiltrate and they won't know what hit them. It's too short. It's just a scene and I don't feel any revelation told me a story. The author's notes didn't shed any light on her thought.

January 28, 2022: "Tourists" by Marlan K Smith. Tourists come from space to view solar eclipses because it's something they wish to experience. Or maybe they don't and they never existed, and all the stories and images are fake, and the people who say it's true made it all up. Or they never existed. A little over-written but amusing. (A great end to the month, but it's technically not over yet -- it's just over for this blog post.)

Week Five

I'll post January 31 with February's stories.