The Bird Catcher, by Somtow Sucharitkul

I enjoy stories by Somtow Sucharitkul because Thailand seems underexploited as a SF setting, though Paolo Bacigalupi represents that part of the world well too.  The Bird Catcher seems like more straight fiction, just a memoir about hanging with a serial killer, but it's a very rich story for all that.  Made interesting by the description of the Police Museum in Bangkok, which seems to be a real place.  The protagonist is passing on his story of befriending this monster, and even understanding to an extent what makes him tick.  And it all seems to fit well in that weird, florid setting.  Somtow (he also writes as S. P. Somtow) manages to describe Bangkok as more chaotic than Calcutta, which is saying something.  This is a good story if you like horror with not too extreme (for today) doses of grossness.  I give it 3 stars.

Lincoln in Frogmore

Seems like Lincoln is everyone's favorite president and superhero.  Andy Duncan's too.  So we have Lincoln in Frogmore, a World Fantasy Award nominee in 2001. 

This story is really all about the setting--Sea Island Georgia, during the Civil War.  The setup is a WPA writer's project interview of a man who was a young boy at the time.  And supposedly Abraham Lincoln snuck into Frogmore to give the "coloreds" there a speech.  All in Sea Island vernacular, one supposes because that is the tale teller's voice.  I can't pass judgement on Duncan's authenticity, it seems all well enough.  But the story really doesn't do anything more than show that he can write that way.  Lincoln in reality is not convincing as a hidden true friend of slaves, down home as he was.  The premise ends up more odd than speculative.  I give it 2 stars, not really worth going out of your way for, though it is OK.

Old Macdonald Had a Farm, by Mike Resnick

OK, now I remember why I at least sometimes like short stories.  Mike Resnick.  Old Macdonald Had a Farm is a classic of the form--the moral dilemma.  Caesar Macdonald appears to have solved world hunger with "Butterballs", a meat animal that's apparently so efficient it's better than plant life.  He had to kind of stretch to get to this, but it sets up the point.  You should go read it, so I won't give away the central point of the dilemma.  But this sort of thing is what good short stories can do particularly well--set out a problem in an entertaining yet simple way, and make you think.  Speculative fiction is an ideal vehicle for this, as the genre setting allows a suspension of disbelief.  You can ignore certain inconvenient facts like the paradoxes around the speed of light if you need or want to.  The setup is clean and, in context, believable, so one can better set up the central dilemma.  Enjoy reading and thinking about this one.  Four stars.

Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City, by Jack McDevitt

I read a story like Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City, and it makes me wonder if I just don't like short stories.  This one was nominated for a Nebula in 2002.  And it's not a bad story.  It's just not much of anything.  Not-too-bright liquor store owner hears about the discovery of aliens, and barely notices.  OK, whatever.  I don't mind having read it, but I would not have gone out of my way for it.  Two stars because it isn't offensive or incompetent, but sometimes they work pretty hard to fill a category.

The Bleeding Man, by Craig Strete

This is one I have read before, and was glad to read again.  It's Strete's most famous story, I believe, now collected in If All Else Fails.  Strete's images and ideas are extroardinary, which is a good thing as his characters tend to cardboard, other than the mystical ones.  This story is the best example, a completely inexplicable man, bleeding continuously at a rate no one could sustain.  Very simply described and told, yet complete.  The characters' reaction is revulsion, yet the way Strete describes him is not overly horrific.  Mostly it's the simplicity, the lack of over-the-top adjectives and creepy tension.  It's a man in an institution. 

Read this for a thoughtful horror fix, it's a good surrealism example.  3 stars.

Time Deer, by Craig Strete

Craig Strete is a fine author from the intersection of Native American and stoner culture, with lots of deeply surreal work to his name.  The collection this story is in, If All Else Fails, has an introduction by Jose Luis Borges, no less.  This story is just a little taste, there is a better example coming, but Time Deer is representative.  Nominally about an old man being committed, it wanders in to explore what Native American life ending would be like, as his mind wanders away.  It's short, so painted in stark caricature, but indicative nonetheless.  The collection is worth checking out.

Accelerando, by Charles Stross

Accelerando is a "fix-up" novel, I guess meaning it's assembled from short stories and novellas, because that is what it is.  I came across this while reading the award winners from 2000-2005 on Free SF Online.  Several of its components have been nominated for awards: "Lobsters", "Halo", "Nightfall", "Elector".  And when I went to read them, I found that the novel was actually pretty seamless, so decided to read the whole thing.

And it was quite a commitment--bloody LONG, it seemed like, especially being densely packed with near future/singularity jargon almost impossible to avoid in describing it.  Obviously a labor of love, also, taking him five years to put together.  It is on the whole a fairly entertaining period piece, kind of a William Gibson satire or parody, careening off the edge of weird.  It just does manage to make sense all the way through, which I am sure was a tremendous challenge.  Did I say it was long?  Three weeks to read it!  Not counting the Firefly interlude, even.  So it's an interesting speculation on what would happen if change just kept accelerating.  Good thing it isn't.  Change just doesn't work that way, it differentially penetrates and our poor meatminds hold it back, which is on the whole a good thing, as long as they hold out.  After all, once our computers start to program themselves (see a recent Dilbert, am too lazy to get the link) it's all over.  3 stars.