Story summaries written between 1998-1999
Lucius Shepard. The Jaguar Hunter.
Onofrio Esteves, due to his wife's frivolity, has taken up hunting jaguars again. One jaguar in fact, and quite a different jaguar to those he hunted in the past. The powerful force which is the jaguar takes him deep into the Central American jungle - very deep.
Michael Swanwick and William Gibson. Dogfight.
Deke's a wetware VR game player who takes a local wheelchair-bound World War I biplane scenario champ on. He wins the VR battle, but little else.
Frederik Pohl. Fermi and Frost.
Nuclear folly finally leaves the world a shattered place, thus solving Fermi's Paradox. A young boy finds himself in Iceland, sufficiently far away from the fallout to provide a glimmer of hope through the nuclear winter. And perhaps to seeing the bigger future that Fermi pondered.
Bruce Sterling. Green Days in Brunei.
Hi-tech espionage and environmental/big business shennanigans.
John Crowley. Snow.
Sensitive story about memory and death. The rich are able to have their lives recorded, and playback of the video at mausoleums enable those left behind to re-live the past.
Orson Scott Card. The Fringe
A wheelchair-bound teacher in small farming community puts the finger on bootleggers.
Karen Joy Fowler. The Lake Was Full Of Artificial Things.
A woman undergoes VR therapy in an attempt to resolve issues from her youth.
Robert Silverberg. Sailing to Byzantium.
Advanced civilization recreates great cities from history, with short-timers and virtually immortal constructs.
James Patrick Kelly. Solstice.
Rich, internationally renowned drug artist begins to see his clone/twin/daughter slipping away from him against a background of the summer solstice at Stonehenge.
Avram Davidson. Duke Pasquale's Ring.
A Dr. Esterhazy story.
Joe Haldeman. More Than The Sum Of His Parts.
Industrial injury leads to cyborgisation, including certain organs which do not normally feature in Science Fiction.
Nancy Kress. Out Of All Them Bright Stars.
An alien pays a short visit to a diner in the mid-West, giving the waitress pause for thought.
Walter Jon Williams. Side Effects.
Black perspective on medical trials. Not SF.
James Tiptree Jr. The Only Neat Thing To Do.
Young Croati starts the story as a spoilt brat who uses her parent's money to give her spaceship a deep space capacity. On her travels she comes across a microscopic alien with which she becomes intimately acquainted, and with whom her very future is predicated.
Bruce Sterling. Dinner in Audoghast.
North African city, pre-Christian. A wizened seers offers a bleak perspective for those dining. Not SF.
George R. R. Martin. Under Siege.
Post-holocaust, and one variant of mutant are able to travel back in time to enter the heads of long dead individuals and attempt to alter the course of history.
Howard Waldrop. Flying Saucer Rock & Roll.
Doo-wop showaddywaddy.
Lucius Shepard. A Spanish Lesson.
A beatnik on the Med comes across a very, very strange brace of clones. They are attempting to escape from a bizarre alternate world dominated by the undead Hitler.
Pat Cadigan. Roadside Rescue.
A roadside meeting with a furry alien which feasts on the fear of humans. James P. Blaylock. Paper Dragons.
A strange West Coast port, with humongous crabs coming ashore, paper dragons being built in garages, and palpable undercurrents of just waiting for something to happen. Almost a Stephen King-esque story, except Stephen King would have added 600 pages and a bucketload of blood. Much the better without it.
R.A. Lafferty. Magazine Section.
The Truth Behind The Tabloid Headlines.
Lewis Shiner. The War at Home.
'Nam flashback.
S.C. Sykes. Rockabye Baby.
A paraplegic has a long-shot option to regain everything - but it will mean losing all his memory. Is physical health that important to him?
Kim Stanley Robinson. Green Mars.
Mountaineering on Mars.
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