Give Me SF to Read

Science fiction short stories curated for your Instapaper.

[givemesftoread]

The room was very slightly tilted. Which meant that the president had begun his precipitous jerk forward, propelled by the impact of Booth’s little bullet.

[givemesftoread]

It seemed to me that a perfect memory couldn’t be a narrative any more than unedited security-cam footage could be a feature film.

[givemesftoread]

Later I hid within the bipeds themselves, and whatever else lurked in those haunted skins began to talk to me. It said that bipeds were called guys, or men, or assholes. It said that MacReady was sometimes called Mac. It said that this collection of structures was a camp.

[givemesftoread]

"The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" by E. Lily Yu

The terms of the relationship were copied out, at the wasps’ direction, on small paper plaques embedded in propolis and wax around the hive.

[givemesftoread]

Oh, love, are we the first? Have others loved with their whole selves? Oh, sad thinking, that lovers before us have left no trace.

[givemesftoread]

“Um,” I said, “do you want to dance?”

She shook her head immediately. “It is not permitted,” she said. “I can do nothing that might cause damage to property.”

[givemesftoread]

Being unable to download her old memories meant Cordelia would have to delete herself bit by bit to keep functioning. All because Rava had asked if she wanted to dance.

[givemesftoread]

Game addiction burns hot and fast, unless the game itself keeps changing.

[givemesftoread]

He waited for the zombie to sense him and raise its sightless face but it didn’t move. It was in one corner, like a gerbil or something in an aquarium.

[givemesftoread]

At this thought he felt a deep, guilty excitement, as if he had come to a forbidden door at the end of a private corridor and heard, as he slowly turned the key, a sound of distant music.

[givemesftoread]

Playing with the doctors is becoming more and more tedious as the weeks go by. They treat me as if I were simply an idiot savant: a patient who exhibits certain signs of high intelligence, but still just a patient.