Author: Tony Ballantyne

Length: short story

First Publication: Nature Futures, 2009

What the Story is About: What does it mean when the ants ordered Chinese take out?

Note: story is a pdf file

Author: Robert Guffey

Length: short story

First Publication: Flurb, 2010

What the Story is About: What could have happened after they shot down Kong.

Author: Danny Rubin

Length: short story

First Publication: Flurb, 2010

What the Story is About: A strange creature lives in the walls.

Nobody knows exactly what happened in that laboratory so many years ago. Still, it’s not difficult to imagine, given that Kim and Aldo could afford to go nowhere else at the time, and the lab staff, although highly competent did have a tendency towards sloppiness. Had somebody said, “Let me just have one more look around before we close up for the holidays,” that one petri dish would never have been left out on the counter over the weekend.

Author: Ted Kosmatka & Michael Poore

Length: short story

First Publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2009

Awards: Selected for the 2009 Locus Recommended Reading List

What the Story is About: “The animals hate you. You get used to that, working at a zoo. Over time, it becomes a thing you can respect. ”

Note: this is only the first part of the story. You’ll have to purchase a copy of the magazine to read the rest.

Author: Jeff Carlson

Length: short story

First Publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2009

What the Story is About: “a jolly biotech-and-special-weapons adventure set in Missoula, Montana, where our heroine Julie Beauchain returns with her sidekick Thomas Highsong for another unique, sexy, mayhem-filled caper”

Note: Audio version only.

Author: Tony Pi

Length: novellette

First Publication: Abyss & Apex, 2007

Awards: 2008 Prix Aurora Awards Finalist for Best Short Form Work in English

What the Story is About: Rival immortals use insects in amber to regenerate, shapeshift and sometimes change sex.

I pulled out my pendant, holding the virgin amber between my fingers. It was electric to the touch. In the moonlight, I could barely make out its leafhopper inclusion. The insect’s metamorphic energy, caught and distilled in the amber for millions of years, roiled within. We called it Lightning.

Author: Simon Ings

Length: short story

First Publication: When It Changed anthology, 2009

What the Story is About: The story “gets inside the restless, curious (some might say troubled) mind of a scientist.”

Be sure to read the afterword by Matthew Cobb, Programme Director Biology, the University of Manchester, which describes the work in his lab that inspired the story.

Author: Steven Gould

Length: short story

First Publication: Tor.com, 2009

What the Story is About: Travelers in the American southwest have to travel like the original pioneers due to an infestation of metal eating insects.

You can also listen to the podcast version at Tor.com.

Author: Neal Asher

Length: short story

First Publication: Adventure Anthology, 2005

What the Story is About: Note: explicit violence

“AI Geronamid has need of a subject for a scientific trial. This trial may kill you, in which case it would be considered completion of sentence. Should you survive, all charges against you will be dropped.”

“And the nature of this trial?”

“Cephalic implantation of Csorian node.”

Note: Currently only available in audio format.

Author: Nisi Shawl

Length: short story

First Publication: Strange Horizons, 2003

What the Story is About: From the story: “I scanned the labels of the laundry bags. Entomologists say two weeks is long enough. They’ve studied the life cycle; they should know. But it was researchers that got us in this fix in the first place, so I wait three, just to be sure.”

Author:  Paul Di Filippo

Length: short story

First Publication:  The Inferior 4+1 , 2008

What the Story is About: Hollywood takes an interest in Burying beetles.

Author: Jonathan Wood

Length: short story

First Publication: Electric Velocipede, 2008

What the Story is About: A very difficult practical examination …