Author: Anne Walker

Length: short story

First Publication: Astounding Science Fiction, 1959

What the Story is About: A risk-taking hero of the “Corps” gets a second chance with a new body.

The story even cites a real-life set of experiments on arm grafts:

Hall RH “Whole Upper Extremity Transplant for Human Beings.” Annals of Surgery 120:12-23 (1944)

You can listen to the audiobook version at LibriVox.

For more information, see my blog post: “Hand transplants, face transplants … and brain transplants?”

Author: Margaret Ronald

Length: short story

First Publication: Clarkesworld Magazine, 2012

What the Story is About: Superheroes are made, not born. Nethead Casey must decide whether to fight them – or join them.

Author: Alastair Reynolds

Length: short story

First Publication: The Guardian, 2009 (Podcast)

What the Story is About: Soldiers are changed by war – how will war change them?

Listen to the audio version in the Guardian Books Podcast.

Author: Brenda Cooper

Length: Short short story

First Publication: Nature Futures, 2007

What the Story is About: Will John Justice be able to beat the fastest man in the world in a 10,000 meter race? And if it does, will his engineered modifications make a difference?

There is an audio version of the story available in this Starship Sofa podcast.

Author: Joe Haldeman

Length: short story

First Publication: Playboy, 1985

Awards: Nebula Nomination for Best Short Story 1985.

What the Story is About: A scientist in a terrible accident must have most of his parts replaced. He has some trouble adjusting to his new cyborg form.

They say I am to keep a detailed record of my feelings, my perceptions, as I grow accustomed to the new parts. To that end, they gave me an apparatus that blind people use for writing, like a tablet with guide wires. It is somewhat awkward. But a recorder would be useless, since I will not have a mouth for some time, and I can’t type blind with only one hand.

Note that there is some sex involved – it was originally published in Playboy after all.


Audio version also available at Lightspeed Magazine.

Author: Carlos Hernadez

Length: short story

First Publication: Futurismic, 2009

What the Story is About: From the introduction, this “is a plainly-told story about real people adapting to a plausible piece of tomorrow’s life-saving medical technology”

Author: Jeff Carlson

Length: short story

First Publication: Strange Horizons, 2003

What the Story is About: Garcia is man modified for deep sea diving.

They said I wouldn’t feel a thing, but my dreams were awful—pain and tightness, smothering weight, none of which overcame my excitement. I also dreamed of flying, dreamed that I dove right through the ground and smashed into a spectacular new universe, yet I caught only glimpses of brightness before my eyes ruptured and abrasive rock crammed through my mouth and sinus cavities.

Listen to the Audio Version at Escape Pod or StarShipSofa.

categories: carlson, short fiction, audio, mer-people, human-machine interfaces, 2000s

Author: Jeff Carlson

Length: short story

First Publication: Fast Forward Anthology Anthology #2, 2008

What the Story is About: Clara is “a human-shaped component in a cradle of gel and splice-wire.” She has spent 600 years exploring known space when she discovers a strange planet with gremlin-like aliens.

“The ship turned to investigate and Clara tried to override, not because she wasn’t curious but because she was still Homo sapiens in every way that mattered.”

Listen to the Audio version at StarShipSofa.

Author: Anil Menon

Length: short story

First Publication: Strange Horizons, 2005

What the Story is About: The “sensorium” synchronizes the minds of the people living on the artificial island of Meditation 17, and makes their culture unique.

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: William King

Length: short story

First Publication: Dream Science Fiction, 1988

What the Story is About: “Straight from the vats, they had no personality, but those that survived soon developed one. Bill-boy was one of the bad ones. All the Greens were programmed to kill but Bill-boy loved it… ”

Alternate story link

Author: William Shunn

Length: novella

First Publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2006

Awards: 2007 Hugo Award nomination, best novella; 2007 Nebula Award nomination, best novella; 2006 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award finalist

What the Story is About: A Netherview Station story. From the author: “Jude is a young boy living in a technophobic religious enclave within a much larger space station. When his father sends him to work among the biomodded Sculpted, Jude encounters a wider world he knew nothing about, and finds himself confronted by choices he couldn’t have imagined just days earlier.”

Listen to the audio version at shunn.net