Author: K Tempest Bradford

Length: short story

First Publication: Sybil’s Garage, 2009

What the Story is About: A woman gives her all to help her ailing mother…

Author: Tony Ballantyne

Length: short story

First Publication: Interzone, 2001

What the Story is About: Aliens arrive on Earth bringing a host of new diseases.

Author: H.L. Gold

Length: short story

First Publication: Amazing Stories, 1953

What the Story is About: Some of the colonists on Deneb need an attitude adjustment. The blurb:

“Wanta know what’s wrong with women these days? Spoiled! The whole kit and kaboodle of ‘em. They want to sing in nightclubs and hook up with some millionaire and wear beautiful clothes. Housework is something for gadgets to take care of, with maids to run the gadgets. Afraid to get a few calluses on their dainty hands!

“We got a way to handle that on Deneb. A girl gets highfalutin up there, the Doc puts her in the Ego Alter room. Thicken up her ankles a little, take some of the sparkle out of her eyes and hair, and you get a woman fit to pull a plow!”
Hold it, Madam! H. L. Gold said that; not us. Personally, we like girls—not Percherons!

Author: Peter Watts

Length: short story

First Publication: Nature Futures short, 2008

What the Story is About: Be careful – a lack of faith can kill you . . .

Author: Alan Edward Nourse

Length: short story

First Publication: If: Worlds of Science Fiction, 1958

What the Story is About: A medical survey ship brings back an unexpected passenger on their trip home to Hospital Earth. Will they be able to find a way to kill it before it eats everything aboard?

Author: S. Evans

Length: short story

First Publication: Fortean Bureau, 2004

What the Story is About: An agitated young woman of who refused to reveal her identity is admitted to the hospital.

Author: S. Evans

Length: short story

First Publication: Fortean Bureau, 2003

What the Story is About: A disturbing story about the difficult life of a patient after a special organ transplant recipient.

“The family wants this to be a brisobarbital match.” Manzaneres fixed empty eye sockets on her face. “They won’t consent to donation, otherwise. Would you be willing to consider it?”
Say no, she willed herself silently. Say no, say no sayno sayNO SAYNO! But her lips parted and she heard her voice, a wheezy wet whisper. “Yesssssss…”

Author: Eric Brown

Length: short story

First Publication: Other Edens III, 1989

What the Story is About: While living in a hospice waiting for his disease to take his life, a man comes to terms with his past.

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: James R. Hall

Length: short story

First Publication: Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 1963

What the Story is About: 409-year-old Mr. Lee requires another organ replacement.

Author: F. L. Wallace

Length: short story

First Publication: Galaxy Science Fiction, 1955

What the Story is About: The price of life was a life for a life—which was all the reward the victim looked for!

Author: Isaac Asimov

Length: short story

First Publication: Galaxy, 1951; audio from the X Minus One radio show, broadcast 1956

What the Story is About: From Wikipedia:

Harg Tholan, a medical doctor and researcher from the planet known as Hawkin’s Planet arrives on Earth and visits Rose Smollett, a research biologist and her husband Drake, ostensibly a police officer but in fact an agent of a secret government organization. Dr Tholan is researching a disease known as Inhibition Death, unknown on Earth, and reveals his theory that a sixth parasitic non-physical intelligence exists that lives in the minds of the humans.

Only an audio version is currently available.