Author: Tony Ballantyne

Length: short story

First Publication: Interzone, 2003

What the Story is About: Buddy Joe pays for his crime by being fitted for an alien suit. From the introduction to the story in Year’s Best SF 9:

It is about the nature of the universe and the human desire to understand it and manipulate it, and the utter disaster that results. It it also about the old SF idea of scientists making monsters.

Author: Will McIntosh

Length: short story

First Publication: Futurismic, 2005

What the Story is About: A man on the PreCort virus eradication task force tries to help his bullied son, while figuring out a way to convince the plague to stop spreading.

Author: Tina Connolly

Length: short story

First Publication: Strange Horizons, 2009

What the Story is About: Space tourists that succumb to infection have their brains recoded – is their some way to save them?

“This ain’t a negotiation, boyo,” says Jonny. “They’re fresh and Hawk’s in a lather, he needs what you do.” Then Jonny is gone and Szo is sick to his knees because he’s just remembered that fresh means awake and screaming.

Listen to the audio version at Pseudopod

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: David W. Goldman

Length: short story

First Publication: Analog Science Fiction & Fact, 2008

What the Story is About: From the author: “Biological warfare—measures and counter-measures, human and otherwise. Plus Flemish.”

Alternate story link (pdf)

Author: Kathleen Ann Goonan

Length: short story

First Publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2008

Awards: Second place in the Theodore Sturgeon Awards, 2009

What the Story is About: A man’s memory lives on in the body of a dog.

(Only audio version currently available)

Author: Anil Menon

Length: short story

First Publication: Chiaroscuro, 2005

What the Story is About: Young Nicholas is easily amused – and has trouble fitting in.

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.

Author: Alan E. Nourse

Length: short story

First Publication: Fantastic Universe, 1956

What the Story is About: “There was no anatomical defect—Dr. Custer was right about that. The eyes are perfect, beautiful gray eyes, he says, and the optic nerves and auditory nerves are perfectly functional. The defect isn’t there. It’s deeper. Too deep ever to change it.” A woman with psi powers is an experimental test subject. See Wikipedia for spoilers.

Author: Nancy Kress

Length: short story

First Publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2007

What the Story is About: “A researcher seeks to find a way to let humans focus on a particular task without being distracted by the “static” of other thoughts. When he finds it, things don’t work out quite as he envisioned.”

Note: only an audio version is currently available.

Author: Jack Egan

Length: short story

First Publication: Amazing Stories, 1963

What the Story is About: “By all the laws of nature, he should have been dead. But if he were alive … then there was something he had to find.”

Download the audio version at LibriVox