Author: Liz Argall

Length: short story

First Publication: Daily Science Fiction, 2011

What the Story is About: Models at the Albury-Wodonga Academy of Fine Arts and Neuroscience display both their body and their minds to the students. Some professors there know how to get the best from their models.

You can listen to an audio version of the story as part of the Dark Fiction Magazine podcast.

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: LE Elder

Length: short story

First Publication: Daily Science Fiction, 2012

What the Story is About:In the future we may able to cheat death through technology. But are such modifications at the price of our humanity?

“Anna was an old woman, a very old woman, one of the oldest. And, although she’d had all of the latest upgrades, she was having trouble processing the doctor’s words. Perhaps it was that lingering bit of bio-residue mucking things up. She stared without comprehension at the doctor’s burnished face.”

Author: Lisa Tuttle

Length: short story

First Publication: Light Years and Dark anthology, 1984

What the Story is About: Is language in our genes? And is it language that makes us human?

Author: Marissa Lingen

Length: short story

First Publication: Futurismic, 2009

What the Story is About: Lori doesn’t realize choice to have painful memories of her mother removed will affect all of her memories of her mother and her childhood. Was it worth it?

Author: Nancy Kress

Length: short story

First Publication: Stars anthology, 2003

What the Story is About: The interstellar medical Corps investigates an isolated colony destroyed by an alien brain virus.

“There are skeletons throughout the city, some in homes and some collapsed in what seem to be public spaces. Whatever the disease was, it struck fast.”

Note: there is an audio version available at the same story link.

For more on the background of the story, see the interview with Nancy Kress in Lightspeed Magazine.

Author: Nancy Fulda

Length: short story

First Publication: Asimov’s Science Fiction, 2011

Awards: 2011 Nebula Award Nomination, 2012 Hugo finalist

What the Story is About: An autistic girl and her parents must decide whether to try an experimental treatment. The treatment could allow her to lead a “normal life” while possibly stripping her of her special talent as a dancer.

Note: MP3 version also available at Escape Pod

Author: Cory Doctorow

Length: short story

First Publication: Subterranean Online, 2010

What the Story is About: What might happen if we could easily find all those people locked in our brains? The consequences might be dire.

I didn’t set out to destroy narrative, reshape the law, and invent sixth-generation warfare. I set out to do something entirely slimier: I set out to create a genuine science of persuasion. Simply put, I set out to instrument the human brain and to discover where our representation of the other lives.

Author: Nancy Kress

Length: short story

First Publication: Lightspeed Magazine, 2011

What the Story is About: Is there a consciousness greater than us? or is a religious vision merely a trick of the mind?

Note: audio version available.

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