Old Dead Futures

Mr. Henry and friends bring their fleshy machine with the wires and the waves and set it up in the main room and make big pronouncements to Mother about how it's for the good of the country.

Good Times Come

"Half the snakes are poisonous, and the other half are not," Tash said. "The Goddess alone decides who will live, be maimed, or die."

Scherzo, Largo, Draco

Elisha peeled a long strip of skin off her arm and let it fall to the stone of Grandmother's floor. Underneath showed a sliver of scaly blue.

Paperheart

She touched him with one finger under his chin, and he felt it like a papercut.

Golden Apples

Sometimes the men throw yellow quince, hard as butternut squash, hard as stones.

Flash Bang Remember (with Caroline M. Yoachim)

Red-haired Mother, with her sharp nose and freckled chest, leaned over the hydroponics channel and declared that the dead plants were Girl23's fault.

"I really liked "Flash Bang Remember" by Tina Connolly & Caroline M. Yoachim.... It's lightly told and engaging, with a YA feel, and for all that there's a thoughtful core to the piece." -- Rich Horton, Locus (Recommended).

One Ear Back

My mother was cursed to live as a cat until she did a good deed that had never yet been done. I have since heard of curses stranger, but this is the one that affected me, for she was pregnant when the curse fell.

"This one fits roughly into the fairytale category, with transformative curses, quests and tasks to be fulfilled. But the interest is in the character of the cat and how she reacts to her circumstances -- what part of her is cat and what part is woman. The ending is not quite what one would automatically expect, but better." -- Lois Tilton, Locus.

(Note: This story is a loose retelling of the Icelandic folk tale "Kisa the Cat".)

Angel Plantation

"Reward all you like," said Angel Samuel, "But there's nothing better than old-fashioned fear."

Inflection

"I am he," he had said when they met, and upon the word "he" had touched his shoulder with one brittle, blue-tinged hand. That meant his name.

Selling Home

"Penny lives in some future world where people like her are stuck on a Bridge with many levels. She sees other young people living in bubbles and thinks their life is better. She tries to take care of her brothers so that their life is better than hers. All this comes together for an imaginative and compelling story." -- Sam Tomaino, SF Revu.

"I liked Tina Connolly's 'Selling Home' best. It is set on a tall structure where poor people live on the lower levels while rich people live up higher. The rich people have a fertility problem, which means that the struggling narrator Penny is faced with a hard question: what to do when a chance-met rich girl wants to buy her little brother?" -- Rich Horton, Locus.

Silverfin Harbour

In my mind, Sully is more beautiful than she could have been. When all I have left are dry facts (she was dark, she existed), I have to fill in the gaps. Concretely piece her together in my mind, and I know I will get her wrong.

As We Report to Gabriel

Eight days ago there was only me and Ten Motes. The house was thick with quiet, rigorously anti-fairy, clean as my five polished pink toes.

"An original and quite charming story about fairies, set in a house owned by a woman forced to renounce any interest in fairies for political reasons, which is a problem given that she is married to one. The telling is delightful and the depiction of the nature of fairies is original and unexpected." -- Rich Horton, Locus (Recommended).

Ten

Life repeats itself.

This is all we know, that out of the blackness of time there came strings of 1's and 0's. We were born in an explosion of quicksilver life. Our gods are dead now, moved on to newer worlds.

Only the game remains.

Recalculating

Please affirm you have the necessary equipment: Scuba Gear. Wetsuit, preferably your least favorite. One pound fresh produce, tightly bagged, state type___? Long-cherished dream of co-worker, describe wistful imaginings___?

Zebedee the Giant Man

Zebedee was eighteen feet tall, rough in thick olive tortua hide, with massive calloused hands the size of wagon wheels.

Zebedee the Giant Man is a vignette that manages to convey the essence of a world in two short pages. It's slim but compelling. -- Tony Owens, Horrorscope.

Child of Sunlight, Woman of Blood

For the third century I thought only of food. Bafalo haunches, spitted and roasted over fire, crackling crisp black-gold on the outside. Tender spinica leaves, folded around melting pepperpear fruit. And chokolat, always chokolat.

On Glicker Street

On Glicker Street it was always fall.
Martine walked there. Martine who looked like spring; Martine who was tall and pale and dotted her lemon hair with the snowdrops that grew only on her street, up in the most expensive part of spring.

It's the stories without a clear genre that I think demonstrate the "speculative" coda... "On Glicker Street: A Seasonal Quartet" is an excellent example. Fantasy and science fiction woven tightly together. -- Paul Cole, Beam Me Up.

Hard Choices

If you vow to stop looking at Bitsy's shirt in history class, go to C.
If you tell your sister to be quiet and respect her elders, go to D.

Birthday Wish

"But I like riding on dinosaurs better than dumb old minivans," said Benji.

Turning the Apples

"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.

Turning the Apples by Tina Connolly is also a worthy mention, a tale of a psionic black market and a new SF-nal spin on human trafficking and slavery. A very enjoyable read. -- Jason Fischer, Last Short Story.

"Turning the Apples" is a fascinating story which I totally enjoyed, with a great character in Szo...fans of unusual science fiction stories will enjoy this tale. -- Jason Sanford, The Fix.

The God-Death of Halla

"Morsel of the god," said the Mouth. "A landowner has accused you of robbing him with a knife. Tell us what you have done."

Halla...suffers from a debilitating sensitivity that afflicts her whenever someone receives the judgment of the "Mouth" - the human embodiment of a cruel god. Skillful writing lends this scenario credibility, delivering Halla's backstory in comprehensible snippets as the story progresses. -- Paul S. Jenkins, The Fix.

Facts of Bone

Jules stripped to her underwear, dusted herself with powder and stepped into the stretchy flying suit.

Connolly gives us a heroine with whom we can empathize and care for. As Jules loses her struggle to maintain her mobility, we are brought to a surprising and poignant conclusion. Recommended. -- Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, The Fix.

The conclusion to this story is an incredibly sensitive treatment of disability, of mental health affected by physical fragility, and of the psychological implications of virtuality and remote experience. An excellent story, for me one of the outstanding pieces in this issue. -- Johann Carlisle, The Future Fire.

A Day Out, with Stereoscopes

Here is the first joke of Betty L. Duncan. Why do the three-eyed aliens bank on the moon? Because there is not enough sun to go around. Press the blue button when you have finished laughing.

An effective second-person story by Tina Connolly that is hugely hilarious and beguiling. -- Benjamin Gottlieb, Art + Culture.

A Green Man Review Best of 2008 Pick, from Camille Alexa's Mildly Anarchistic Review of Favorites of 2008.

The Bitrunners

The thing about Mars is, they catch you when you yoink stuff.

A very well presented unreliable narrator, with a bitter past. -- Rich Horton, Locus.

A short but superlative substantiation of the quality of speculative fiction being published on the Internet, this exceptional anthology of the best science fiction and fantasy put online in 2008 includes gems by genre luminaries as well as rising stars like Tina Connolly and Beth Bernobich. -- Publishers Weekly, starred review for Unplugged.

On the Eyeball Floor

We've got robotic arms to put the eyeballs in. Metal clamps to pull down the eyelids.

Connolly's story is written with a keen ear for language and presents some fascinating imagery and ideas. She is definitely a writer to keep an eye on. -- Jason Sanford, The Fix.

The Salivary Reflex

The translucent knobs on the ends of their limbs reminded her of Jell-O, and she tried very hard not to wonder how they tasted.

Tina Connolly offers a story rich in the sensual details of smell and taste. Connolly has a keen eye for the details of changing relationships and desires. -- Rosanne Rabinowitz, The Fix.

At times this tale of detached strangeness reminded me of Kelly Link's fiction. Allison is wonderfully drawn, as are her husband Tom and friend Paul, and the aliens are used in an intriguing and unusual manner to complete her story. -- Shaun C. Green, Nostalgia for Infinity.

The Goats are Going Places

"Oy," said Ryder. "That's how Group dynamics are. You have to play people. You're too old to get it."

The second issue of the Australian YA zine Shiny again features three fine stories, and again my favorite was the most light-hearted: Tina Connolly's "The Goats Are Going Places" is something of a sendup of YA hits like Gossip Girl. -- Rich Horton, Locus.

A sharp and wickedly written teen high-school fantasy comedy of sorts, in the best American tradition of such. -- Dirk Flinthart

Moon at the Starry Diner

"I love a bear," repeated Jem. She toyed with her paper napkin. "Except sometimes he's a Volvo, or a Venus Flytrap, or a shed. How can anyone love a shed? He wasn't even waterproof."

Sufficient Cause

Tina Connolly made me laugh with her clever use of acronyms and savage satire in "Sufficient Cause." -- Carole Ann Moleti, Tangent.

A Memory of Seafood

A memory of seafood. (That sounds like one of those divine collections, doesn't it, like a flight of starlings or a murder of crows? I remember when I was a mere seventeen, a slight but fully breasted slip of a girl, my best girl chums and I used to entertain the governor as he waited for his tea at the old tea house on Front Street -- you Oolong afficionados, you remember it -- and he affectionately called us "a flirtation of jailbaits" -- but that's neither here nor there.)

I quite liked "A Memory of Seafood", by Tina Connolly, a deadpan restaurant review, its effect arising from the nature of the dish served. -- Rich Horton, Locus.

It Could Happen

Smart, assured, and wry, this is a great story about a man who writes terrible ones. Recommended. -- Alasdair Stuart, Tangent

A Buildup of Days

Then there's the extraordinary "A Buildup of Days" by Tina Connolly. -- Joules Taylor, SF Crowsnest.

Love at Second Sight

"Love at Second Sight" is fast-paced and a lot of fun. I haven't a single criticism of what Connolly put on paper, finding wit and a sense of joy in her sentence. -- Matthew M. Foster, Tangent.

Yakchily 556's Totally Updated Movie Guide...

In the Constant Image

Frigicide

Remember Aunt Else

Running with the...

Cold Comfort

Monster in the Cafeteria

My belly is empty like an ice cream cone when the ice cream's licked out.

The King of Halloween

How to Talk to Little Girls

TERESA
Frightened they tremble, those mighty elephants,
long-neck giraffes, brown-backed gorillas
from washington park they all come running
to 'scape the slaughter of salem-town.

How Frederika Cassowary-Jones Joined the Ladies' Society of Benevolent Goings-On

FRED
Fine place, I said. [Kindly] You ain't deaf, are you? You look familiar. I met a deaf woman once in a mine. I mean, she weren't deaf when we went in, but after she tried to cart off my gold and I had to fancy-shoot the hat off her monkey in a closed space, she lost her hearing.

tiny atrocities

those silly sordid secrets
that everyone has

And My Sinuses Are Killing Me

They never understood urban,
these little green men with their
florotechnology.

How to Walk in Heels

Five women stretched
on narrow white beds
boasting about former
perambulation.

Growing Days

We only talk now on growing days -
Dad checks my span and shoots me up.

Rehydration

The ship is hot; it backfires
in the last row of corn, and there is popcorn in the night

Hold Fast

   Tam Lin's baggage hides a dowry of one dozen gold cups, faery gold and reeking of under-the-hill.
   Eyes stinging, she scours them with Comet.

The Heart Has a Memory

The Gourmet Cook Takes a Husband