{"id":6156,"date":"2026-07-03T14:29:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T14:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/?p=6156"},"modified":"2026-07-03T14:32:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T14:32:50","slug":"a-selection-of-small-science-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/2026\/07\/03\/a-selection-of-small-science-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"A Selection Of Small Science Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. The Glass City<\/strong><\/p>\n

It glitters on the horizon whether its night or day like a vast immense snow globe illuminated from within.<\/p>\n

The approach is littered with the dead. Those that were drawn towards its light, and those that fled the same. A millennia of bones, newly stained each day by freshly spilt blood.<\/p>\n

4. Duplicity Of Purpose<\/strong><\/p>\n

The crabs scuttle along the shoreline, scatter from our footsteps, return in our wake, oblivious always to the fact we can see through their eyes, feel through their shells, hear through their ears, taste through their tongues, the entirety of their being relayed to us via the multitude of microscopic additions we\u2019ve made to their bodies for reasons beyond their limited comprehension.<\/p>\n

Data collection. Mapping. Simple surveillance. Even curiosity. It all plays a part.<\/p>\n

And sometimes I wonder what use our bodies and minds are being put to by powers greater than our own, beings so far beyond the scope of our comprehension we cannot even conceive of their presence, except in these fleeting moments of paranoiac thoughts, these vestigial dreams of vast incomprehensible beings watching us from their kingdoms beyond the sky.<\/p>\n

6. The Covert<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are careful. We have to be. Any slip could expose our position, our existence, the fact we linger on here, in the dark, in the cold. We who are supposed to be dead, we who hope only to be forgotten.
\nBut they will never forget. Hate never stops, never sleeps, never dies.<\/p>\n

So we switch off our lights at night, let our fires go cold. Don\u2019t speak in the silence, don\u2019t broadcast into the void. Hide everything in the noise. Data, comms, production, movement, generation, disposal. <\/p>\n

Birth, death.
\nKindness.
\nLove.<\/p>\n

We hide them all. Disguise ourselves until we\u2019re indistinguishable from the natural flow of the world, the sun, the stars, space itself.<\/p>\n

You could be looking at us right now, seeing nothing, suspecting even less.<\/p>\n

21. Augmentation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tools used well become an extension of the self. The mind accepts them as its own. The well-wielded knife isn\u2019t held in the hand, it is the hand. The pianist\u2019s fingers don\u2019t press the keys, the keys are pressed directly by the brain itself. We do not pilot the spaceship, we fly ourselves directly through the void.<\/p>\n

28. Pocket Universes<\/strong><\/p>\n

A simple iridium box, 4-8 metres high and wide, powered by its own internal neutronic star. This warps the space within the cube until its 10 times the size the outer shell suggests. Oddly the effect persists even when the power subsides, granting you your own permanent spacial anomaly in a conveniently shaped container.<\/p>\n

Stack them in rows and you can solve the housing crisis, expand production limits, create infinite storage solutions, solve every problem caused by over production, ultra consumption, population explosions. <\/p>\n

Embed them in themselves like Russian dolls and you can hide entire universes in a wardrobe, hide secret kingdoms behind magic mirrors, let portals lead you to secret lairs, internal doors that open out onto endless elysian fields. The possibilities are endless.<\/p>\n

These days, the technology is mostly used by the prison industry at vast public expense.<\/p>\n

35. The Limits Of Expansion<\/strong><\/p>\n

We would not allow gravity to contain us. We grew. We spread. We left the Earth and colonised the galaxy, only to discover it was not enough. All along the perimeter we looked forlornly at the space beyond, too vast and empty to ever traverse. Finally, we knew, we had to live within our limits.<\/p>\n

And it drove us mad.<\/p>\n

40. Lifecycle Of A Technological Advance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Point to point teleportation was initially used for individual transportation, if of course you were exceptionally rich or important. Later, costs were reduced enough to make it viable both for large scale shipping as well as a means for mass transit, before later becoming so widespread everyone had their own personal transporter.<\/p>\n

Eventually the price came down so low it was cheap enough not just for single item shipping but even a short lived faddish revival of postcard and letter writing.<\/p>\n

Finally, made obsolete by various technological advances in competing industries, as well as shifts in societal trends, teleportation was reduced to being used primarily as a means for petty crime, intimidation, revenge, and as a low cost weapon of retaliatory warfare.<\/p>\n

45. The Loop<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Loop allows you to interact with yourself, time repeating within the enclosed space of the machine on a five minute cycle, your previous iterations present like ghosts.<\/p>\n

As a technology it has no practical use, but you can harmonise with yourself, or even race your own ghost around the room. A surprisingly satisfying endeavour.<\/p>\n

51. System+<\/strong><\/p>\n

Metal in the veins extending the nervous system. Data storage in the core of your bones. All of it more reliable than the old flesh. You\u2019ll never forget a thing.<\/p>\n

Now there\u2019s memories echoing in your mind disagreeing with associated files in your spine. Like deja vu, but worse because it\u2019s real. You can\u2019t reconcile the differences. Not even seeing old videos of yourself is as bad as this. <\/p>\n

A new form of dread.
\nFeel it in your brain, know it in your bones.<\/p>\n

57. The Logic Of Time Travel<\/strong><\/p>\n

The past is set, the future is not.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the mantra we live by. You can use the machine to go forward and still return to now. But go back and you\u2019ll be stuck. It\u2019s a one way trip. You can\u2019t go home again. <\/p>\n

So the initial solution is never go back. Forward motion only. <\/p>\n

The problem arises when someone else discovers what we can do, copies it, controls it. So what should we do then? Hope they keep to our voluntary agreements? Try and convince then to cooperate rather than compete?<\/p>\n

Obviously not. The only solution is to go back and eliminate them before they go back and eliminate us. When the present is gone, it\u2019s gone. It\u2019s all gone. We\u2019re all gone. Whether we\u2019re the ones to do it or they are, the now we know won\u2019t ever exist again. At least if we move first, we\u2019ll have the chance to save some of the things we love.<\/p>\n

Ourselves, mostly. But it\u2019s not like anyone else but us will ever know our crimes.<\/p>\n

63. Miscellaneous Creatures Of The Galactic Sphere #1: The Imp<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although rare, Imps have one of the most notorious reputations of any pan-galactic lifeform. Winged, bipedal creatures standing at most half a metre tall, available in a variety of bright and sparkly colours, imps would probably be considered desirable exotics ripe for domestication if it wasn\u2019t for their abundance of needle-like teeth that can chew through metal and stone alike, their blank refusal to follow commands, and their extremely irritating behaviour that quickly reduces almost all sentient races to paroxysms of petulant annoyance with hours.<\/p>\n

Though never directly antagonistic or violent, they are commonly associated with death and destruction through their propensity for inducing accidents in their prey through the sheer relentless thoroughness of the distraction they cause.<\/p>\n

The fact that Imps can converse in the native tongue of whoever they\u2019re currently pestering, coupled with the near indestructible nature of their physical forms, has led to most theories as to their origin assuming some sort of intended construction, whether through selective breeding, genetic engineering, or biomechanical manufacture, though nothing has yet been proved such is their resistance to research.<\/p>\n

Despite their evident ease with language, Imps refuse to answer direct queries (while endlessly asking questions of their own). They also ignore other Imps with such determination it is hard to tell whether they can even perceive each other\u2019s presence, although the fact they have never been observed to interact with another even by accident suggest, on simple probability, that they can.<\/p>\n

My own personal theory as to their evolution is that they\u2019re simply children\u2019s toys that got out of hand.<\/p>\n

71. Operating System<\/strong><\/p>\n

Technological colonisation of the human mind. Memory cores, language modules, calculation devices, sensory enhancers, location services, mapping systems, conversation logs. We\u2019ve installed it all. We\u2019ve granted it whatever permissions they seek.<\/p>\n

All of it built on proprietary code, unaudited, unupdated, bugged and leaky and lossy and hacked. Who knows what data\u2019s been exposed, how many of your dreams illegally exported, which of your desires they\u2019re currently exploiting.<\/p>\n

77. Immortality<\/strong><\/p>\n

We defeated death
\nonly to realise
\nwe hated life<\/p>\n

84. Scenes From A Pilgrimage<\/strong><\/p>\n

A statue in a valley on an otherwise uninhabited world. Ten kilometre long space hulks wrecked on the outskirts of a fishing village, mudhats and wooden shacks now fortified by scavenged metal panels. Gangs of cats with robotic limbs stalking dusty alleyways in a deserted market town. A girl outside a station sat crosslegged on a raffia mat, levitating and dematerialising for tourists pleasure, their coins and acclaim. Beaches turned to glass by laser fire, seas boiled away to steam. An island made of animal bone, clouds built from billowing skin.<\/p>\n

And still I\u2019m no closer to finding any trace of you.<\/p>\n

114. Nostalgia For Futures Yet Unfulfilled<\/strong><\/p>\n

Science fiction used to be full of future sports. Overly complex, dangerous, extreme, zero g, multidimensional, every aspect explained in excruciating detail, played in neon lit locales and luridly glowing, revealingly form fitting latex, in front of baying crowds, exotic mixtures of humans, aliens, robots, monsters.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t see it so much any more. No one cares about 3D tennis, 4 team football, really crazy golf. There\u2019s better things to do with your words, with your readers\u2019 time.<\/p>\n

But still.<\/p>\n

I miss them.<\/p>\n

116. The Essence Of Science Fiction<\/strong><\/p>\n

A cat (in a spacesuit) chasing a mouse (also in a spacesuit)<\/p>\n

121. Utopia Beach<\/strong><\/p>\n

They fight on the sand.<\/p>\n

Earthlings, aliens, animals from every known system and several that probably aren\u2019t, all duplicated at source, surreptitiously teleported straight into the pit while their original selves continue on obliviously back home.<\/p>\n

The perfect crime. No one but the paying audience will ever know you\u2019re there. And on your inevitable death not even you\u2019ll know you\u2019ve gone.<\/p>\n

Every fight your first fight. Every fight your last. Immediate dissolution of winners and losers alike. No matter how often they choose to resurrect you, you\u2019ll always be as bewildered, as confused, as ill prepared for what\u2019s to come,<\/p>\n

But luckily, that goes for your opponent too.<\/p>\n

139. The Kid<\/strong><\/p>\n

The tragedy of The Kid was that she lived every death she had ever had. Then jumped back to safety, some reflexive flinch jolting her back through time just far enough to make some other move and avoid the fatal moment this time.<\/p>\n

A reputation of invincibility built on scenes of her jolting like a stop motion machine through gun fights and battlefields as she died a thousand deaths invisible to all outside observers.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a difference between deaths. Bullet holes and stab wounds might be okay. It\u2019s the slow deaths that hurt. Sometimes this meant going back days, other times years, all those moments of her life lost forever as she jumped all the way back to before she ate the poisoned apple, before she contracted the deadly disease. Before the cancer formed, before the heart began to fail, before the body began to age. You could live those years ago, but they\u2019d be different each time, never the same. Friends lost, lovers lost, children lost.<\/p>\n

She awaited the inevitable moment of non-existence that would eventually come for her. The only way to escape the certainty of death is to remove the moment of birth.<\/p>\n

142. Use Of Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photographs captured in a detail so fine you could step into them and live in the moment forever. Perfect scenes straight out of holiday brochures and travel magazines. Sun drenched beaches, rolling hills of green, dappled light leading you on down some endless woodland path.<\/p>\n

That was how they were intended to be used, anyway. How they were marketed. But mostly, of course, they were sold so you could once again kiss lost loves, pose with celebrities, slide into bed with models and actors and athletic superstars, whether they\u2019d granted you permission or not.<\/p>\n

Or they were used to kill and torture without consequence, repeatedly defeating enemies on some forlorn battlefield, or abusing captives in their cells. Whether as revenge or catharsis, or the simple satisfaction of our society\u2019s sadism, it\u2019s all the same.<\/p>\n

Commerce, in its commitment to egalitarianism, caters to all whims, commodifies every single moment of every single human\u2019s lives. To withhold consent is to oppose freedom of expression. To question freedom of expression is to question society\u2019s very existence.<\/p>\n

154. Genre Assertion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ghost stories are time travel stories, projections of past consciousness into eras far enough ahead they\u2019re utterly incomprehensible to it.<\/p>\n

166. The Infinite Expansion Machine<\/strong><\/p>\n

I bought an Infinite Expansion Machine from the market to see what all the fuss was about. And it\u2019s pretty good, actually. I\u2019m impressed.<\/p>\n

You plug it in, turn it on and then it just keeps on getting bigger, at a constant rate of expansion, forever (or at least until someone turns it off).<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m not going to turn it off. I\u2019m going to leave it running for as long as I can. I can\u2019t wait until it\u2019s so big I can\u2019t hold it any more. I can\u2019t wait until it\u2019s so big I have to buy a bigger table to put it on. I can\u2019t wait until it\u2019s so big I have to get rid of the table entirely and most of the rest of my furniture too. I can\u2019t wait until it\u2019s so big it crushes me to death in the night and my house falls down.<\/p>\n

181. Prescriptivism versus Descriptivism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Language is a solved problem. The corpus contains every possible combination of words, from single sentence level up to multimillion volume novel cycles. Everything that can be said has been said.<\/p>\n

Inevitably, copyright is forever now. It is impossible to speak without a copyright claim against you. If you control the archive, you can silence whoever you wish.<\/p>\n

And yet, and yet\u2026<\/p>\n

Every generation remakes language anew, weirds it into shapes unknown to history. There\u2019s no stopping change, no restricting the limits of expression. <\/p>\n

These words are ours<\/em>. We will use them how we want.<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/p>\n

1. These stories are all taken from A Book Of Small Science Fiction<\/a> (part one)<\/em>
\n2. Which contains another 150 or so too<\/em>
\n3. If you’ve not had enough<\/em><\/p>\n__________<\/br>

Support An Accumulation Of Things<\/a><\/h3>If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon<\/a> or my ko-fi<\/a>. <\/br><\/br>Patreon subscribers<\/a> get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.<\/br><\/br>(Ko-fi contributors<\/a> probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). <\/br><\/br>Thank you!<\/i><\/br><\/br>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. The Glass City It glitters on the horizon whether its night or day like a vast immense snow globe illuminated from within. The approach is littered with the dead. Those that were drawn towards its light, and those that fled the same. A millennia of bones, newly stained each day by freshly spilt blood. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6156"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6160,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6156\/revisions\/6160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}