Dead Men Don't Cry: Science Fiction by Nancy Fulda [Paperback]

Nancy Fulda (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2011

First Edition.

This collection includes eleven stories by award winning author Nancy Fulda, including Phobos Award winning story "The Man Who Murdered Himself" and "Backlash" from Tangent Online's 2010 Recommended Reading List.

From computers that invent God to minds that travel through time, electronic ghosts to enigmatic extraterrestrials, these stories will jump-start your imagination and leave you awestruck at the boundless possibilities of our universe.

50,000 words or about 250 pages. Fans of Orson Scott Card, Lois McMaster Bujold and Timothy Zahn are likely to enjoy this book.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Ms Fulda is an accomplished writer, easily sketching out new worlds and drawing the reader in....  If you like thoughtful science fiction shorts, I recommend this collection. --Good Book Alert

I consider "Blue Ink" and "The Man Who Murdered Himself" the highlights of the collection. Both are imaginative stories regarding cloning... with some quite profound consequences. -- Sift Book Reviews

From the Author

It's said that writer's stories are like a mother's children. She loves them, not merely despite their flaws, but also because of them.

Presented here is a collection of my writings over the past ten years. Within these pages you will find tales of computers that invent God, minds that travel through time, electronic ghosts, and deceased extraterrestrials. Some of these stories have received more professional acclaim than others, but in my eyes, all are beloved.

The opening story, "Let There Be Write", is technically nonfiction. It appeared in Strange Horizons as a mini-article and is arguably my most popular creation. Certainly a number of people have told me it made them laugh.

"Pastry Run" was written in a single afternoon while trailing my then-two-year-old son around the house. It was so thoroughly disliked by my critique group that I nearly shelved it. I'm now glad I didn't, because it became my second professional-level sale.

"Dead Men Don't Cry", the title story of this anthology, was written with an eye toward plot. I sought to keep the action lively and the tension high. For the most part I succeeded, but if I were rewriting it today I'd get rid of the white-room staff meeting in the opening.

"Blue Ink" was written for a high school writing contest, and won. I expanded the story a few years later. I still love it even though the subject matter is hopelessly cliche.

"Backlash" grew out of my experience watching a friend struggle with post-traumatic stress syndrome. I feel a bit sorry for everything I put Eugene through during this story. He's a good guy, and deserves better.

"Monument" may be my most jaded creation. It asks the question: "How would humanity really react to extraterrestrial visitors?"

"All Praise to the Dreamer" was commissioned for Apex Books' Aegri Somnia anthology, and is one of those rare stories that took me places I never anticipated going. Tangent Online called it "as engrossing and brief and clever as a Twilight Zone episode" and reported that "Fulda's story hooks your attention from the first sentence and stays with you long past the startling, yet fitting, end."

"The Breath of Heaven" grew out of a concept that's enthralled me since high school: a reversal of the Evil Robot trope in which a computer is stalked by a human. Sacia is one of my favorite fictional creations. Perhaps I'll tell the rest of her story someday.

"Ghost Chimes" has the distinction of being the first story to prompt my mother to ask whether the antagonist was based on her personality. For the record, no.

"The Man Who Murdered Himself" is one of my earliest stories and, surprisingly, also one of my most successful. It has been reprinted three times and has earned me more money than any other single work of fiction. It was also my first professional-level sale.

"A New Kind of Sunrise" is a personal favorite, and is the basis for my upcoming novel. It's set on a world where nomadic tribes circle the equator, always remaining within the twilight band between Day and Night.

I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.  By the time you've finished, perhaps I will have completed a few more.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 212 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (February 28, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1460953622
• ISBN-13: 978-1460953624
• Product Dimensions: 0.4 x 5.9 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,199,395 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nancy Fulda is a Hugo and Nebula Nominee, a Phobos Award winner and a Vera Hinckley Mayhew Award recipient. She is the first (and so far only) female recipient of the Jim Baen Memorial Award. Her short story "Movement" recently received a Readers' Choice award from Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

Praise from Reviewers:

"As engrossing and brief and clever as a Twilight Zone episode, Fulda's story hooks your attention from the first sentence and stays with you long past the startling, yet fitting, end." -- Tangent Online

"The Breath of Heaven -- essentially a retelling of the HAL 9000 story, but with a very different outcome -- with its intricate examination of directives was a quite plausible updating of the classic three laws of robotics, and in some ways outshone both Asimov and Clarke in the way the story unfolded." -- Pearson Moore, Sift Book Reviews

"Movement is an award-caliber story, and clearly a major breakthrough in the career of Nancy Fulda." -- Aaron Hughes, Fantastic Reviews Blog

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Some Pretty Awesome Stories May 23, 2011

By Maria Schneider

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm being stingy with the stars here because there are several stories that...well, they made me think. And I'm all about fun and zany adventures that are a thrilling ride. Don't get me wrong. Several of the stories, probably half of them, are of the fun, thrilling type. The others range from thought-provoking to downright hit-me-in-the-gut consequences. This is science fiction at its best. It's about the future while being about now. It's about dreams that are bigger than life. It's about reaching for those dreams--so close you can touch it--so close you can't call it failure, but, as many dreams do, it might just fall short of the pinnacle. If you like Orson Scott Card's work--it's like Card but with more heart.

The characters are drawn fully and realistically. It was easy to care about them and what happened to them. These stories will break your heart, make your day, give you something to think about--and best of all, they will entertain.

My favorites were Backlash, Pastry Run, Dead Men Don't Cry, and A New Kind of Sunrise. My least favorite was probably Blue Ink because I cared and I could oh, so relate. Dang thing will probably haunt me too.

Even if you don't normally like science fiction, or if you've never tried it, there is something for everyone in this anthology.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars well-imagined SF August 16, 2011

By Sift Book Reviews

Format:Kindle Edition

Review

I found a good mix of well-imagined science fiction stories in this collection. The strength of the author's imagination overcame a few minor storytelling deficiencies and left me with an overall positive impression. All of the stories were original, yet they often referred to well-known science fiction classics, and a handful of them delivered a powerful punch I will not soon forget.

Story Quality

Ms. Fulda has a bare-bones style well suited to the expression of her imaginative and quite original ideas in flash fiction or very short stories. Her shorter stories, in which the thesis carries the thought, capture the reader's attention more completely than the longer works, which I found to suffer thin plots and lack of character development. "Let There Be Write" is a playful retelling of the Hebrew story of creation, with the accoutrements of the writing craft replacing the well-known elements of the six days of creation. This is such a charming and delightful bit of flash fiction I believe just about any reader would enjoy the story. "Pastry Run" was long enough that I found my mind wandering to the implausibilities of the scenario; if the story had been rendered as flash fiction humour I believe it might have been more effective. "Dead Men Don't Cry", the title story, I found possibly the weakest of the entries. This full-fledged murder mystery didn't seem to conform well to the rubrics of whodunits, with critical characters and facts revealed piecemeal throughout the story.

I consider "Blue Ink" and "The Man Who Murdered Himself" the highlights of the collection.... Both are imaginative stories regarding cloning, but a special type of cloning called "molecular replication", which allows the replicated individual to come face to face with the original from which she was created, with some quite profound consequences. However, "The Breath of Heaven"--essentially a retelling of the HAL 9000 story, but with a very different outcome--with its intricate examination of directives was a quite plausible updating of the classic three laws of robotics, and in some ways outshone both Asimov and Clarke in the way the story unfolded. Finally, though perhaps not as strong as the cloning stories, I found "A New Kind of Sunrise", in which an artificially implanted group of humans faces the challenges of living on a world with physical constraints--and especially seasons and climates--very different from our own, to convey a powerful message about the value of individual thought and action in the context of stifling tradition.

Writing Quality

This is the first book I have reviewed for SIFT that did not disappoint me due to deficiencies in basic writing ability. I decline to review most submissions, almost always due to elementary errors in grammar, spelling, syntax, or basic composition. Ms. Fulda is one of the few indie authors I have read who has demonstrated full command of the basic rules of the English language. In that regard, I found this short collection a real breath of fresh air.

Overall

If I rated this collection strictly on the basis of the cloning stories and "The Breath of Heaven" alone, I probably would have awarded four and a half or five stars. However, I am obliged to rate the work as a whole, and for this reason I award three and a half stars. I feel just about anyone could enjoy at least a few stories in the collection, and some may rate a few of the stories, such as "The Breath of Heaven", as classics in their own right. Overall, I found reading this collection more delight than chore, and I hope Ms. Fulda will continue to challenge us with entertaining, engrossing, and thought-provoking tales.

Three and a half stars

Review by: Pearson of Sift Book Reviews
Sift Book Reviews received a free copy for review from the author. This has, in no way, affected the reviewer's opinion. Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written and highly enjoyable, most of the time August 9, 2011

By Jimi

Format:Kindle Edition

Dead Men Don't Cry, by Nancy Fulda, is an eclectic collection of 10 science fiction short stories. I don't often read short story collections, but I enjoyed this one. I received it as a review copy via Smashwords. Some of the stories took me on adventures while others made me think, even as they made me cringe. Here's a brief rundown of the stories, without giving away too much.

Pastry Run - This was a fun romp of an adventure, all in the name of a fresh morning pastry. Forget Paris to New York and try Charles de Gaulle to the Sea of Tranquility. This story quickly pulled me into the collection.

Dead Men Don't Cry - Whodunit with a science fiction twist and a bang of an ending. It has been a while since I read a mystery, but this took it to the next level by introducing my beloved science fiction. I enjoyed the experience, even though I guessed the solution before the main protagonist.

Blue Ink - Six-year-old Jason doesn't like the funny smells, the scratchy hospital gown, or the idea of being cloned, but all the grown-ups say he's very fortunate. Nancy does a good job of addressing a complicated debate through the eyes of a child. I thought this story was fascinating.

Backlash - Eugene's much-anticipated daddy/daughter dinner becomes too exciting with the addition of an unwelcome boyfriend and a strange fortune. I loved the take on time travel in this story.

Monument - A traveler on the way home from Thanksgiving stops to stretch her legs and finds more than she bargained for. This one made me think, though it almost felt like the message was being shoved down my parched throat.

Tammi's Garden - Tamela lives in caverns that protect her from the bad air above, if you can call barely surviving living, but at least she has her mother.... That is until she wakes in an almost idyllic garden. But which is the dream? Read this and let me know if you can answer the question.

All Praise to the Dreamer - A new mom's pleasant day turns deadly serious as she tries to save the life of her two-month-old baby. This one reminded me of The Twilight Zone, but I really disliked it. That might have something to do with the fact that I'm a fairly new mother myself.

The Breath of Heaven - Computers grapple with emerging sentience and how they should follow their directives to establish a human colony. Does the ideal human operator exist? Sacia is an AI with an interesting and surprisingly likable point of view. I loved this story.

Ghost Chimes - Ghost chimes ringing at 3AM make Alicia wish that she had unplugged the machine, even as she settles the glasses on her nose to answer her mother's call. Her mom can be a bit nosy sometimes, but that's not the half of it. I didn't like this story, though the concept was clever.

A New Kind of Sunrise - Young Mikki finds a dying stranger. Her clan chief agrees to take him in, little knowing the profound impact the man will have not only on Mikki but also on the entire clan. This story built a rich and believable world in relatively few pages. I loved it and look forward to reading more in future.

Even though I didn't like all of the stories, even those made me think. Dead Men Don't Cry is a highly enjoyable, well written collection. I look forward to reading more of Nancy's writing, particularly when she releases her upcoming novel. Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Strong protagonists and thought-provoking story lines July 24, 2011

By Wist

Format:Kindle Edition

There is only one way to wake up in the morning, and that is with "Pastry Run." Ditch your current pastry delivery service and get this one. Space traffic and a solar flare? They deliver. My favorite of the great stories to be had in here.

Full review at Fantasy Cookie.

Overall these science fiction stories by Nancy Fulda come with strong protagonists and thought-provoking story lines. Highly recommended for anyone into science fiction and looking for a great collection of them.