(no subject)

[unikorento]

I'm teaching a new course this period. It's a CLIL course together with Biology. I thought it starts next week, but no! It starts tomorrow. Oops? Lucky me, lesson one is sort of easy to pull out of thin air.

Listen, flist. I want to make my students read some sci-fi. Hit me with recommendations of good/classic science fiction short stories in English that are available for free online. I've got The Veldt by Ray Bradbury first on my list, but what else? I'd like to make them read Gibson (for no other reason that I like Gibson, to be honest, but I don't have to tell them that) but availability is an issue. 

January Journal questions: 

24. What's the worst job you ever had? /machinistm

 

Oh, this one is easy. I was a telemarketer for the first year after I moved to Turku and out of my parents' house. I hadn't gotten into University on my first try (entry into Finnish universities is exclusively by entrance exam), but I didn't want to spend a year at home doing nothing. I wanted to Be an Adult and Live My Own Life. Up until then, my only job had been working during harvest with my parents. Working the harvest includes 12-hour days of physical labour in hot barns while being stung by various insects and itching from the dust and hay. It's grueling, unpredictable, stressful and uncomfortable. I don't like physical labour at all. But I would make it my freaking career at the drop of a hat, rather than ever have to work in telemarketing ever again.  

25. Favorite time of day and why? /matopa

 

Somewhere between 9 am and noon. It's light outside, and the day is still full of potential. It's when I'm at my smartest, I find. 

26. What book(s) are you reading right now? /siljamus

 

Metsän äiti (Mother of the Forest) by Anne Leinonen. It's a liminal fantasy novel, and I love it to pieces. When/if translated to English at some point, I urge everyone to pick it up. 

The Captive Prince by C.S Pacat. It's, uhm. It's nice. 

Comments

[bearshorty]

I Googled to see if Asimov stories were online for free and stumbled into 'Free Speculative Fiction Online" with so many authors. Www.freesfonline.de
I do not know how good this website is but it seems promising.

[unikorento]

This does seem promising! There's Asimov and Gaiman's How to Talk to Girls at Parties. Perfect! Thanks!

[rebeccarobota]

It's not particularly short, but there's always The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster.

Also, I find your sum-up of Captive Prince hilarious.

[unikorento]

It doesn't have to be that short. Most of them need to develop their skills at focusing on longer text. Is this the link to the whole story? It seems it is!


The Captive Prince is kind of hilarious. :P I knew what I was getting into when I picked it up, so I'm not complaining. IRL, I don't know if I would admit to having read it. :P

[rebeccarobota]

Yes, that's the whole story. It's basically about a world where screen time has replaced human interaction, so there's a lot to discuss!

The sequels to Captive Prince are slightly less ridiculous. I shamelessly enjoyed the entire trilogy.

[leiacat]

When I was first learning English, I found Asimov incredibly valuable, because he used fairly advanced vocabulary, but in sentences that were easy to follow and figure out from context.

Specifically "classics" might be tricky. There's lots of newer content for free online, including award-winning short stories - would those help?

Let me ponder what's available specifically classics-wise.

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula LeGuin

A shorty but goody, "They're Made Out of Meat" by Terry Bisson

Lots of things on Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Science_Fiction_(Bookshelf) - I could probably pick out a few personal favorites.

But wait there's more: https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/14/15970710/galaxy-science-fiction-magazine-online-free-reading-archive - might require more digging to find specifics, so don't know how helpful it is.

On the other hand, this here: https://www.sffaudio.com/public-domain-pdf-page/ seems to work ok if you type in an author name into the search box. I found a bunch of Asimovs, Sturgeons, Heinleins, so I recommend trying anyone you can think of and seeing if they have any.

And so on...

[unikorento]

I love LeGuin's Omelas story. I usually use it in a different course that focuses on "global citizenship", i.e on how everything we have in the western world is in some way a direct result of someone somewhere treating somebody terribly. It resonates.

Thank you for the links!

[adafrog]

Sounds like an interesting course. Good luck. :)

[unikorento]

Thanks! It is a really fun course. Or it will be, once I get it up and rolling properly.

[verdande_mi]

Hope the start of the course went well.

Sadly it doesn't look like Anne Leinonen has been translated into Norwegian.

[unikorento]

That's too bad. I really thought she would be by now. She's part of this group of writers that call themselves the "Reaalifantasia Group" and who are all about liminal fantasy and trying to fade out genre differences. If it's your cup of tea, the other authors are Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, Juha-Pekka Koskinen and J. Pekka Mäkelä. Anne Leinonen is my favourite, but the others aren't bad either.

[verdande_mi]

Thank you! I will see if I can find them in translation :D