#ReadShortStories about all sorts of things(166 to 170)

The most significant milestone in this batch of stories is the finishing of (new-to-me) stories in 80,000 Totally Secure Passwords That No Hacker Would Ever Guess by Simon Petrie. This means the full review of that collection is coming soon, and that I'm now going to read a few random stories about the place before the next collection I plan to read (by Jane Yolen, if you were wondering).

The Thirty-First Element by Simon Petrie — An excellent story that put me in mind of classic hard SF. Not because it was, shall we say, scientifically plausible, but because it took an idea and ran with it to an extreme conclusion. In space. It was interesting and contained some mystery (although the ending did not come as a surprise) and some light horror elements. Source: 80,000 Totally Secure Passwords That No Hacker Would Ever Guess by Simon Petrie

Against the Flow by Simon Petrie — A short nonsensical story with an eye-rolling shaggy-dog ending. Source: 80,000 Totally Secure Passwords That No Hacker Would Ever Guess by Simon Petrie

Reverse-Phase Astronomy as a Predictive Tool for Observational Astronomy by Simon Petrie — A very amusing story written in the format of a scientific article. Source: 80,000 Totally Secure Passwords That No Hacker Would Ever Guess by Simon Petrie

November 31st is World Peace Day by Simon Petrie — One of the longest stories in this collection, this one follows a woman who gets kidnapped by time travellers after a failed job interview. The kid appears haphazardly plan to hold the world to ransom using their time machine, but they didn’t count on our protagonist being smarter than them. An entertaining read written in a lighthearted style. Source: 80,000 Totally Secure Passwords That No Hacker Would Ever Guess by Simon Petrie

Elephants and Corpses by Kameron Hurley — An interesting premise of a body-hopping mercenary and not a bad story, objectively. I didn’t love it though, since the setting was not my cup of tea. Dark and not really the kind of dark I enjoy reading. But I expect others will find it more appealing than I did. Source: http://www.tor.com/2015/05/13/elephants-and-corpses-kameron-hurley/