Short Fiction

Northward into the Night

April 1, 2010

Old men sometimes try to tell the truth. But no one listens. No one listens because no one wants to know.  People prefer to sleepwalk through life. They use the trance logic of a hypnotic subject, walk around chairs they insist are not there. Old men’s words fall to the ground like birds hitting windows. [...]

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Less Than the Sum of the Movable Parts

February 11, 2009

Published by The Future Fire (2008.14), dedicated to “Social, Political, & Speculative Cyberfiction. An experiment in and celebration of new writing.” It’s s always a treat to be published in a magazine that you also like to read! The story was illustrated nicely by Chris Cartwright of Digital Design. See it at FutureFire. This story [...]

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Silent Emergent, Doubly Dark

December 1, 2008

A splendid slipstream anthology (Subtle Edens, from Elastic Press: London, November 2008) includes this breakthrough story, which received this review: “Silent Emergent, Doubly Dark” by Richard Thieme opens with a quote from James Joyce, whom I consider to be a primogenitor of slipstream. Thieme, fortunately, doesn’t try to match Joyce for wordplay and instead gives [...]

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The Man Who Hadn’t Disappeared

June 1, 2008

by Richard Thieme [This story was published in the Spring 2008 edition of Karamu (Vol. XXI, No. 1), a literary magazine published by the Department of English and the Office of Grants and Research at Eastern Illinois University with additional support from the Illinois Arts Council. It was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.] Harry or [...]

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SETI Triumphant

November 2, 2006

By Richard Thieme and Aaron Ximm [I was whining about rejection slips to my son Aaron Ximm and he came up with this idea. I wrote the story and Analog published it in the Zero Probability category in the October 2006 issue (Vol. CXXVI No. 10) . This was a poignant moment, first, because Aaron [...]

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My Summer Vacation

July 8, 2006

[The line between fiction and non-fiction is sometimes easy to discern, sometimes not. In this case, not. Names are always changed, of course, to protect the not-so-innocent. Someone might note that I had jobs every year with the city of Chicago while attending Northwestern University thanks to Alderman Tom Rosenberg, later a judge, with whom [...]

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The Last Science Fiction Story

July 1, 2006

[The Last Science Fiction Story was published in April 2006 in the Pacific Coast Journal by Stilson Graham whose novel Random Access Memory is a finely crafted and (like most of the work of most writers) unsung piece of fiction. Graham wrote about this story, “I am accepting this because of its quasi-nihilist tone as [...]

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The Importance of Responding Rightly to Critical Information

February 11, 2006

[This is "flash fiction," a new category generated from the fact that smaller texts are more congenial to online reading at the moment.  This was published in the Potomac Review, a literary magazine from Montgomery College in Rockville MD in the Fall/Winter issue opf 2005-2006. It reminded me of that figure-and-ground plaything which looks like [...]

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Zero Day: Roswell

February 2, 2006

[Published originally in Porcupine as a "literary" story, subsequently reprinted in Zahir, a lovely science fiction magazine edited by Sheryl Tempchin.  It has been critiqued, too, as an "essay." So there you have it - life in the 21st century. I received a telephone call from a former intelligence analyst for one of the agencies [...]

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More Than a Dream

December 31, 2005

by Richard Thieme [This story has an interesting history. Way back, when I was still in the Episcopal ministry, I wanted to start writing again and wrote a story called "The Bridge" on which this one is based. I had no idea if it showed promise or not and on an impulse I sent it [...]

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It’s Relative

November 11, 2005

[This is "flash fiction," a new category generated from the fact that smaller texts are more congenial to online reading at the moment. This was published in several online magazines - Words on Walls and The Listening Eye - and withdrawn because of prior pubication from others - Abyss & Apex and Liquid Ohio. Published [...]

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Peter the Great

September 1, 2005

[This story was published in Down in the Dirt in August 2005, and the subject matter certainly is. The Palo Alto Review, rejecting it for publication, said, “The narrative is a convincing replication of the character’s mind, the rhythmic patterns creating tension and momentum. The story’s subject is a difficult one, carefully rendered. However, the [...]

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Nice Things

July 15, 2005

["Nice Things" was published in the summer of 2005 in Red Wheelbarrow, a literary magazine from De Anza College. So nice to have an editor like Randy Splitter who works with you to make the story better. Although written from a different point of view, this story links nicely with "The Geometry of Near." Nice [...]

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The Necessity for Invention

July 11, 2005

[This is "flash fiction," a new category generated from the fact that smaller texts are more congenial to online reading at the moment. This was published in The Listening Eye in 2005. Come to think of it, this is a riff on a theme often heard in my reflections on anomalous phenomena. I probably should [...]

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The Riverrun Dummy

July 1, 2005

["The Riverrun Dummy" was published in Zahir (Unforgettable Tales) Spring 2005 (Issue 6), edited by the undefeated Sheryl Tempchin. I always wanted to write from within the "common sense" space-time perspective that Stephen Hawking said would replace the Newtonian one in a generation or two. Most people still frame the world through Newtonian lenses, but [...]

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Gibby the Sit-down King

June 1, 2005

[This was published in the Timber Creek Review in 2005. I'm glad it was. Like "The Geometry of Near," it's a geek story, and the people on whom the character Gibby McDivitt was based comes clearly and with a chuckle to mind. The story links to "They Call Him Mister Tubby" in Imaginary Gardens (May [...]

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Road Warrior

December 31, 2004

The real life of a modern knight in a landscape of sameness. Published in Porcupine.

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Incident at Wolf Cove

October 1, 2004

[Incident at Wolf Cove was published in the Summer/Fall 2004 issue (xxiii,i) of The Puckerbrush Review, Gossamer Press, Old Town, Maine.Prior to her death, the editor, Constance Hunting was a wonderful editor and offered nuanced support for many writers. The old PR was a treasure. The story was also published online as "a real page-turner" [...]

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Scout’s Honor

September 1, 2004

Scout’s Honor by Richard Thieme [Scout’s Honor was published in the Timber Creek Review, Summer 2004 (Vol 10, Number 2) and subsequently reprinted in the literary magazine Ascent in August 2005. It was dedicated to my wife Shirley … for good reason. for Shirley Scout was standing at the table, lecturing. His audience was rapt. [...]

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The Geometry of Near

July 15, 2004

It’s nobody’s fault. Honest. It’s just how it is. The future came earlier than expected. They kicked it around for years but never knew what they had. By the time they realized what it was, it was already broken. Broken open, I should say. Even then, looking at the pieces of the egg and wondering [...]

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Break, Memory

July 11, 2004

The story was subsequently accepted by Timber Creek Review but then not printed because it had appeared in some form somewhere, and it was reprinted by Bewildering Stories and included in their “best of” quarterly collection. I wrote this story not long after a good friend, Clint Brooks, who had a distingished career with the [...]

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Species, Lost in Apple-eating Time

January 1, 2000

by Richard Thieme [This is a pretty straightforward story about the emergence of successively higher structures of perception and understanding by all sentient creatures throughout the known Universe ... which takes us to the edge of the Unknown Universe.  Just as genes create proteins and proteins create cells, then cells somehow organize into organisms, and [...]

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Dancing in the Air

May 8, 1999

[Published in 1999 in Ascent, a literary magazine. I should go through this and rewrite it. But don't we often feel that way when we look at something from another time in our lives, written in a different style?] Dancing in the Air by Richard Thieme Thomas Ender did not know what to say. Dr. [...]

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Pleasant Journey

November 1, 1963

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pleasant Journey, by Richard F. Thieme This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org [...]

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