Short Stories
by RLC Authors
The Story Titles are links to the stories
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 SOME STRANGE HARVEST  THE GOLIATH BONE

Roger Heth offers what seems like a genuine premonition. Of something definitely to be avoided if at all possible!

What is a market for? To be exploited. What do people with cash to spare need? Something to buy. Okay, give it to them.

    SOULBUYER by Peter Lear
It was a legitimate business and it offered immediate cash payments to the customers, but its very existence managed to get up the noses of a lot of usual suspects.

    KEIN KAMPF MEHR by Henry T. Smith
He's the world's most famous, and notorious, prisoner. He's also a survivor. And he's getting out of gaol today. How does he feel? There's a queue of reporters eager to ask just that.

    LUCKY NUMBERS by Frank Arion
The world had come to an end, more or less, and there was a new master-class. But the bean-counters among the survivors still thought they had control-freak rights over the lives of other members of their own class.

    BELIEVE THIS by L. Gordon Range
Brion Fisch was lumbered into a loan-shark's clutches. He was further lumbered by the university's useless accounts computer. But he had a rather cute plan up his sleeve for when he ran out of money and the big guys came calling.

 OWNER-OCCUPIER THE ALIENIST

Added 09/2009. The human race is getting very cocky about its ownership of the Earth. Gordon Range gives you human beings something to think about!

Added 01/2010. [12.5K] Henry Smith has a seriously weird imagination; there's no other explanation for this story about a man who grabs an unusual business opportunity!

 The Star Stone Champagne Days & Bitter Nights

Added 12/2007. [37K] Alan Marshall wrote this rather spooky story of human relations and possibilities way back in the early days of RLC.

Added 11/2008. [19K] Alan Marshall's 1980-vintage story of how a severely typecast actor gets a chance to re-invent himself.

 Mo.A.P. (Deceased) Lifetime Guarantee

Added 11/2006. [63K] Philip Turner's story has been described as: "An entirely original contribution to the field of human relations with artificial life forms."

Added 11/2006. [28K] This story by Henry Smith belongs to the Literalist Movement of the 1970s, which insisted that words had to carry their exact meaning.

 NUM13ERS MERRY XMAS, MR. SAUNDERS

Added 02/2005. [33K] Author Corin Pecuniary thinks his title works a whole lot better than the title of the American TV series NUMB3RS. He describes the story itself as 'a corny pastiche'.

Added 12/2005. [27K] A touch of seasonal cops & robbers from RLC founder member Philip Turner. 1987 vintage.
Part of "The Honneger Memoirs".

 ULTIMATE SACRIFICE  PRESIDENTIAL DECREE

Added 01/2005. [19K] Science fiction from a master story-teller Iain N. Banks. A look at what happens when aliens arrive on the Earth and everyone gets something out of the deal.

Added 06/2004. [15K] Eric Custodian has provided a story which shows that sometimes, dreams and reality can converge at the same (bad) destination.

 WHAT YOU WILL HUNGRY JEO

Added 04/2003. [15K] Frank Arion has never been convinced that so-called reality is all that real. After reading this story of his, we're a bit less convinced about his grip on reality, too!

Added 06/2004. [22K] Gordon Range reverts to type with this tale of prison escapes by an extremely ingenious method.

 THE HURRICANE HEIST THE EIGHTH CIRCLE

Added 08/2003. [15K] Hurricane Charlie was heading for a small town in Alabama and due to arrive at breakfast time. The police had evacuated the town – but not everyone had gone . . . (by Bennett Delieve)

Added 04/2003 [58K] There has been a trend toward putting magic and psyonics weirdness into RLC stories. Eric Custodian keeps the flag flying in the tradition of, well, a whole bunch of stuff which may appear here one day.

 WHEN THE CHANGE-WINDS BLOW ATLANTIS BY MOONLIGHT

Added 09/2002. [129K] Sword play, magic, deadly sibling rivalry, invasion, a grand battle, treachery, betrayal -- all the classic elements of a good old legend are present in this novella by Eric Custodian.

Added 09/2002. [60K] Frank Arion explores the problem of what to do with persistent criminals in his own peculiar way. This story was written 10 years before Merik Katuryan's Diagnostic Process [see below].

 THE MAN ON THE WIRE TIME, THE CONCEALER

Added 09/2002. [40K] Some people get much too involved in their work. Merik Katuryan's story points out the hazards of doing just that.

Added 09/2002. [44K] Peter Lear confronts the questions 'What do you do with burglars?' and 'What's time travel FOR?'

 A PROCESS OF ELIMINATION WHITE HEAT

Added 08/2002. [20K] People accuse Gordon Range of "throwing gallons of blood around to gain people's attention". Not a drop visible in this story!

Added 08/2002. [19K] Alan Marshall is not a lover of winter conditions as he gets chilblains. But he does know how to make the hated season interesting.

 RED LIGHT HANNIBAL'S CHILDREN

Added 07/2002. [39K] This story is based around a real-life incident. Gordon Range really did see a red light on a light switch once. And that set off this train of thought.

Added 07/2002. [23K] Philip Turner's story was published in David Logan's magazine Grotesque [issue 4, 1993] -- "entertaining and most definitely grotesque".

 THE COVENTRY BOX THE OLD MAN KNOWS

Added 02/2002. [20K] Philip Turner had this story broadcast on the afternoon short story slot on Radio 4 in 1980. [Yes, they did have the wireless back then - Ed.] Crime doesn't pay, is his message.

Added 02/2002. [23K] Another Radio Four success for P. Turner. The short story slot was in the morning when this one went out in 1981. Modern Man versus the Forces of Superstition, is the theme.

 HUMAN FORM IN FORMALIN BEGGARS' BANQUET

Added 02/2002. [34K] Nothing gets an RLC author wound up more than the unworthy getting away with it. This story by Gordon Range has been described as: "easily as horrible as Dragonspawn" [below].

Added 02/2002. [19K] Bennett Delieve felt inspired by a contemporary court case to write this story in 1995. More bashing of the art industry - and don't the usual suspects deserve every bit of it!

A Place By The Window
Added 06/2001. [8K] Speculation on the nature of life; and its absence; by Frank Arion. Frequently described as 'rather weird'.

The Letter of Apology
Added 06/2001. [6K] Bennett Delieve shows how to convey fairly sincere regrets from a position of power.

The Definitive Country House Murder Mystery
The Definitive Country House Murder Mystery
Added 06/2001. [8K] Robert Dorning offers the very last word in this type of detective story.

The Shining Doom
Added 06/2001. [19K] More crime in a country house setting from Rowlan Indosh and a story written with a hidden agenda.

Incantation in a horse-drawn carriage
Added 12/2000. [36K] Harald Ghosht's tale of the occult in winter.
Reader rating: "very difficult".

Andy and the Vampire
Added 02/2001. [21K] Another tale of the occult by Henry Smith - but with a light touch.

It Makes You Think

Added 06/2001. [6K] Merik Katuryan's SF story for English students requires a certain knowledge of English grammar to get the point.

Landscape With CorpseLandscape With Corpse

Added 11/2000. [17K]
A Cautionary tale by Samfire Egolshin.

Diagnostic Process

Added 10/2000. [30K]
A science fiction story
by Merik Katuryan.

FuturesAdded 04/2000.
Note: This hypertext short story by Philip Turner is opened in a separate browser window: close or minimize the new window to return to this window.
   UPDATE This story is now available as a zipped PDF file.
Click Here to download the file (187,046 bytes).
Futures - A Hypertext Short Story
DragonspawnAdded 02/2000. [27K]
WARNING!
When published in Grotesque magazine in 1993, DRAGONSPAWN by Philip Turner was described as "fascinating and macabre with a distinctly horrible ending."
   NOT one for the young, the impressionable or the squeamish.
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