By Any Other Nerd

Title: Period Piece Author: Robert Graves Summary The narrator has been invited to a weekend away for a tennis tournament and relaxing.  However, in contrast to the other guests, he and his friend seem to lack in their life achievements and adventures.  Initially, this isn't a problem until rain ruins the tournament and leaves then engaging in conversation and a competition for who has the best response to the question of what is the most thrilling moment of your life.  People share different exploits, but the winner is Mungo, the narrator's friend.  He explains that his most thrilling moments in his life is when he and his wife had (and continue) to have sex.  This instantly wins him the award.  Wen his wife inquires what he did to win the trophy, he tells her that he told them that his most thrilling moments are every time he kneels at church and thank their blessings.  The wife is embarrassed by this remark and the next day, when e...

Title: The Skull  Author: Philip K. Dick Summary Conger is taken out of prison and asked by "The Speaker" to complete a mission that is tied to his skills as a hunter.  It is quickly explained to him that the government forces have identified the skull of the Founder of the Church who had died a few hundred years ago.  They want Conger to go into the past, find the person who matches the skull and kill him before he has a chance to speak his gospel.  With very little to go on but only having a jail cell as an alternative option, Conger accepts and is blasted to the past.  He initially arrives after the reported time the founder died so that he could get more details about the death.  While researching the Founder, he moves about the city is is witnessed by a few people that take note of him.  He jumps back to the right time and the right town to find the Founder.  It's a small town and so he quickly makes acquaintances to help find out if ...

Title:  The Country of the Blind Author:  H. G. Wells Summary Deep in the Andes mountains in Ecuador, there exists a village of blind people.  Generations ago, a virus ran through them making them blind and keeping them blind.  However, the isolated village continues to live and prosper despite the loss of sight to all of them.  Nunez was part of a hiking expedition on the Andes that when wrong and before he knew it, he was plummeting off a mountain wall to what he thought was his death. He awakes in a closed off valley and stumbles onto the village of blind people.  He initially believes that he will come to reign supreme since he is only man with sight among "the country of the blind."  But he soon learns that his sight is not believed by the villagers who consider him to be slightly crazy.  As he talks of sight and tries to explain the benefits of it, the blind villagers find his claims ridiculous and laughable.  He tries numerous ...

Title:  The Shout Author:  Robert Graves Summary The narrator is visiting an Asylum and participating in a cricket game.  He strikes up a conversation with one of the people in the Asylum named Crowley who tells him of this story.  Richard and Rachel are a happily married couple who awake one day having experienced similarly dark dreams about a beach.  Richard gets up and goes for a walk that eventually lands him in the town and at a church service.  Afterward, a stranger sits with him on a bench to strike up a conversation.  The stranger, Charles scares Richard enough but Richard cannot seem to escape from inviting him to dinner at his home.  When they arrive at the house, Charles assumes a certain amount of mysterious control and seems to be able to tell them what to do.  Charles explains that he does have immense power and in particular, his ability to shout can do serious harm and injury to any and all nearby.  Richard challe...

Title:  Earth to Earth Author:   Robert Graves Summary The narrator discusses his neighbors' Elsie and Roland Hedge,  come an avid follower and fan of Dr. Steinpilz.  Steinpilz has beene  encouraging them to not only garden to create their own compost.  They take to the task and create the perfect compost that continues to decompose materials in it quickly and does well with being good for food growth.  They become rather extreme in their gathering techniques for the compost including using their own body waste as well as chasing cows around to scoop up the poop.  As the town is subjected to the Blitz (it's England during World War II), the conditions are harsh but the two continue to produce compost even after their leader, Dr. Steinpilz's death.  However, one day, Roland confesses that while housing a naval pensioner, the man had died of heart failure.  Not wanting to cause a distraction to the war effort, Roland and Elsie put ...

Title:  The Full Length Author:  Robert Graves Summary The story focuses on William "the Kid" Nicholson, an artist whom runs into trouble with income tax regularly and is constantly needing to pay it.  The story is told through Nicholson's son-in-law who watches as the father-in-law figures out how to get the two thousand guineas needed in order to pay the tax man.  However, little scheming is necessary as a woman enters and asks if Nicholson would be willing to paint a portrait of the woman's daughter.  Nicholson agrees but discovers the daughter just died and there are no images of her.  He goes about trying to find details of her including her dentist.  He explains that she is the spitting image of Lillian Gish and so Nicholson goes off promptly to watch Birth of a Nation (the female lead was Lillian Gish).  The mother loves the painting and pays for it.  She also buys two other paintings that were in Nicholson's studio (though th...

Title:  Sky Lift Author:  Robert Heinlein Summary Joe Appleby was just about to take some shore leave on planet Earth when all the flight deck is called about an impending mission.  Reluctantly, he shows up and hears about an emergency mission to Pluto where blood packs are needed immediately.  The Commodore asks for volunteers and Joe waits for someone else to be the first to leave but no one else does so he refuses to go.  Shortly thereafter, he is also selected to go on the mission with one other.  The trip out to Pluto will require them to travel at accelerated gravity for a long period that is known to do harm to the body.  They are directed to go at 3.5 Gs which shouldn't kill them.  Once they take off, the force of 3.5 Gs is significantly felt and messes significantly with both spacemen.  Throughout the trip, they grapple to maintain control of themselves with little success.  By the time they arrive on Pluto the other cre...

As I move forward with my  365 Short Stories a year  porject, I'm still trying to keep my reading on track too, though clearly not as intense as I did last year  So this month read about 16 books (here are my last month's reads ).  My graphic novel reading has taken a serious hit and I currently have a stack of eight graphic novels that need reading before they are overdue at the library (have I mentioned, I love the library ).  I'm also losing interest fast in many of the series I was reading last year.  I read lots of DC's New 52 series and a hefty portion of Marvel NOW content.  This time around, I'm being a bit more selective in the titles and have stopped following some of the ones I was really into previous.  I'll be curious how long I'll stay with it before I stop reading most of DC and Marvel--which is a usual cycle for me.  It just gets so overly complicated and tedious.   All right, onto my highlights this month.  I've ...

Title:  Week-End at Cwm Tatws Author:  Robert Graves Summary The narrator starts by explaining that this whole story is just an explanation to the real story, the beautiful woman he met.  He was visiting Cwm Tatws for a fishing expedition and after a day of fishing, decided to get his tooth looked at that was significantly hurting him.  He went to the local dentist who happened to be open but the dentist couldn't really do much since his arm was broken and it was the arm that he used.  The dentist refers to to Mr. Van der Pant, the elderly man whom the dentist had bought the practice from many years ago.  The narrator finds the elderly man who agrees to help him out.  He puts the narrator in the chair and examines the narrator.  He agrees that the tooth needs work but since he doesn't have the up-to-date tools, the work is going to be quite challenging.  So he wires open the narrator's mouth and also restrains him to the chair.  ...

Title:  What's It Like Out There Author:   Edmond Hamilton Summary Sergeant Frank Haddon has returned from the third Mars expedition in which a significant number of crewmen died.  He made it back but not is faced with reaching out to families of crew-members he was friendly with.  He first visit's Joe's family and tells his parents that Joe died on take off but did so in a peaceful manner.  However, he flashes back to the actual event and the reader learns that it was anything but peaceful.  He moves on to Jim's family to explain that Jim had gotten the Martian sickness and despite receiving the best care, died.  In contrast to the story he tells the family, he again flashes back to show how little care Jim did get and eventually died in his bunk.  The final encounter is his two closest friends, Walt and Breck.  He eventually explains that they too died accidentally and without malice, but Frank in his head recounts the truth.  ...