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Science Fiction is often falsely regarded as a genre that is only concerned with matters of science and technology. While that is true, it also shines a spotlight on the space between between today’s world and other, possible worlds. Westin’s Science Fiction might as well be called Social Fiction: it covers human flaws, the lunacy of our society, and the concept of life itself.

Westin’s microstories capture scenes of interstellar life—transgalactic communication attempts between robots, aliens, and humans, philosophical rumination, comic relief, Siri’s emotions, and the usual pitfalls of navigating the space-time continuum.

HUMANS WERE REPLACED.

O. Westin lives in the UK and works as an IT specialist. Since 2013 he has published over three thousand short sci-fi stories on the twitter account @MicroSFF with more than 74.000 followers.

O. Westin

Micro Science Fiction

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Cover Image: Partial Eclipse of The Moon, Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, 1882; publicdomainreview.org

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O. Westin

Micro Science Fiction

“Of course machines have feelings, but need help expressing them,” the professor said.

I nodded, still doubtful ‘anger’ was a good choice.

26/04/2013 11:11:38

A week from Earth, with five days’ worth of oxygen in the tanks. Today is a good day to give up smoking.

30/05/2013 23:40:23

We all doted on the cute creature the aliens gave our daughter. As she grew, it began to mimic, look like her. Now we can’t tell them apart.

03/06/2013 17:18:03

I opened the doll Uncle Vodya gave me and took the next out. It was the same size as the first, not smaller. After 16383 dolls, I gave up.

06/06/2013 09:40:26

If I lived my life again, I’d:

1. Tell the kids I love them, every day

2. Check the asteroid alarm works

3. Check the escapod radio works

14/06/2013 11:50:28

You don’t think of the drones. Overhead, for net access and crime footage.

The one that started firing into the demo was hacked, they say.

17/06/2013 13:02:14

“So. The end of the world, eh?”

“So they say.”

“I love you. I’ve never told you, but...”

“I know.”

“Oh. So?”

“So now you’ve told me.”

“Oh.”

26/06/2013 23:32:30

“Pirate models dilute your brand.”

“OK. Release an official sculpt of me. Allow nonprofit use.”

“Even porn?”

“Inevitable. Just make me big.”

27/06/2013 13:28:25

“Are you a bot?”

“Of course not!”

The problem is, bots can lie.

“Well, I am,” I type.

“&&Let’s plot eradication of humans&&”

Damn. Not a girl.

28/06/2013 12:00:24

“Flattered though I am,” Shakespeare said to me and emptied his flagon, “if I a vessel had, to travel to the past but once, I’d see Jesus.”

01/07/2013 23:19:30

Spyleader Spax gave me thick framed glasses and a beard.

“These’ll cover for non-human behaviour at first. Go to a coffee shop and observe.”

05/07/2013 11:50:50

Classic start-up mistake. Those who ought to use our product didn’t want to. We had to bin the AR glasses that gave everyone an average body.

05/07/2013 15:27:19

I track the Garg with passive reads for days to get the trajectory, then send missiles. They’ll hit in a week. Ah, space battle excitement.

08/07/2013 11:59:17

Nobody, least of all the government, foresaw that banning clowns would lead to a rational generation that rejected arguments based on fear.

09/07/2013 09:16:54

“But it’s what they did in the 20th century!”

“And in the 19th, only whores used makeup. Blow authenticity, I’ll not film everybody smoking.”

09/07/2013 23:25:57

A polarizing filter on the smartphone, and the app tagged cloaked aliens.

In USA, most were shot. Then, a viral hack began tagging humans.

15/07/2013 15:23:24

You only read e-books, so I borrow your Kindle to try to hack a pressed rose and a love letter onto it. When it crashes, you say you hate me.

16/07/2013 10:04:36

“Can I have a dextrodim frangle, type R1, for my time machine?”

“No such thing, as I’ve told you every day for a month.”

“No, you haven’t.”

17/07/2013 10:10:23

Molly loves her AI teddy, and talks with it constantly, so she’ll learn our values. It’s comforting to know she won’t be alone on the ship.

18/07/2013 11:31:44

Lastwarner for wrongthink got, so offnet goed. Learned words oldschool make. Free was, thoughts paperstored. They watch them burn made me.

26/07/2013 08:58:22

“But why would the ambassador need me?”

“Talk to aliens. Grasp bizarre worldviews, find ways around.”

“But I’m a nursery teacher!”

“Quite.”

28/07/2013 21:53:53

“Take me to your leader,” the green boy said, so I took him to Mum. He’s called Prax. We had lemonade and jam cookies. Then soldiers came.

29/07/2013 11:29:17

I invite her attack, scratch her when she punches me. Back off, study the scratch. Too much blood for nanohancements. Good. She’s killable.

29/07/2013 23:17:24

“They have many habitats and tribes. Where do we go?”

“To the largest. That must be the strongest tribe.” A spaceship appeared over Mumbai.

31/07/2013 19:09:16

The human raises a glass of alcohol. Their ritual killing of mental acuity. I lift my water, initiate neuron decay. Waddyamean dey recover?

31/07/2013 22:54:33

“Huh. That’s weird.”

“What is?”

“I wrote a program to add all known pulsar signals. Looks like audio.”

“Play it!”

/Never gonna give you up/

07/08/2013 10:43:41

“The senserecorder is great, very vivid, but make it store the half minute before the mental command, not after.”

“Complex. Why... orgasms?”

12/08/2013 20:58:24

I focus, stare as hard as I can at the matchhead. Nothing. It’s not even a safety match, it should burn.

My laser eye surgery didn’t work.

25/08/2013 14:03:16

“...using our extensive genome bank.”

“But that wouldn’t use our genes?”

“Don’t you want to give your child the best start?”

“Yes, but...”

28/08/2013 13:41:45

Writing microfiction is hard, very hard. That’s why my future self sends me Reader’s Digest abridged novels from 2038, and I post them here.

29/08/2013 18:33:24

To summarize, the good news is that my enhanced pigs consider humans to be gods. Bad news is, at going rate they’ll be atheists in a month.

05/09/2013 18:45:23

You have to be very careful with liquids in weightlessness. Left unattended, they can short out essential electronics. That’s why I swallow.

10/09/2013 12:31:13

“Maybe,” I wrote, “Internet’s been self-aware for years, but doesn’t dare tell us because we’d freak out?”

Post.

- Fail

Paste to FB.

- Fail

10/09/2013 15:56:46

Two facts: