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Truman Capote: A Christmas Memory

A Christmas Memory is a touching short story by Truman Capote published in Mademoiselle in December 1956. The story opens on a nostalgic November morning in a small-town kitchen, where a seven-year-old boy, Buddy, and his peculiar and loving distant cousin, an older woman with a childlike spirit, embark on the annual tradition of making fruit pies. Bound by an endearing friendship, the two pick pecans, plan the purchase of ingredients and share little adventures, including visits to eccentric places in town. As the story progresses, it evokes the warmth of Christmas traditions and the power of shared memories while subtly revealing the contrasts between childhood innocence and the difficulties of adult life.

Ray Bradbury: The Gift

In ‘The Gift,’ a short story by Ray Bradbury published in Esquire in December 1952, a family embarks on their first space voyage on Christmas Eve. The boy is excited about the adventure, but his parents worry about celebrating the holiday in the middle of space, especially after the gift they had prepared was held up at customs. Now, the father must find a creative way to keep the magic of Christmas alive for his son, proving that the Christmas spirit can shine anywhere, even in the stars.

Isaac Asimov: Christmas on Ganymede

Christmas on Ganymede is a science fiction story by Isaac Asimov published in Startling Stories in January 1942. The story takes us to a mining base on Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons, where the humans face a peculiar labour crisis: the natives, the ‘astrucians’, refuse to work unless they receive a visit from Santa Claus. It all begins when Olaf Johnson, in a naïve Christmas spirit, introduces the Earth tradition to the curious aliens. From there, Commander Pelham and his team are forced to comply with this demand, improvising a Father Christmas, a flying sleigh, and an alien ‘reindeer’ in a story full of satire and humor.

Ray Bradbury: The Exiles

In Ray Bradbury’s The Exiles, Mars becomes a refuge for banned writers and literary characters. Exiled from an Earth where their works have been censored and destroyed, these beings survive

H. P. Lovecraft: From Beyond

‘From Beyond,’ a cosmic horror and science fiction tale by H. P. Lovecraft published in 1934, tells the story of Crawford Tillinghast, a scientist obsessed with proving that human perception is limited. After weeks of isolation, he invites a friend to his mansion to show him a machine that allows him to perceive hidden dimensions by stimulating the pineal gland. The experiment reveals a terrifying reality populated by monstrous entities beyond human comprehension, unleashing horrific consequences for both men and challenging the limits of sanity and known reality.

Isaac Asimov: Franchise

Franchise is a science fiction story written by Isaac Asimov and published in If magazine in August 1955. The story imagines a future where elections in the United States no longer depend on the votes of millions of people but where a supercomputer called Multivac chooses a single citizen to represent the entire nation. Through his or her answers, this citizen will determine the outcome of the election. In the days leading up to the election, tension builds in the country as everyone waits to discover who will be the designated voter to decide the nation’s political future.