Science Fiction Short Stories About Personal Identity

February 12, 2013 7:47 PM

I'm a graduate student about to propose a college writing class on science fiction and personal identity. The stories need to be short and brand name authors are preferred. I've got a prospective syllabus (see inside), but I bet there's a lot of good stuff that I'm missing that you know about.

My prospective syllabus is something like this:
Lord Dunsany - The Hashish Man
William Gibson - Johnny Mnemonic
James Tiptree Jr. - The Girl Who Was Plugged In
Blade Runner
Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
Stanislaw Lem - selections from The Cyberiad
Undecided shorts by Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel Delany, J.G. Ballard

Personal identity is a rather nebulous topic, so please, interpret it broadly. I prefer science fiction to fantasy (Dunsany will be the sole exception because The Hashish Man is so short and so connected to personal dissociation). Stories by authors who aren't white or male are preferred. If you have other suggestions from the authors I've listed, I'm all ears.

posted by vathek to writing & language (50 answers total)

How about The Deep End by Nisi Shawl?
posted by spunweb at 7:57 PM on February 12

It's hard to imagine someone more on point than Greg Egan, e.g. "Closer", "TAP", "The Extra", and "Singleton", and that's just a selection among what's available for free online.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:59 PM on February 12 [8 favorites]

"Flowers for Algernon" and "A Rose for Ecclesiastes"
posted by ubiquity at 8:01 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

Understand and Liking What You see: A Documentary by Ted Chiang.
posted by carsonb at 8:06 PM on February 12 [4 favorites]

Shatterday, Harlan Ellison. (that link describes a TV episode which was based on the story, but I'm recommending the story itself)

All the Myriad Ways, Larry Niven.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:09 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Stephenson.
posted by Sunburnt at 8:11 PM on February 12

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut
posted by CCCC at 8:12 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

Octavia Butler (not male, not white) might be a good match; I haven't read too much of her shorter fiction but Bloodchild could be one to look at. The majority of her work hits upon themes of gender, racial and species-identity.
posted by bcwinters at 8:23 PM on February 12

"Bridesicle" by Will McIntosh
posted by trunk muffins at 8:29 PM on February 12

Where Am I? by Daniel Dennet.
posted by entropone at 8:33 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

These are great answers. Thank you all. To be clear, my prospective syllabus accounts for about the total amount of pages available (since the class is mostly about learning how to write in an academic style), so I certainly don't mind replacing white male authors with other white male authors if the stories are compelling enough.

Brand names are necessary just to get kids in the seats, but there's some leeway because sci-fi classes are always popular. Literary greatness is not entirely necessary, but substantial ideas are. Greg Egan (or PKD, for that matter) is a wonderful example of someone whose ideas count for more than their prose. As you may be able to tell from my prospective syllabus, my knowledge of the genre more or less cuts off in the mid-seventies, so later works are especially welcome. I'll be doing my best to read everything suggested. Again, thank you all.
posted by vathek at 8:36 PM on February 12

WEB DuBois' The Comet might be a good fit as well
posted by spunweb at 8:38 PM on February 12

Porridge on Islac, Ursula K. Leguin.
posted by entropone at 8:53 PM on February 12

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag by Robert Heinlein, about a guy who can't remember what he does during the day.

All You Zombies, also by Heinlein, the mother of all time-travel stories.
posted by Gorgik at 9:00 PM on February 12 [4 favorites]

Think Like a Dinosaur by James Patrick Kelly

Also, here is a review of "Think Like a Dinosaur" that might lead you to other stories worth reading.

Not really sci-fi or fantasy, but definitely worth reading in a broadly literature and personal identity setting is A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality (pdf) by John Perry
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 9:15 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

I can't remember the name of the story, but there was an amazing work by a female author involving a woman and alien sex and just constant tentacles and I'm hoping someone here knows what it is because it would be perfect!
posted by misha at 9:17 PM on February 12

James Tiptree Jr. - The Girl Who Was Plugged In

I'd base the class on this story.

I Am the Doorway - Stephen King
The Shadow Out of Time - HP Lovecraft

Despite their authors, both of these are more science-fiction than horror.

The Things - Peter Watts
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 9:29 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

Joanna Russ - The Female Man or "When It Changed"
posted by SugarAndSass at 9:31 PM on February 12

misha: Are you thinking of "Spar" by Kij Johnson?
posted by hackwolf at 9:33 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

Always True to Thee, in My Fashion by Nancy Kress.

Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester.
posted by creepygirl at 9:37 PM on February 12

Oooh, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro!
posted by SugarAndSass at 9:43 PM on February 12

Agh, I knew I'd remember another one as soon as I hit post.

Second Person, Present Tense by Daryl Gregory. A fantastic story about a girl whose personality is essentially wiped away in a drug overdose, told from the point of view of the new personality living in the body. One of the best SF stories I've read in the past ten years.
posted by creepygirl at 9:44 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

Seconding Egan for idea shorts. Also Ted Chiang (per carsonb) is an excellent writer and packs a lot into his stories.

How about Vernor Vinge's “Cookie Monster”?

Most of the examples I can think of are novel-length, unfortunately. Swanwick, say (Vacuum Flowers, Stations of the Tide). Vinge toys with identity a bit in his better-known novels as well— the Tines in Fire/Children, and some of the Focus subplots in Deepness— but those are all 'way too long for you.
posted by hattifattener at 9:56 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

(Actually, what about the Varley Ophiuchi-Hotline stories dealing with memory recording and reimplantation? Many of them aren't exactly about identity so much as they are about a society in which identity works differently from ours. Very '70s.)
posted by hattifattener at 9:59 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

I feel like you should have some Borges here. Definitely "Borges and I," maybe also "Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote"?

(Also, I don't know whether this will be feasible or not, but maybe consider using one or two of the Star Trek Borg episodes?)
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 10:05 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

Impostor by Philip K. Dick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_%28short_story%29
posted by bottlebrushtree at 10:08 PM on February 12

There are two short stories that could work in the Neil Gaiman collection titled "Smoke and Mirrors". "Changes" tells a story about the effect on society of a drug that cures just about everything... but changes your gender each time you use it. "Foreign Parts" tells the story of a man who feels that parts of his body belong to someone else.
posted by rakaidan at 10:53 PM on February 12

This Alien Shore by C.S Friedman. About a child intentionally driven insane in order to create an interstellar pilot. Not short.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 11:40 PM on February 12

HP Lovecraft - The Outsider.
posted by empath at 12:11 AM on February 13

Glasshouse by Charlie Stross
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:26 AM on February 13

Stone Canal by Ken MacLeod
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:30 AM on February 13

Narrator:The impact of 950 million gav-clones results in some minor economic realignments.
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-09-01
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:33 AM on February 13

David Brin - The Giving Plague
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:00 AM on February 13

O Human Star
"O Human Star is one of the winners of the 2012 Prism Comics Queer Press Grant, an annual grant awarded to cartoonists publishing comics that feature LGBT characters and themes."
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:17 AM on February 13

Aside from coming up with a list of great short stories, you may want to consider where your potential students will (legally) get them. If you can't find them all in two, maybe three collections, you need to rethink your core material.

That said, neither students nor professors typically care in the least about photocopying entire books - So if you could get all but a few in one place, you could "hand out" those few in class.


As for an actual suggestion - Probably too long, but an exerpt from Kafka's Metamorphosis seems like almost the stereotypical example of your focus.
posted by pla at 5:38 AM on February 13

The Machine Stops, by EM Forster (1909).
posted by activitystory at 6:08 AM on February 13

Entries on identity, identity transfer and identity exchange from the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction might be helpful.
posted by ninebelow at 6:49 AM on February 13

The Nearest Thing by Genevieve Valentine

Some Zombie Contingency Plans by Kelly Link
posted by NoraReed at 7:11 AM on February 13

It's rare that I'm able to answer a question so precisely.

OP, you want The Paper Menagerie, by Ken Liu. In 2012, it became the first work of fiction to win the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy award. Here is an interview with the author.
posted by demagogue at 9:02 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

You're already listing Delany, but haven't picked something yet. Aye and Gomorrah is the story of his that immediately came to mind when I read your question. I've heard him explicitly refer to this story as being about his experience as a gay man obscured through the veil of SF.
posted by ursus_comiter at 9:41 AM on February 13

He's white and male, but I would think about Haldeman's All My Sins Remembered for this class. In short: pacifist recruited to be a kind of undercover special ops soldier has false memories and personalities implanted before each mission. But as the missions stack up, he remembers more and more of what "he" has done.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:06 AM on February 13

Peter Watts, Blindsight (2006). It's an alien-contact horror story with a huge amount of philosophical and psychological detail and speculation. The main cast all have strange but plausible personalities, like chapters from an abnormal psych textbook. And the big ideas concern the nature and purpose of consciousness -- what does it mean to be conscious, and why did consciousness evolve among humans? The author has assimilated a lot of knowledge and speculation from cognitive science and philosophy of mind.

This is a great introduction to some skeptical views about personal identity, and one of my very favorite recent SF novels. It's also one of the most-recommended books on Metafilter.

(Identity politics rundown: Peter Watts is a white male. However, you might find his background kind of interesting. He has a Ph.D. in marine mammal biology, and worked as a researcher in that field before he wrote SF. He is Canadian. At a border-crossing between the US and Canada in 2009, Watts seems to have said something impolitic. He was beaten and pepper-sprayed, and then held in jail to face felony charges for assaulting a border patrol officer. He was ultimately convicted of some lesser charge, and discharged with a suspended sentence. However, he is no longer allowed to enter the United States. In an unrelated misfortune, Watts survived a bout of necrotizing fasciitis in 2011. You should Google Image search for necrotizing fasciitis.)

EDIT / OH CRAP: this is a novel and I just noticed you are looking for shorts. Anyway think about it and maybe there is a suitable excerpt or whatever.
posted by grobstein at 11:44 AM on February 13

Also I wonder if there might be a good excerpt from Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons, which contains several excellent chapters on personal identity. It is not science fiction, but it makes use of science fictional scenarios like matter transmitters and fantasy neurosurgery to explore its arguments. The prose is extremely lucid and the conclusions are quite radical.

This New Yorker profile (abstract only) gives a good flavor of Parfit.
posted by grobstein at 11:50 AM on February 13

Two short novels:

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

The main character, Gully Foyle, is a product of things done to him that shape his identity. He is marooned on a spaceship and passed by for rescue--the rest of his life is defined by revenge. The story is posthumanist and interested in a latent human ability to teleport.

Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock

Karl Glogauer travels back in time to meet Jesus, and realizes Jesus is not what he anticipated--so he becomes him.
posted by Kafkaesque at 12:40 PM on February 13

Gene Wolfe's "The Fifth Head of Cerberus" (the first section of the book can be read effectively as a stand-alone). Many of the stories in Christopher Priest's _The Dream Archipelago_ deal with ambiguity and identity (much as almost all of his novels do). Thomas Disch's "The Asian Shore" (and if you were to cover novels of course his novel _Camp Concentration_). Samuel Delany's "Empire Star" and "Time Considered as a Helix..."
posted by aught at 1:50 PM on February 13 [1 favorite]

I feel like you should have some Borges here. Definitely "Borges and I," maybe also "Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote"?

Maybe "Funes the Memorious" and "The Circular Ruins" as well?
posted by aught at 1:56 PM on February 13

Perhaps also Vernor Vinge's "True Names"?
posted by aught at 1:59 PM on February 13

Baby is Three by Theodore Sturgeon?
posted by Chenko at 2:01 PM on February 13

Heinlein's All You Zombies, a story about a person who is also their own parents - and maybe also god - is an interesting take on personal identity.
posted by Lutoslawski at 5:19 PM on February 13

George Saunders' Sea Oak, Benjamin Rosenbaum's Biographical Notes to "A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-planes" by Benjamin Rosenbaum, Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings.

Saunders has been featured on MetaFilter previously, Rosenbaum is a bit of a niche author but his work is really exciting in the way that old, adventure fantasy novels are, and Margaret Atwood is, of course, a legend.
posted by dubusadus at 6:43 AM on February 14