Praise for Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories
“Wit, sentiment, imagination—Alex Shvartsman’s got them all.”
– Mike Resnick, Hugo award-winning author of Kirinyaga and Birthright.
“It’s easier to explain Cthulhu to Grandma than it is to account for the fantastic variety and scope of the stories you’ll read in this wonderful collection. Alex Shvartsman’s imagination spans galaxies, offering the (very happy) reader everything from aliens to magic fish to demons to carnivorous space manatees (I am not making this up!) and then some.
Also, cats.
Prepare to be entertained, delighted and amazed.”
– Esther Friesner, Nebula award-winning author of Deception’s Pawn
“I am a very fast reader, but even I could not read quickly enough to get through Alex Shvartsman’s collection, Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma, as fast as I wanted to. Every time I finished reading a story, the lead of the next one attracted my attention and dragged me in by the eyeballs. His writing is enjoyable and his plots satisfying. The eponymous story could be horrific, but instead, as I might have expected from the editor of the now three-volumes old Unidentified Funny Objects anthology series, it’s funny and clever. He doesn’t stop with humor, though. He hands us future science versus human nature, fantasy, horror and thrillers, one after another, all full of intriguing ideas and wit. This collection is what the British call ‘more-ish’. Once you’ve started to read, it’s difficult to stop.”
– Jody Lynn Nye, bestselling author of Myth-Quoted and Fortunes of the Imperium
“After Isaac Asimov, Alex Shvartsman is the world’s foremost writer of fantasy and science fiction to have been born in the Soviet Union and immigrated at a young age to Brooklyn. But the Good Doctor is with us no longer, so the Good Gamer is his natural heir. Like Asimov, Shvartsman’s stories are often good old-fashioned space opera, crackling with imagination, pace and really cheesy jokes. But there’s fantasy too, and a dark side, and if you ever needed to explain Cthulhu to your Grandma, this is the place to start.”
– Henry Gee, senior editor at Nature and author of the Sigil trilogy
PUBLISHED BY:
UFO Publishing
1685 E 15th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11229
Copyright © 2015 by Alex Shvartsman
Trade paperback ISBN: 978-0-9884328-5-7
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Cover art: Dixon Leavitt
Cover design: Emerson Matsuuchi
Typesetting & interior design: Melissa Neely
E-book design: Elizabeth Campbell
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Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories
Alex Shvartsman
Introduction
by Ken Liu
Dear Reader, if you’re already familiar with Alex’s work, then we should pause and congratulate each other on our shared superior taste. If you aren’t, then I’m envious of you, as you are about to discover one of the funniest and most moving voices in speculative fiction today.
Now, if you know anything about Alex’s reputation, you’ll be grinning in anticipation as you hold this collection. After all, that august authority, Wikipedia, describes Alex as an “American science fiction and fantasy writer and editor known primarily for humorous short stories.”
Alex’s stories are indeed funny. Humor is a difficult—perhaps the most difficult—trick to pull off in fiction, but Alex does it with style. His stories feature tightly constructed, intricate, puzzle-like plots with clever banter and plenty of fresh, twisted pop culture references. Reading this book, I promise you’ll smile, chuckle, chortle, snort, and laugh out loud many times.
As you flip through the pages, you’ll discover tiny fairies with correspondingly scaled superpowers, a kabbalist hacker debating theology with an atheist, a magical pawn shop where timeworn knights bargain for the soul of an ancient god with a tough grandmother, our history re-rendered as a game of alien simulation, far-flung star empires with sarcastic alien diplomats…
If you want to laugh right away, I definitely recommend you start with the “magic pawn shop stories,” which include the title story for the collection as well as “High-Tech Fairies and the Pandora Perplexity.”
If stylish, smart humor were all these stories managed to accomplish, the collection would already deserve to be on every bookshelf, but Alex has also managed much more. The humor for which he is deservedly celebrated is but one tool in his toolbox. Just as important, Alex is also a writer of moving tales that explore the meaning and boundaries of what it means to be human.
In these pages, you’ll also discover when and how we lie to preserve love, the only truth that matters; what we lose and gain when we decide to uproot ourselves to give our children a new life; how history is a grand series of stark developments in which our only consolation is the freedom of choice; the power of the narrative in making sense of a world that is essentially accidental, unfeeling, lacking in design.
In this vein, my favorites from Alex are “Icarus Falls” and “Things We Leave Behind.”
It is easy to write stories in which these abstractions are discussed, but far harder to make the reader experience the associated emotions. And when the stories are flavored with the right amount of humor, the brightest act of defiance against the darkness of easy despair, the result is sublime.
Alex’s stories are sublime.
Though I don’t much care about identifying stories with their author, I do think it’s important for me to tell you a little bit about Alex.
I’m perhaps one of Alex’s oldest and most loyal fans, as I’ve been reading his stories practically since the time he started writing for publication. We’ve been critiquing partners for much of our fiction writing careers, and I’ve read many of these stories in both draft and final form. Reading them again in preparation for writing this introduction is a nice reminder of our shared journey as writers.
As a critique partner, Alex is unfailingly careful, strict, and incisive. As a friend, Alex is warm, generous, cheerful, and always supportive. Time and again, he picks apart my plot and helps me reassemble the pieces into something coherent. He finds the awkward phrases and brings out his polishing kit. His suggestions are clever, insightful, and to the point. Despite his incredibly busy schedule, he has always somehow found a way to come to my aid when I’m under deadline pressure.
But did you also know that Alex has lived a life as amazing as one of his characters? Yes, that’s right, Alex has circumnavigated the globe many times as one of the world’s most successful Magic: the Gathering players. (He has lived my dream!) I’m pretty convinced that some of Alex’s skills at intricate plotting come from practice at assembling fast, deadly decks and devising lethal card combinations from the interplay of legalistic rules.
Either that, or he actually is a wizard with a magical shop (yes, he owns and runs a gaming store). If you visit, keep an eye out for Cthulhu.
I feel very lucky to have had the chance to witness Alex’s development as a writer and to call him a friend. I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I have.
EXPLAINING CTHULHU TO GRANDMA
I just made the deal of the year and I couldn’t wait to tell Grandma.
As soon as the customer left, I locked the front door, flipped the cardboard sign to Closed, and headed into the back. Clutching my latest acquisition to my blouse, I entered the packed stockroom, dodged around the bronze naval cannon, ne
arly caught the hem of my skirt on a rusty suit of armor, and made my way through a plethora of other items too large or too heavy to be stored on the shelves. Most of this stuff has been here since before I was born, and will likely remain in the same place long after my hypothetical future children take over the shop. You never know when the right buyer might come along, and the family is in it for the long haul.
Grandma Heide was in our office, sitting at the desk. She had moved the keyboard out of the way to make room for the game of solitaire she was playing with a Thirteenth century Egyptian Tarot deck. She barely glanced up when I walked in.
“You do know you could play this on the computer, right Grandma?”
She set down a card in one of the columns after a few seconds’ thought. “Can your newfangled gadget fake the feel of shuffling a dog-eared deck of cards? Simulate the pleasure of placing one in just the right spot to make a perfect play? I didn’t think so.” She looked at me over her glasses. “The old ways are almost always best.”
“Yes, well, I’m not here to argue about that again. Guess what I just picked up on pawn.”
I stepped closer and placed a pocket dimension in front of Grandma. It looked like a pyramid-shaped snow globe the height of a soda can. It was filled with ocean water. In the center floated a being of scales and tentacles and shapes so unnatural that staring straight at it caused a headache. When not stored outside of our space/time continuum, it was the size of a cruise liner and must have weighed as much as a small mountain, which is what made pocket dimensions so darn handy.
Grandma picked up the pyramid, pushed the glasses up her nose and peered inside.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Cthulhu,” I said, smug with satisfaction.
“Geshundheit,” said Grandma. I couldn’t tell for certain if she was kidding or not. Probably not.
“I didn’t sneeze,” I said. “Its name is Cthulhu. It is an ancient god of anxiety and horror, dead but dreaming.”
Grandma didn’t appear impressed. “What does it do? Besides dream.” She turned the pocket dimension slowly to examine its contents.
“Do? It’s a symbol for the unknowable fathoms of the universe which dwarf humanity’s importance. Besides, it’s a god. How long has it been since we had one of those in the shop?”
“1982,” she said immediately. “The government of Argentina pawned a few of the Guarani nature gods to help fund the Falklands conflict. Little good it did them.”
I didn’t remember this, but I was still in diapers in 1982.
“Pre-Columbian godlings barely count. This,” I pointed at the pyramid, “is the real deal.”
Grandma finished inspecting the god and placed the pocket dimension on top of the computer, next to a mug filled with ballpoint pens. She turned her attention back to me.
“And what did you pay out for this rare and unique item?”
I told her.
Grandma pursed her lips and stared me down. Ever since I broke the wing off the stuffed phoenix when I was a little girl, it had been the withering expression Grandma Heide reserved for when I screwed up especially badly.
“Whoever pawned it will have taken the money and run,” she declared. “They won’t be back. Enjoy it for the next month, and let’s hope some fool gets as excited about this overgrown octopus as you did. If not, then maybe we can sell it off by the pound to the sushi chains.”
“You never have any faith in the deals I make.” I crossed my arms. “I’m not a little girl anymore, and I spent my entire life around the shop. When will you begin to trust my judgment? I say we got a bargain and I’ll prove it.”
“This shop is full of the mistakes of overeager youth, Sylvia.” She pointed toward the stock room, brimming with stuff. “I made my fair share when I was your age. The pawn shop business is simple. Stick to quality common items that are easy to move, and pick them up cheap. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be ready to take over the family enterprise.” Then she drew the next card from her deck, indicating that the conversation was over.
When your family is in the business of running the oldest pawn shop in the world, there are big shoes to fill. I wondered if Grandma had similar trouble when she became old enough to work at the shop, back before Gran-Gran Hannelore had retired.
Under the terms of the pawn, the customer had thirty days to come back and claim his item. That gave me plenty of time to line up potential buyers. There were a number of leads for me to pursue, but I started with the obvious.
I unlocked the front door, flipped the sign to Open, powered up my laptop, and logged on to Craigslist.
It didn’t take a month. The first interested party showed up within days.
“I’m Keldmo, the Grand Prophet of the Deep Ones,” announced the enormously fat man. He was wearing some sort of a toga or bathrobe getup, probably because no one made pants in his size. “I understand that you’ve recently come into possession of the great Cthulhu?”
“We did. Or we will, if the previous owner doesn’t pay back the loan in three weeks’ time. How much are you prepared to pay?”
“Is the undying gratitude of thousands of worshippers not enough?”
“Not nearly.”
“I don’t have a lot of money.” Keldmo wiped the sweat off his ample chins with a handkerchief. “The congregation hasn’t been quite as devout in recent years. The collection plate brings barely enough to keep food on the table.”
I bit back the obvious retort. Besides, Keldmo wouldn’t have appreciated the barb. If he ever had a sense of humor, he probably ate it a long time ago.
“Having the actual Cthulhu to display at services, I’m sure that would turn things around,” he said. “Reinvigorate the worshippers, help with the recruitment drive, that sort of thing.”
“You aren’t planning to wake it up and unleash it upon the world, are you?”
“Heavens, no,” said Keldmo. “A living god can be dangerous and unpredictable. What if it has different ideas and plans for its followers than I do? No, it’s best to let sleeping horrors lie.”
“Good,” I said. “Now, what are you willing to pay, really?”
Keldmo made his offer. It was significantly less than the amount I had invested, but it was a start. I told the cult leader that I’d be in touch and sent him on his merry way.
A week later a group of beings from a parallel universe showed up. They looked a lot like the alien grays on TV, if alien grays had fins and gills. I stared, perhaps beyond the point of politeness. Visitors from a parallel universe were a rare sight indeed, even in an establishment such as ours.
“We seek the services of your underwater god,” said the leader of the group.
“What kind of services?” I just had to know.
“We are aquatic beings,” said the leader, whom I mentally dubbed Nemo. “Our waters have recently become infested with sea serpents. Being that we are pacifists, we can’t handle this calamity on our own. But it is well known that the Deep Ones are the ocean’s natural predators. We wish to awaken Cthulhu and release it into the wild, so it can eat all the sea serpents.”
I had my reservations about this plan, and about what Cthulhu might do to Nemo’s people once it ran out of sea serpents. But at least they weren’t planning to awaken Cthulhu in this universe. That was a big plus.
“How much can you pay?”
The aliens huddled.
“In addition to being pacifists,” said Nemo, “we’re also a moneyless society. We don’t mine, or fish, or produce artwork. We live in harmony with nature and eat algae. I’m afraid we possess nothing you would find of value. However,” he added brightly, “we don’t want to buy your god. We only want to borrow it. We’ll be happy to return it to you, in perfect condition, after it feeds.”
I frowned. The idea of getting Cthulhu back, awake and nourished, wasn’t appealing.
“You’d be helping to save an entire civilization,” said Nemo. “Surely the concept of compassion exists in th
is universe?”
I felt bad for the naïve pacifists, but I was also fairly certain that I wouldn’t be doing them any favors by unleashing Cthulhu on a society that couldn’t even cope with a few sea serpents. Also, I was running a business, not an Interdimensional Wetlands Conservation Society.
I told Nemo that I’d think about it, and ushered him and his friends out of the shop.
“No one is going to give you any money,” Grandma called out from the stock room once the door closed behind them. “But I’m sure you can find plenty of folks who’d be willing to take it off your hands for free.”
I gritted my teeth and went back to sorting and labeling the rack of love potions. Thanks to that song we were perpetually sold out of Number Nine. Despite the fact that, from what I heard, it tasted like troll vomit.
Nearly two weeks had passed and I was beginning to worry, when another interested party arrived. This time it was a tall, lean man who wore a mantle decorated with a lion’s mane draped over his shoulder. He seemed unperturbed by the balmy August weather outside. His broad chest was adorned with several rows of teeth hanging on strings from around his neck. I could’ve sworn a few of the teeth were human, but I’m no dentist. A long sword dangled off his belt.
“I’m Sir Barnabas, the Grand Knight of the Order of Saint George,” he announced, more loudly than was absolutely necessary.
“Welcome,” said Grandma. Sir Barnabas’ bulging muscles and deep baritone summoned her from the back as if by magic. “I’m Heide. And that’s my granddaughter Sylvia. She’s single.”
“Madame.” Sir Barnabas bent down to kiss Grandma’s hand. “My lady.” He gallantly bowed to me next. I could swear that I heard Grandma swoon.
“On behalf of the Order of Saint George, I seek the monster Cthulhu that is said to be in your possession. Will you aid me in my quest?”
“Is your quest dedicated to any Lady?” asked Grandma.
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