“The Failure of Flappy Bird”: A Very Short Short Story By Me, in Popular Science
Posted on July 28, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 12 Comments
The magazine Popular Science asked me to write a very short story about the future, on the topic of technology, so I did. It’s called “The Failure of Flappy Bird” and you can find it at the Popular Science Web site. Oh, plus very short stories from Ian Tregellis, Ann Leckie, Melinda Snodgrass, Elizabeth Bear, Seanan McGuire, Mary Robinette Kowal, Scott Lynch, Daniel Abraham and Karl Schroeder. You know, if you want to read them too.
(P.S.: For you print fans, the stories are also available in the August 2014 issue of the magazine, on sale now.)
(P.P.S.: Or if you have an iPad and you want even more stories, you can get this! For $4! Cheap!)
I just got my issue of Pop Sci in the mail. We’ve had our mail held for a month, so it was at the bottom of the pile. I’ll just have to move it to the top.
Discontent will never change.
Spoiler alert:
“Also, Flappy Bird” would have been a good title alternative.
Good shit!
Wonderful writing,
John, I’m glad you managed to thumb a ride home. I got stuck in the Newark, NJ airport once before the Internet was even thought of, and had nothing to read. This, my friend, was Purgatory, and when I die I’m going to ask for time credited. Also for when I worked in a building with broken a/c during the summer, and maintenance refused to pry open the windows because “it would get hot in there” (we had people fainting from the heat).
I want to see a story in which John is thumbing his way home and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named stops–or the other way around, for that matter.
The housemate gets that magazine; w00ts!
I am unable to read this story: I am in Australia, and when I click the link, it redirects to the Australian version of the PopSci website, which does not appear to have the story on it. Anyone else having this problem, or have suggestions on how to fix it?
right..
Ha! I don’t like retail workers in my head either. :)
lol, No. I will take free, thank you very much
“Also, Flappy Bird” – that cracks me up, Scalzi!
Sure, you only went to that Russian site that one time….
That story made me smile.
It also reminds of a line I never forgot from an Usenet post in the ’90s about spam on such a device:
“This is not an illegal thoughtgram.”
I found a hit on the phrase from alt.history.future but I don’t recall reading that group. Perhaps it made the best of Usenet group.