Charlie Doll" and Other Stories

In each of these fifteen unrelated stories someone gets a surprise, often an unpleasant one, that alters his or her chances of success or even survival. In a few cases a character gets the satisfaction of revenge or relief but in most cases what he gets is his comeuppance.Some stories involve science fiction or scientific fiction elements with wooden dolls, computers, a beacon light, and lab cultures of a slime mold as physical factors in particular stories. Deception, greed, opportunism, applied psychology, curiosity, and/or chutzpah are common human factors in all of them.