Mourning Blue • novelette by Jayge Carr
A crew member who is disliked by other member of the spaceship crew due to different temperament and body structure, befriends blue amphibious aliens, and even would like to leave his ship to stay with them. The rest of crew doesn’t like that idea too much, and take action. Reads like a poor juvenile story, with very, very clearly spelled out lesson and moral. Story is told as a ”tale of old times”, but that doesn’t remove irritation caused by the simplistic nature of the story. **
Hydra • shortstory by Ian Stewart
Van Neuman machine lands near an asteroid mining station. A lot of discussion follows, a lot plotting, ending which is far too easy and not too logical. **+
Beyond the Big Circus • novelette by Daniel Hatch
A Asian fishing fleet has gone astray and is found near Alaskan coast in a fairly poorly defined future, where even an oldish coast guard boat has two fusion plants. Some things happens, a lot of discussion happens, police almost attacks, and fleet returns home. The background isn’t defined well enough, there isn’t much of a plot. **
The Boy Who Wanted To Be A Hero • shortstory by Geoffrey A. Landis
A boy dreams about the space, and wants as an adult to do something helping humanity to reach stars. However, idealism tends to disappear…melancholy, nice story. ****-
Match Point • shortstory by David L. Burkhead
A tennis player who got a disease which slows reflexes tries to learn to compete in games organized in the moon, as the fast reflexes aren’t supposed to be as important there. Predictable, but not too bad. Usually I don’t like sport stories, but this was pretty well written, nice one. ***½
A Touch of Diptheria • novelette by Roger MacBride Allen
A detective is trying to solve a murder on a planet which is mostly radioactive. Only problem is that the most likely perpetrators arrived to the planet only after the crime. Good, well written story, entertaining. Best of issue. Some small logic and physics problems (hard to imagine that any nuclear war would cause so high radioactivity, that it would be lethal in a few minutes even after a few hundred years, and is able to make other objects radioactive, also - that would need neutron radiation which isn’t typical long term end result of nuclear explosions. ****
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