An uneven issue. The first story is very fine and the last story is either real stinker, or far too fancy for me. Other two were fairly unremarkable.
Dark Age • novelette by Stanley Schmidt
Continues a story where earth is in transit to new home due to accident in the middle of our galaxy. Now the journey has lasted for years, and it is time to increase speed. However, the younger generation doesn’t anymore understand why anyone would necessarily need a sun, as everything seems to be fairly good even without and why anyone would have to suffer years of higher acceleration just to reach a new sun in decades instead of centuries. There is an action/terrorist group, which is trying to stop the speed up - at any cost. A very nice and well written story. The motivation of the terrorist group isn’t entirely believable - but there probably would be that kind of group, if the situation were like the one in the story. A good read. ****
Now You See Her • shortstory by Sam Nicholson
A ship is seen in two different place at same time - colliding another ship and sailing without any trouble at all over a hundred miles away. And the owner of the sunken ship is demanding compensations. Nothing special, isn't very logical, the plan the scammers had wouldn't have a great change of succeeding, I believe. **
Antithiotimoline • shortstory by Topi H. Barr
Thiotimoline story where that strange compound is used to take picture from the future. Of course, sometimes those picture might be something you wouldn't want to see. Especially if your wife is unfaithful.. A simple little one-joke story. **+
Then and Now • novelette by Raymond Z. Gallun
A colonization of nearby star is starting and people who have been chosen as first colonists are leaving soon. They are having their last leave before the trip and a pair of them are for some reason visiting an affluent man. Or something. I had really trouble reading this story, as I found the writing to be horrible. The story starts with a info dump which is over two pages long and there is more info dumping in dialog. The writing is stilted, using really heavy dose of ellipses. The use of ellipses is totally ridiculous, there isn’t a single page of the story where there aren’t at least a few, up to almost twenty in one page. I wasn’t able to finish this, this is one of the worst stories I have ever read (or started). *
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