Fairly average issue.
An Angelheaded Hipster Escapes • novella by Daniel Hatch
A boxed brain, who is usually mistaken as an artificial AI and treated as such, is captured (or liberated) from a space station he is working. His saviour is a young woman belonging to a noble family, and she is having some plans of her own - not connected to the main character. Pretty nice story, not entirely logical (why the rescue coincided so precisely with her other plans) but not bad anyway. ***1/2
El Dorado • novelette by Tom Ligon
This why I put this issue on top of reading queue. I enjoyed the companion piece of this story (Payback) in July/August issue of Analog, and wanted to read this part also. A message from an alien species has been discovered, and it seems to be threat, or rather a warning about the sure distraction of earth. A group of prospectors in the Oort cloud are planning a response. One of them has discovered a real mother load of precious metals and isn't so keen on suicide missions. Good story, probably not as good than the later one. A bit too much exposition in the beginning, some bit or more than bit unlikely coincidences which are supposed to give some almost supernatural tone to story.****-
A Bridge in Time • shortstory by Joseph P. Martino
Time travel is so commonplace that it is used to bypass a bridge for the time it is reconstructed. However, it strictly illegal to pass any information to past from the uptime. An engineer working on an bridge project meets a really nice woman, who is interested about his work. Ok, pretty standard timetravel story with a little romantic twist. ***1/2
Virus Changes Skin • shortstory by Ekaterina Sedia
Ecocatastrophe has made most of the US unliveable. Researchers in Alaska are trying to develop new strains of plants which are able to withstand the new climate. A woman scientist thinks to use virus to make the changes or something. I can't really make any sense about the ending. The most likely explanation is that she loses her mind. I didn't really like the story, to short and not too logical. **1/2
The Quantum Theoretic Implications of Newton's Alchemy • shortstory by Alex Kasman
Short humorous story about mathematician who is drafted to help in one man company which has pretty unique development goal. Ok, but I think that gold pipes would be more resilient than the lead pipes. ***
The Hangingstone Rat • novelette by Barry B. Longyear
Jaggers and Shad story. Happens in a future where imprinting human consciousness to animal "skins" is commonplace. What I don't understand is why anyone would want to be imprinted to a duck or cat. In this story Shad seems to be killed in an accident and Jaggers must try to find out what happened. Supposed to be funny, but doesn't really work for me. However, seems one of the better ones I have read in this series. ***
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