Average issue, Gunn's novelette was pretty good.
McAndrew and the Fifth Commandment • novelette by Charles Sheffield
McAndrew meets his mother, and finds out a few things about his father he hadn't known. He turns out to have been at least as brilliant physicist. Pretty nice story, might have been a bit longer. ***½
The Giftie • novelette by James E. Gunn
An aerospace engineer finds from a small bookshop a book about aliens. The book seems to be a bit less loony than usual, and attached to are some schematics about a seemingly feasible space ship.
He tries to find out who has written and published that book with the owner of the book shop. Next night the book shop burns and is destroyed. Very good and exiting story. The ending is a bit too abrupt and not entirely logical, otherwise really excellent. ****+
Ruinborn • shortstory by Leslie Fish
The entire evolution of oxygen producing and using life on earth is caused by lifeforms using hydrogen sulfide, first trying to poison the planet to prevent its' use as a base on an interstellar war. Anything they try to do just makes the evolution of these strange and dangerous oxygen using monsters to move faster. Pretty good story. The description of the evolution on the earth is bit too detailed and takes too much space, some slight condensing might made the story even better. ***½
Holding the Key • novella by Shane Tourtellotte
Continuation to earlier story. Arrogant aliens lease a trip to a planet where an another species of aliens lives with very hard musical language. For some reason I don't find the characters to be very interesting or sympathetic, the story felt overlong. **
Rustle of Spring • shortstory by Laurence M. Janifer
How to find one cow among hundreds or thousand who look exactly alike. Problem solving story, fairly interesting, the solution wasn't too innovating. ***
TCoB • shortstory by Kandis Elliot
A biochemistry lab seems to have very good solutions for most medical related problems in the world – but it has some secrets. A bit too irritatingly paranoid story.**+
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