Pretty average issue.
The Taranth Stone • novelette by Ron Collins
Aliens find a human artifact and try reverse engineer it. They also discover that their world is threatened by an extreme climate change. A somewhat too short story, I didn’t like the writing for some reason. ***-
Mask of Terminus • shortstory by Sean McMullen
A future where a near immortality has been achieved. Procreation is naturally very strictly controlled and DNA-scans are commonplace to screen out non-licensed inviduals. The story felt somehow fragmentary and it was not entirely clearly written. ***-
Graveyard Shift • shortstory by Kathy Oltion
Strictly speaking not science fiction at all, more like a straight mystery. Laboratory technicians get some really, really strange results when they are analyzing samples from a young man who have died recently. Less surprising ending than I was expecting - there was just a simple murder done by autopsy assistant. ***+
Friday, After the Game • shortstory by James Van Pelt
A sport story. About American football. The starting point wasn’t to enticing, but the story was fairly nice. Practically all contact sports have disappeared, as everyone is afraid of contagions after a few lethal epidemics. Games are played on virtual simulators and everyone is “equalized” to level the playing filed. A few kids want to try playing on real. ***½
The Nechtanite and the Inforat • novelette by Catherine Wells
A librarian and students reading in the library are teased by a very arrogant and abusive tattooed man who belongs to a secretive warrior cult. It turns out that he has a reason why he is behaving that way. (Students are so used to remote learning that they need something to bind them together and give them self-confidence). ***
"Put Back That Universe!" • shortstory by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
A man (a criminal) travels back in time to the beginning of the universe. And he is chased by a time cop.
A humorous story where the humor doesn’t really work. **
The Perfumed Heart • novelette by Charles L. Harness
A patent lawyer takes care of a case where a very beautiful android tries to patent a perfume she has invented. But is she a person who can be an inventor? A nice story, but not too surprising in any way. ***+
His Hands Passed Like Clouds • novelette by Rajnar Vajra
A man with a clawed hand has a very peculiar uncle Joe, whose touch seems to heal the hand. Later the same uncle heals the feet of the protagonist by a single touch. At the same time something very strange is found from a bottom of a lake - something almost like a sunken spaceship.
There are some factual stupidities (apparently the uploading something on the internet commonly changes the content of the file, and the disease which was supposed to cause the hand deformity of the protagonist as a child occurs in reality only on middle aged or older people), but otherwise nice, not very original story, probably the best in issue. ***½
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Thanks for the comments on "Friday, After the Game."
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