Fairly average or below average issue.
Delay in Transit • novelette by F. L. Wallace
A secret agent travels to an obscure planet to meet an important scientist. Halfway through he is stranded to a fairly obscure planet when his traveling papers are stolen. He is carrying some sort of very powerful AI type of neural attachment. The story starts pretty well, but turns out to be very overlong and boring. **
The Snowball Effect • shortstory by Katherine MacLean
A sociology professor proves that sociology is useful as a science by designing rules for a knitting club. The rules make the club work perfectly and make it possible to expand. But the system is somewhat too perfect... Very good entertaining story, easily best in the issue. ****
Today Is Forever • shortstory by Roger Dee
The aliens offer the secrets of immortality, but only for a select few. “Hilarity” naturally ensues. Nothing really new, not especially well written. **½
The Moons of Mars • shortstory by Dean Evans
A man sees a Martian boy who whistles a nice tone. He tells that he learned the tone from his mother. That is strange as Martians never have any ear for tones. A simplistic story which apparently tries to speak for tolerance, but manages to have some racist overtones when it is looked from today's point of view. **
Tea Tray in the Sky • shortstory by Evelyn E. Smith
A young man visits a big city. He has some trouble adjusting as there are a lot of alien races, all with their own customs, and by interstellar laws everyone must abide with ALL customs of other sentient species. A story that is probably more timely now than it was when it was written. **+
The Mousetrap • shortstory by Gordon R. Dickson
A man wakes up on an idyllic planet nearby a cottage with an ample store of food and entertainment tapes. He has no recollection at all about what has happened. It turns out that this is a plan of an extremely ruthless earth government to capture aliens to dissect. Surprisingly, the story doesn't pay any attention to complete immorality of that sorts of actions, but rather the end “twist” is that the man in question must spend the rest of his life in isolation to prevent any alien epidemics. Writing was pretty nice. ***+
The Altruist • novelette by James H. Schmitz
A colonel working in his office discovers that there invisible people living in the world. Not much happens, writing is below average. **-
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