About average issue for its’ time.
Company Planet • [Telzey Amberdon] • novelette by James H. Schmitz
An extremely smart female agent in some kind of underground legal organization, Telzey Amberdon, who also has extremely powerful psychic powers is evaluating a planet where cosmetic surgeons perform very elaborate operations. They are so effective that no one seems to return from the planet without extensive surgery. As usual, she is ends up as kidnapped, but naturally she easily beats all adversaries. An overlong and pretty tedious story. By far the worst I have read in this series. **½
Not Stupid Enough • shortstory by George H. Scithers
One of the first visitors on an alien planet starts to preach against the vile sexual habits of the inhabitants: they routinely have group sex and routinely swap partners. The story goes about the way you would expect. ***-
Culture Shock • novelette by Perry A. Chapdelaine
Aliens have come to earth. The trade of ideas has given many fine inventions for humanity, but there are factions who vehemently oppose the aliens. The story is mainly extremely longwinded discussion between several people about the situation and it is extremely boring. Very overlong story. The writing is ok, but that doesn’t save the story. **-
Peace With Honor • novelette by Jerry Pournelle
A party has ruled US for several years. For the first time in a long time, they are facing severe competition in a presidential election. They scheme how to throw the election and device an extremely unethical way to manage it. I am baffled: were these supposed to be the good guys who are forced to drastic methods to keep the peace, because their party is the only one which is supposed to be able to keep the status quo? Why the main competive party would be so disastrous a choice isn’t stated very convincingly. Or are they supposed to be the bad guys? Or are all politicians supposed to be corrupt bastards ready to sacrifice their daughter to stay in power? Writing was ok, but without knowing the background of the story it felt pretty confusing. ***
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