An above average issue.
The Moon Belongs to Everyone • novella by K. C. Ball and Michael Alexander
The story happens in an alternate reality where US is preparing a flight to Mars at end of 70s. Water ice is transported from a moon base to the space ship which is being built on lunar orbit. a dead man is found on one ice block. A former police woman who has been fired from her old job and arrives to the moon as an ordinary worker is drafted to investigate. A pretty standard science fiction mystery. A slightly overlong in novella form. Not bad, but nothing unforgettable, either. ***+
From An Antique Land • novelette by Shane Tourtellotte
A group of people arrives to a small village in post-apocalyptic America. They are trying get to an old large telescope and confirm that humans once visited moon. There pictures of moon landing are still around in old books, but everyone knows that they were faked. A well written pessimistic story with good characters. Maybe it was slightly too downbeat. ****-
Hearing Impairment • shortstory by Stephen L. Burns
The aliens have arrived and they are bringing gifts. But conservative politicians in US refuse to believe even the existence of any aliens. They are not even mentioned in the bible...Finland already has short distance teleportation and inertial dampeners running, but in the US the discussions are still going on and without very much progress. But there some very concrete approaches which can be used.. A fun little tale where Finland is nicely and positively mentioned. ***½
The Perfect Book • shortstory by Ken Liu
A very short story about a future where books are always personalized to the reader by computer. ut there is something even more personal…Nice writing but just “an anecdote” ***-
Garden Spot • shortstory by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
The explorers have landed on alien planet. It seems empty of life and desolate, but it turns out not to be so barren after all. Reminds me about the movie “planet 51” – even if I haven’t even actually seen it. ***+
Cats Know • shortstory by Richard A. Lovett
An elderly widow befriends with a holographic advertisement. The advertisement uses a personality template as basis for its programming. The personality used to belong to a beautiful model. At first the program uses the personality only in most limited way, but slowly the old widow manages to get past of the limits. A nicely written story which could have been longer. ***+
Scary Monsters • shortstory by Liz J. Andersen
A vet who is in call gets an interesting mission: she must humanely euthanize a pet dragon who has become too dangerous to keep around. That is quite large task..a short light story, the writing is nice and easy to read. ***+
Silent Mode • [Claude & Friends] • novelette by Paul Carlson
A part of a series involving a truck driver who has made friends with robots. He gets an order to remove some industrial robots from an abandoned factory and ends helping them. There are a few other plotlines also. I haven’t been fan of these stories, and I didn’t like this one either. It was too long with too much going on. **
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