The Long Wait by Allen M. Steele: A sweet story about belief. And space travel. ( )

A couple of interesting stories, nothing major to write home about. A bit disappointed really. ( )

This issue contains 5 short stories, 2 poems, a novella and a novelette as well as the usual variety of essays and articles.

I found the non-fiction columns pretty uninteresting this month although I did like Paul De Filippo's book review column more than usual, especially his lengthy discussion on the passing of writer Lucius Shepard and his then recently published novel "Beautiful Blood." Shepard is an author I will greatly miss.

On the fiction side, the stories are:

The Unveiling • shortstory by Christopher Rowe
Hard Boot • poem by Trent Walters
Watergirl • novelette by Rudy Rucker and Marc Laidlaw
Ninety-Five Percent Safe • shortstory by Caroline M. Yoachim
Candy From Strangers • shortstory by Jay O'Connell
Butterflies • shortstory by Peter Wood
Songs in the Key of You • shortstory by Sarah Pinsker
Fromage de Lune • poem by Robert Borski
The Long Wait • novella by Allen M. Steele

Overall this added up to something I'd call disappointing and at the very low end of an OK read. I would really like to think there are better stories floating out in the ether that could be reined in for publication. Some brief comments:

"The Unveiling" starts the stories off well, although the story itself tilts a little at the end. Set on another planet that is not the most pleasant place (never-ending volcanic eruptions and pollution that would probably make early industrial England look good), we get a short bit about a working class hero, Tayne. Most of this story is from Tayne's viewpoint, but after an "event" we shift oddly to the future and I thought the ending unsatisfying. Still, I liked most of it.

The cover story "Watergirl" is like a time travel retro Hawaiian trip through valley Girl Fast Times tubular surfer dude land. I had enough of that decades ago, but if you are a reader who loves that stuff, well this may play well with you. I was bored frankly and stopped reading after about 5 or 6 pages. I'm sure I missed the good parts.

Jay O'Connell's "Candy From Strangers" was more than a little twisty. I've enjoyed his previous stories in Asimov's and this edgy bit is another good one. We at first think a good Samaritan, Morgan, with some high end net gear is saving a young woman from suicide in front of a train (he does save the woman) and we later learn that he had first hand experience and knew what he was saving her from. In this short story the two dance around each other and play a little tough. Good writing here I thought.

There's nothing really wrong with “Ninety-five Percent Safe” by Caroline Yoachim except that it reads like a very bland dystopian story aimed at 10-12 year olds about leaving nuclear wintered earth for a possibly better life in a space colony. The title reflects the odds that 5% of the people who set off from earth don't make it out the other side of the wormhole.

I found “Butterflies” by Peter Wood to be a real bit of fluff. It is intentionally a modern alt-history send-up of 1950's Giant Bug movies. I would have rather read something a bit more exciting. Maybe the giant butterfly could have given the boy a ride, or maybe the big dragonfly could have actually eaten something ... like our protagonist. Sigh. This was a real dud.

More stuff that seems aimed at pre-teens comes with “Songs in the Key of You” by Sarah Pinsker. The gadget of the day, if you can afford it, are musical bracelets with songs specifically written and recorded for the owner(s). I never quite got the concept, but your bracelet plays your song when you enter a room or building for example, to announce you. I can imagine this cacophony of sound would drive me insane in short order. The clever title of of this story of course plays with the title of a Stevie Wonder album from long ago which I doubt the average young reader would even know of. The story opens with some punky entitled drama queen bullies picking on a girl in the school cafeteria who can't afford the fancy stuff so she hums her own tunes. The story really isn't bad after the cliched start; I just expect something a lot better from the magazine.

The novella by Allen M Steele, “The Long Wait” saved the issue for me. This is kind of old-fashioned storytelling that he is good at. Big generation ship kind of stuff. Steele has written a lot of stories and I have rarely been disappointed by him. I've read quite a few of his stories in Asimov's over the years (parts of his Coyote sequence in particular) that I really enjoyed. This is one of four related stories that are going to be released as a novel in 2016. In this segment of the story we follow the progress of the seed ship 'Galactique' from the viewpoint of a family on Earth - and the long wait is the increasing amount of time for communications to and from the ship as the journey progresses. This is really a coming of age story in part, because the tale is told as part of the life of a woman on earth who is born shortly after the launch of the ship and the story ends when the ship has arrived at the destination, and the young girl and woman who we grew to know well through the story is now much much older. More than this to the story obviously but I enjoyed it very much. Whet my appetite for more.

So out of 7 stories there were really only two that I thought rather good ... O'Connell's "Candy From Strangers" and Steele's "The Long Wait." ( )