The denouement rests somewhat on the believability of a major technologically-based medical ‘intervention’ being carried out by an army surgeon and an assistant, more like a rural doctor carrying out a routine surgery.

The APM are trying to use remote-controlled panda robots to demonstrate to the real ones they are attempting to breed just how to go about it properly, and the story gives you as much detail as you will ever need (perhaps more) on the breeding habits of pandas.

The work of the APM is challenged by protestors, who feel that what is happening is tantamount to bestiality (I’m sure some states and probably the NRA would fight the right to do this, and in Uta the right to do it severally) and this causes the journalist’s experience of taking a robotic panda out for a ride to be somewhat different to that planned, as she is the one taken for a ride….

Probably not, but is Hernandez trying to get a subtle message across : the USA using remote technology to fuck non-native species….?

Hernandes handles the taking on of a panda persona by the journalist well, and for my money I’d have rather seen this explored in a more sfnal way (and thus vastly improving on ‘Avatar’).

Exactly why the restaurant is happy to feed up some customers and keep them on the premises, is eventually revealed in a Most Excellent ending.

Only one minor quibble, The Clash sung ‘Armagideon Time’ not ‘Armageddon Time’. (The Clash, Leeds University, January 1990 – ‘yes, I was there too’. FFS someone invite a time machine so I can go back there)

Otherwise, I guess you may get a bit flummoxed as the name Blair tends nowadays to mean Tony Blair, and a story entitled ‘Blair’s War’ suggests something related to the warmongering antics of the ex-PM, who ignored millions of people taking to the streets of London, to start a ‘war’ that continues to have devastating effects on civilians in Iraq to this day.

Anyhoo, this story is set in the time of the Spanish Civil War, and again, unless you’re expert on that conflict and can spot the differences in this alternate history, you’re left with a so-so story about young children evacuated to Britain in the 1930s.

She is given the opportunity to take a break, and she she makes landfall on the planet where her sister, and what little family she has, are homesteading. The story revolves around Wendy coming to terms with planetary life, and having to make a decision as to where her future lies, and it’s handled well.

Not a real new ground-breaker, and ‘Doc’ ain’t as mean as Walking Dead’s ‘Governor’…

G. David Nordley. The Fountain.

Nordley was (and probably is still) an Analog regular, and I stopped reading that magazine a while back as their stories mostly failed to engage me – as did this story. It features a non-human protagonist, some politics, xenophobia, and a teenage Princess going through that rebellious period, and some creaky dialogue.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Skylight.

The prolific, extremely prolific, Rusch provides a taster of (I’m guessing) things to come, introducing a young woman, name of Skye, who faces a choice as part of her (ahem) practical studies at the Assassins Guild. And that choice appears to set her (and us) up for adventures to come..

Fine as far as it goes, but probably works better as a first chapter in a YA novel.

Eric Del Carlo. Hypervigilant.

Pheromonal aggression is a major public health risk post Neuro-Chemical War, and of the employees of The Agency uses his talents to spot those about to go apeshit, but he has an encounter that doesn’t go quite according to plan.

Megan Arkenberg. A Love Song Concerning His Vineyard.

A short, bittersweet story of love, a unique blend of Mars, race, wine and intolerance.

Robert Reed. Precious Mental.

Wowza, thinks I, virtually an entire half of the issue devoted to a Great Ship story. However, truth be told, I was running out of steam towards the end, as Reed does takes the reader, and the characters, a long way (and back), For devotees of the Great Ship there will be references and nuances that others won’t pick up, and there’s a tantalising peek being the backdrop curtains of the Great Ship stores (if such a thing as curtains can exist on such a scale of time and space) but for others the story does finish with perhap a frustrating lack of a big ending that a lengthy story might be expected to provide.

Conclusion

A fairly weak issue, truth be told, with Reed taking up a lot of space, but to slightly less than usual effect.

It’s dense, following the confused thought patterns of the protagonist who we are told has total recall, but for whom there are some dark shadows. She is confronting the father of the person to whom she relates what is happening (in as much as anything in the story is as clear as this). She clearly has had a terrible upbringing, as have her siblings/clones, and in facing up to the violent father, there is a climactic confrontation, but nothing is revealed, explained or resolved.