Ken Liu, "White Hempen Sleeves." In the luxuriant society of Casey, one person has made their wealth through the ultimate taboo: creating an identical copy of a person's mind, putting it into lethal danger, and then allowing the original person to experience their own death. They reveal this secret business to their newfound lover, only to be betrayed. I love stories about consciousness and clones, about who gets to be considered "real" or "original" or "human," and this story does a good job of playing with those questions. The descriptions are poetic, but not so much that they hindered the imagination.

Tiffany Trent, "Spiritus Ex Orcinus." All Rani wants to do is get back into a whale body and have a child. But as an indentured servant with a rebellious reputation, Rani has little chance of ever achieving their dream. Then they find a whale tooth from old, long gone Earth, and go on a mission to find the last whale of the original species. I felt the dissonance, disgust, and dysmorphia the narrator felt toward the human body they were trapped in, and the ending is a unexpected but, in retrospect, totally believable shocking twist. No one's form or mind is truly their own!

Jack Graham, "Into the White."Inspector Nordqvist investigates a murder far below the surface of Iapetus. The use of Eclipse Phase concepts and jargon was pretty skillfully & naturally incorporated, but the new terms were so pervasive that it was a little much for someone like me, who doesn't already know this stuff. I liked the suspense and paranoia in the dark, icy tunnels.

Fran Wilde, "The Thousandth Cycle." Hanni sells her emotions and sensations to an AI. But then the AI loses a bet, and Hanni must keep an even larger and more complex AI's attention for a thousand cycles. This is trippy and kinky (the way machine intelligences can be kinky) and I liked it a lot.

Nathaniel Dean with Davidson Cole, "Interference." A professor is in town for a conference, but something unsettling is going on...I like the way this story deals with academia and ambition in a strange sf universe (the conference call between all the professors was the perfect combo of familiar and fantastical) and the lies we tell ourselves to mask our darker impulses.

Kim May, "The Fukuda Cube." An AI investigates a ship transporting the minds of Earth refugees. I liked the ruminations on being un-bodied, but otherwise thought this was workmanlike prose at best.

Rob Boyle & Davidson Cole, "Lack." Sava and a team of Firewall agents search the Kilimanjaro space elevator for a long dead courier. As they walk through halls full of corpses left behind by a past war, each of them has to make a choice whether to cut and run, leaving their latest experiences behind. For some, forgetting the last few days would be a mercy. For others, losing time is a horror.

Georgina Kamsika, "Nostalgia." Charumati infiltrated a rich household in order to get access to their vault. When another faction makes a move on the vault, she has to choose between the mission and the baby she's been pretending to care for. I liked the way the old Earth artifacts are viewed by hackers like Charumati, and the way her opinion of an old school bodyguard changes as the story progresses.

Jack Graham, "Nostrums." Jake Carter looks for Bobdog, finds a whole mess of a conspiracy to steal body parts from uplifted primates, and then an even bigger plot that might actually be too much to handle. This has some cool set pieces, but I'd have liked more personality from the characters.

Review tbc as I read more.