A mostly forgettable collection of short SF mysteries by a variety of authors, many of them new to SF or even to fiction writing, based on short outlines generated, and presented, by Resnick. Most of the newcomers and even some of the old hands just expand the outlines into sequences of full sentences, stories in structure only. A few stories actually have a bit of meat to them. Pat Cadigan's True Faces has a bit too much jury-rigging, but does dig a bit deeper into the difficulties of understanding alien guilt. John Chancie's Murder On-Line almost completely ignores Resnick's outline about teleporters and alibis to tell an inverted mystery (with a Columbo simulacrum of course) set in a near future where the real world is falling apart from neglect in favor of online interactions. Esther Friesner and Walter Stutzman's Dead Ringer overdoes the joking in its tale of clones, identity, and murder, but works relatively well in looking at more personal relationships people would have with clones of those they've known. ( )

A science fiction mystery short story leaves very little room for character development. On top of that, some of the stories had really good sfnal ideas that just got thrown away rather than explored. I liked some of the stories, but wished all of them had been better. ( )