This issue contains an editorial, two book review columns (which includes a rather deep and compelling discussion of "Smilla's Sense of Snow" among others), a film review column by Harlan Ellison, an essay by Janet and Isaac Asimov, some cartoons and the following fiction stories:

Last Rites • shortstory by Ray Bradbury
Short Timer • novelette by Dave Smeds
The Godsend • shortstory by Urs Frei
Artistic License • novelette by Carrie Richerson
Home Burial • shortstory by Dale Bailey
The Sages of Cassiopeia • shortstory by Scott Mackay
Solitude • Hainish • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin

The book review columns by Charles de Lint and Robert K.J. Killheffer are the sorts of reviews I really appreciate. They each take on three books that they examine in great depth. Far too often "reviews" are little more than a blurb. This magazine presents a great alternative here.

This December 1994 edition caught my eye because of stories by Bradbury and Le Guin that I had not previously read before. Both were good, very good, particularly Le Guin's "Solitude." "Solitude" is something of an ethnographic study of a newly discovered Hainish planet with a very unusual culture. The ethnographer's children are the key to understanding and what we read is the report of a daughter. These two stories by Bradbury and Le Guin were later included in collections of the author's works that I have not read. Bradbury's short story is no slouch. It almost perfectly captures his unique flair with language that readers either love or hate. Here is the start of "Last Rites":

"HARRISON COOPER WAS NOT that old, only thirty-nine, touching at the warm rim of forty rather than the cold rim of thirty, which makes a great difference in temperature and attitude."

That is why I like Bradbury, the way he writes. And I really liked this story.

The other stories have not been published elsewhere or only in small press collections. Dave Smeds' "Short Timer" was a gripping tale set during the Vietnam War and the present with that "purple haze all in my brain." There were a couple sentences in it I could have done without. "The Godsend" I'd rate cute but only so-so (cannibals ? really?). I thought Carrie Richerson's "Artistic License" pretty interesting if totally unbelievable. "Home Burial" was a decent ghost story. "The Sages of Cassiopeia" was odd although I found the early astronomic observations rather interesting.

All in all a good issue. ( )