Uploaded October 28, 1996 -- Updated October 28, 1996
Here is the list of stories in this issue. If you have any comments or reviews, send them to jbailey@sff.net. Please indicate which issue and/or story you're referring to in the subject line, and try to keep comments for different stories separate in you letters so I can place them properly.
"Abandon in Place" by Jerry Oltion (Nominated for 1997 Hugo Award) [10/28/96]
"Out of the Mouths" by Sheila Finch
"Yesterday's Dreams" by Ed Gorman
"The Emperor Redux" by David Gerrold
"The Harrowing" by Carrie Richerson
Miscellaneous Comments (on the magazine as a whole, editorials, columns, etc.)
(Nominated for 1997 Hugo Award, best Novella)
Jim Bailey: 10/28/96
In the introduction to this piece, Kristine Kathryn Rusch call it hard science fantasy, and she's absolutely correct. There's more than enough rivets and bolts, and attention to the details behind them, to make any hard SF buff happy. But the central premise is one of ghosts, namely the ghosts of the Apollo program and its unfulfilled destiny.
Rick Spencer is a Shuttle pilot about a decade in the future. The aging Space Shuttles are still going, but there's not much else on the horizon to replace them. He's just returned to the Cape from the funeral of Neil Armstrong, and even though he's part of the space program, the fulfillment of a life's dream, he can feel the dream dying around him.
That's when the Saturn V goes off. It shouldn't be there, the pad has been abandoned for decades, yet there it goes, streaming flames in a long-forgotten spectacle of sight and sound. And it's not just a personal vision: others saw it, and there's telemetry coming back from the ship all during its trip to the moon until it winks out 500 feet from the surface.
What does it mean? Ask yourself: would you fly to the moon, even if your vehicle was a ghost you didn't understand? Jerry Oltion has written a fascinating, powerful tale. One of the best of the year.
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