The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February 2017

An above average issue, with interesting stories by Rachel Pollack, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Rich Larson and Wole Talabi.

• "Homecoming" by Rachel Pollack: an interesting fantasy story about a person who can travel into fantasy realms around the world. In this case, a woman asks him to find a missing part of her soul. Doubts arise as he performs his job, but it is only on returning the soul that he discovers he may have unleashed an ancient horror on the world, and it may be up to him to save it. But there is a twist to the ending: people who have read the earlier stories about this Traveller might anticipate it.

• "Vinegar and Cinnamon" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman: in this fun story, magic is a given, but training to control it is required. For one farming family, a dispute between a non-magical elder brother and his magical sister goes wrong when she casts a spell at him in anger, turning him into a rat. As he adjusts to a life as a rat, while waiting for a counter-spell, he starts to discover things about the world as seen by a rat; as well as getting new abilities.

• "One Way" by Rick Norwood: a rather old-fashioned SF story about a down-and-out professor with a revolutionary theory meeting a young, brilliant enthusiast. Together, they prove that the theory works and will have a major impact on the world. But a crisis occurs when the theory is push a bit further. I call the story old-fashioned because it could have been written and published during the 'Golden Age' of Science Fiction.

• "Dunnage for the Soul" by Robert Reed: an interesting, speculative story about a man in the future which, due to what may be called 'voodoo science', is considered soul-less. His, and other soul-less people anger at society for treating them differently builds up throughout the story, and he discovers a solution to the problem: a solution that he may apply to the person who started the whole situation.

• "There Used to Be Olive Trees" by Rich Larson: an interesting story set in a future when much of the land is devastated, AI 'gods' rule the skies and land and what remains of humanity eke out a living. One person, who controls a nano-based augment, leaves his town because his machine implant that allows him to connect to the town's machine isn't working, and he fears the people will rip it out of him. Outside, in the wild, he meets a wilder who takes his nano augment hostage in return for help to get an auto-doctor machine working. But as he tries to communicate with the machine, he will learn some secrets of the AI gods and their plans for humanity; and he does not plan to play along with them.

• "The Regression Test" by Wole Talabi: an interesting story about a woman bought in to test an AI that is supposed to be a replica of her famous dead mother. Her test method would reveal that something is not right; but can she hold on to it when she discovers that she is in a trap set up to make her pass the AI as her mother.

• "A Gathering on Gravity’s Shore" by Gregor Hartmann: on a terraformed world, one of the workers is invited to a celebratory party. But while there, he runs into a biologist who makes him rethink about his alliance to either the world or to the elite people who are ruling the place.

• "On the Problem of Replacement Children: Prevention, Coping, and Other Practical Strategies" by Debbie Urbanski: written in the style of a report with case studies, it looks at various people whose children have been replaced in the night by doppelgängers and the effects it has on the families who try to cope with unfamiliar children. The story's link to autism is obvious, but the effect it has on the characters is no different.

• "Alexandria" by Monica Byrne: a widow is determined to build her own version of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, as a way to immortalize her love (frowned upon by her neighbours) for her husband. Small passages from the far future would show the effects the lighthouse would have.

• "Wetherfell’s Reef Runics" by Marc Laidlaw: a quirky story about a book collector on a pacific island who ends up with a strange book written by a visitor to the island who had just drowned. The book documents various 'lines of power' around the world and mentions a final one under the water at the island. His investigations would lead to a strange conclusion that maybe something under the water has been awaken.