The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February 2020

An okay issue, with interesting stories by Essa Hansen, Matthew Hughes, Alex Irvine, Albert E. Cowdrey and Auston Habershaw.

• "Save, Salve, Shelter" by Essa Hansen: in this future, environmental disaster has happened and what remains of humanity is leaving for Mars. Collectors are tasked with collecting DNA samples from animals that still survive to take with them. But one collector wants to do more and bring the animals to Mars. As ship after ship rejects her, she makes one last desperate move for her animals, not seemingly aware of the changes happening to her charges.

• "Air of the Overworld" by Matthew Hughes: a wizard subjects a henchman to strange experiments that may have to do with sending him to another plane of existence (the Overworld) to collect materials for him. Becoming aware of the dangers this endeavour might do to him, he plans to escape with the help of an inhabitant of the Overworld that he once helped.

• "Banshee" by Michael Cassutt: when an experimental spaceship keeps suffering problems, it is up to a well-connected problem solver to figure out a solution. But he finds himself 'out of the loop' when his initial proposed solution is not accepted. But he eventually figures out an alternative solution with the help of his daughter who, in this story, has undergone a radical change and become a dinosaur (radical body morphs being another part of the story).

• "Chisel and Chime" by Alex Irvine: a light fantasy story with a heavy theme around art and death. A sculptor is given the task of producing a statue of a local despot, a task that would end with her death. Watching over her is a soldier, whose origin story of living in a village and then running away and ending up as her guard would show that he does not know how his task will also end. And yet, with the help of a special bell from the guard that has the ability to contain the ghost of a departed person, she comes up with a desperate plan to save him from the designs of the despot after her death.

• "Elsinore Revolution" by Elaine Vilar Madruga: a short short story of a future where multiple Shakespeares write plays, only one particular Shakespeare character does not want to do its appointed role.

• "Falling Angel" by Albert E. Cowdrey: two psychics are called to rid a new development in Hollywood of the agonizing scream of a woman who fell to her death years ago. But as they research her background and the circumstances of her death, they discover the person who caused her death may not be an actual person at all.

• "The Key to Composing Human Skin" by Julianna Baggott: an unusual story set in a country (maybe the USA) under the rule of tyranny. In a firm tasked with the job of delivering messages from the government more effectively, one person comes up with the idea of messages the user can't escape from, like a rash on their skin. Without spoiling the story, the idea is implemented in an unusual way that expresses the users' actual thoughts that they can't escape from.

• "Interlude in Arcadia" by Corey Flintoff: a professor of Greek Literature finds himself stumbling into a world where Greek myths come to life, and they may not treat him too kindly.

• "Three Gowns for Clara" by Auston Habershaw: when a Prince makes a proclamation and invites (demands) all maidens to attend a ball, it falls on to an old seamstress to quickly make three gowns for a duke. This, she does, sacrificing her time and that of her helper and her grandniece, who now does not have the time to make her own dress for the ball. But perhaps with a change of heart, the grandniece may have her chance to shine at the ball.

• "The Nameless" by Melissa Marr: a story of a forest where women live and fight off 'wolves' that threaten them. Unfortunately, the premise of the story doesn't hold together very well, especially as more of the world beyond the forest the women live in is revealed in the story.

• "The Leader Principle" by Rahul Kanakia: a story of a man (maybe modelled on SpaceX's Elon Musk) who dreams of getting rockets to Mars at any cost, and of his assistant who would do anything to ensure that dream becomes true, even if it means taking money from investors who have no hope of getting their money back and maybe even thinking of ways of enslaving the rest of the world.