Martin McGrath

All the stories have something, but all need more polish.

Nestbuster - Roderick Gladwish

Setting is a rerun of Starship Troopers - humanity faced an fast-spawning enemy necessitating special 'Nestbuster' units who took out alien creches. A retired member of a Nestbuster unit is visited by a seemingly unflappable researcher, interested in why he is still so hale and hearty. Characterisation and setting are minimal but a story with a twist is delivered effectively.

Time's chariot - Nina Allan

Very adroitly written in the form of a personal memoir, yet the story never happens. The viewpoint character, who seems female, is revealed as male. All sorts of strange things happen or are implied but nothing seems to tie up. It might not even be science fiction.

Surf Town - James Bloomer

A self-retired 'king of the surf 'is persuaded back onto his board by a 'Mesh' surfing challenge, involving his lost love. The Mesh seems to be both a virtualisation network as well as a physical world manipulator. Great fun if you like surfing.

The Mark - Nigel Envarli Crowe

Delivered in chunks of personal experience from three female characters. 'The Mark' is a physical sign of resistance to a disaster (which seems to be the release of nuclear radiation). The writing gets baroque in places and the 'disaster' seems to cause all bar the main characters to swiftly disappear.

Maria via Lily - Gary Spencer

A grieving mother, Maria, has arranged to have her dying daughter Lily scanned into a 'cask' and then revived in a virtual reality 'Realm' but discovers the scan has been pirated. This is like a second 'loss' of her daughter. She finds a way to rectify things as the scanning company will not help. Story though lacks emotional impact.

Rescue stories - Andy West

Prefaced with some quotes on religion from Thomas Mann and George Santayana, this is the tale of a space vessel containing far future humans that crashes on a world with primitive sentients, The 'humans' have lost gender identity but have rather silly names based on stars. They come up with a survival solution that is, to say the least, audacious. Rather overlong, but has a nice twist.… (mehr)