I read this as part of my survey of magazines in the field, as I begin to start reading again in the genre.

I was disappointed by the issue. The two best items in terms of content were Ted Chiang's excellent essay and Sean Melican's historical story. Chiang's "Reasoning about the Body" is a printing of his address to Congres Boreal in May 2010, and it moves from the broad idea of folk biology to the specific critique of the (false) metaphor of the brain as computer and its effect on science fiction. Melican's "The Absence of Water" is a narration of the sinking of the Confederate submarine Hunley from the crew's p.o.v., and while it uses a cliche in flashback/background sections (crew members' encounters with drownings in their pasts), it's an engaging story that makes you feel the crew's final moments, and brings to mind the experience of the crew members of the Kursk.

I also read Patty Houston's "Elite Institute for the Study of Arc Welders' Flash Fever," Jenny Terpsichore Abeles' "Three Hats," and J. M. McDermott's "Death's Shed." The first story has the narrator as basically a lab rat in an experiment; the second story is a magical realist piece with some trite symbolism; the last piece is modern piece with some steampunk elements. These all disappointed me in terms of their endings. Which is ironic considering that I *knew* how Melican's piece must end, so ultimately it's about the execution of the ending.

I started but did not finish 2 stories: "The Cruel Ship's Captain" and "The Other Realms Were Built With Trash." And I skipped the poems. Gwenda Bond's fake advice column was mildly amusing.

I was disappointed by formatting problems as well. This is an issue that I bought via Weightless Books, not B&N. The table of contents page was a mess: with every line with an increasing indent and a hyperlink; the title for a story appeared on a separate page with the author's name appearing at the top of the first page of the story; the pop-up contents menu followed this so that each item had the title and the author's name listed separately. I was thinking of using Weightless Books as my main gateway for getting SF magazines, but if they suffer these problems across the board, it will push me to using B&N. ( )