Evergreen

Novelette by Shane Tourtellotte

Andrew and Alice are adults whose parents engineered them to stop physically maturing during childhood. They have traded adult bodies (and sexual maturity) for extreme longevity and mental agility. But the rest of society has done a typically poor job of accepting this new minority group. Andrew is a civil rights activist when he isn't at work, while Alice lives and works from home with her parents, who shelter her, perhaps too much. They become romantically involved, and each try to change the other. Andrew thinks Alice is naive and childish, Alice thinks Andrew overcompensates for his young appearance and provokes conflict. Andrew is about as good with women as I am, which is to say: not.

On the long end of novelette length, this is maybe 2 pages shorter than the shorter novellas. So there is sufficient room to explore the changes that have been made to the world in great detail through the story of Alice and Andrew's relationship. In addition to social prejudice, sexuality, pedophilia and rape are dealt with, so this is rather un-childfriendly although not graphic. But it is very emotional and the ending is sweet. Almost entirely human interaction, all of it with a rare degree of warmth makes this an uncommon SF story. 4.5 out of 5.

The Last Resort

Novelette by Alec Nevala-Lee

A group of eco-terrorists trade in their "eco" for an extra dose of terrorism. Two Forest Service personnel try to figure out what happened, and wonder about their own "virtuous sense of helplessness" about trying to change things as compared to the obvious harm the terrorists cause, inadvertently or otherwise. They also spend an odd amount of time being questioned, bullied, and ordered around by a ski resort employee. I don't care how much construction you oversee, I don't think you're allowed to confiscate phones off of government agents. The amount of shit they took from this guy Frank actually distracted me from the mystery, right before it was solved in a big infodump. And the ending was bizarre; I would not be as easily satisfied with life as the protagonist, and I certainly would be more upset about a dangerous psychopath putting my children and others at risk. And should I for some reason have my cellphone confiscated by some random construction overseer during an emergency, I'll have the bastard arrested. Still the story draws you in and is good as far as mundane thrillers go. 2.5 out of 5 people have heard the herpetology joke at the beginning before, but laugh anyway.

From the Ground Up

Short Story by Marie DesJardin

NASA's astronaut programs are completely eliminated for budget reasons. Carrie, a would-be astronaut goes back to the spot where she first decided to go into space and decides to gamble her reputation on one last shot at funding.

A nice, hopeful little story that comes in at 3 pages. And I wouldn't add or subtract a word of it. 4.5 out of 5.

Attitude Adjustment

Short Story by Eric James Stone

A group of space tourists try to save their sabotaged ship. Fortunately they have a petulant kid with a working computer, a pilot with a good understanding of physics, and an old man with a good memory of classic Solving-Our-Problems-With-Physics SF stories.

This story is quite well written and makes the excellent decision not to focus on why the ship was sabotaged, just on solving the problem. My classic SF knowledge is far from exhaustive, but I've never seen the solution to this story used before. Makes me want to get back to my mission to read the Feynman Lectures on Physics all the way through. Also pun titles are always good. 3.5 out of 5.