Recommendations from the latest batch of magazines.

From Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2007: "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear and "Scrawl Daddy" by Jack Skillingstead.

From The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, September 2007: "If We Can Save Just One Child" by Robert Reed, "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang and Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers" by John Lanagan.

From Interzone, Jul-Aug 2007: Exvisible by Carlos Hernandez.

From Fantasy Magazine, Spring 2007: "Seven Crooked Tinies" by Marly Youmans, "The Impossibilities of Crows" by Catherine M. Morrison, "His Wife" by Bruce McAllister, and The Girl With Blueberry Eyes" by Lisa Mantchev.

From Apex, Volume 1:Issue 9: "The End of Crazy" by Katherine Sparrow.

From Shimmer, Winter 2007: "Tom Cofferwillow Comes Undone" by Stephen L. Moss.

From Say...what's the combination?: Known Forms or How the Aliens Stole My Clone Babies for Jesus" by Melissa Moorer, "Into the Woods" by Marguerite Croft.

Finished the May F&SF and I have to admit to leaving Mary's story for last. "Journey into the Kingdom" is a strangely structured story, with a story within a story, but less about the protagonist than about the resolution to the protagonist's problem. It is a ghost story and I haven't decided if it reflects inhumanity or humanity, but having read Mary's take on this area, I'd have say the inhumanity of humanity. Yeah. Very nice with the characterizations and very satisfying with story complexity, I won't be surprised at all if this one appears in one or more of the year's best anthos.

Matthew Hughes' story, "A Herd of Opportunity" (cover art story) was another story from the perceptive of Guth Bandar, a younger Guth, with new discoveries within the Commons. Steven Utley takes the reader back into the Silurian Era in which he has written a other tales of the exploration by futuristic teams. Some religious right philosophy with the presence of the leader of "Advocates for Biblical Creation" group in this story. Although that isn't what the story is really about. (Or ist is?) Charles Coleman Finlay's "Passing Through" is from another series of fiction, stories taking place in Little Limestone Island, a small town around the Great Lakes area. A ghost story, but also one of conscious, the protagonist of the story must come to terms with the choices she has made.

Terry Bisson has a short work in the issue> "Billy and the Fairy" is a dark little piece about magic and decisions and nothing working out as it would seem. I cannot help but relate this story to the story in The New Yorker which I also read this week, "A Better Angel" by Chris Adrian. A story which begins with a child who sees an angel. Another story about magic and decisions and nothing working out as it would seem.

And, the final story in F&SF (for my discussion) was from the New Orleans' writer, Albert E. Cowdrey. Not a New Orleans' story, but a romance (yes, I said romance and F&SF together) taking place in a future not so unlike a Jane Austen world. It has a new world order, email updates and robots. Amusing and tender, romantic. But maybe not as romantic as Sarah Prineas' "Jane, A Story of Manners, Magic and Romance" in the April issue of Realms of Fantasy, which captures the spirit of tall, dark and handsome as well as what is absolutely not suitable for an upperclass girl in that British-like society. And, attraction. It captures that very well.