Review of Asimov's, December 2005

For you SF fans, my review of Asimov's December edition is up at Tangent. I've been kvetching to my editor, Eugie Foster, about having to read so much mainstream SF, but honestly, this issue rocked. Two superb stories, and I mean top drawer (Damian Kilby's "Earthtime", and James Maxey's "To the East, a Bright Star"), three good stories, and only one tale which required Mr. Snarkypencil. I liked Kilby's and Maxey's stories best because of their rich sense of humanity. Which is a poofy way of saying, they wrote about believable human beings and made me care about them. I'm a sucker for heartstring-tugs, and both stories gave me lots of the good stuff. Those two stories also gave me a better sense of what's wrong with my current short, "Renee". The damned thing lacks heart. I wrote it for one of Keith's 500 word challenges, so I'd had to cut back on everything. Minimal description, bare bones characterization, everything pared down to the core idea. It's a fine idea, but the story will be much better if I can give it a heart and soul. Back to the drawing board. D.