"Injure the Corners" by Patrick Weekes
"Cobbling Together a Solution" by Mike Resnick
"Alias the Stranger" by Larry Tritten
"Memento Mori" by Joe Haldeman

Patrick Weekes presents one of the most helpful magic swords in fantastic literature in "Injure the Corners." The great sword Caelthras is currently wielded by a swordsman intent on destroying the Dreadlord, who murdered his wife ten years earlier. The interplay between the sword and its wielder is portrayed well and as Weekes tells his story, it is clear that their relationship is more symbiotic than initially indicated, although in a more mutually beneficial way than the symbiosis between, say, Elric and Stormbringer. "Injure the Corners" hints at a much more complex world and it will be interesting to see if Weekes has any desire to further flesh it out.

Much of Mike Resnick's writing deals with the problems inherent in colonial powers and parochial attitudes. "Cobbling Together a Solution" is yet another one. In this tale, Resnick posits a planet whose inhabitants want nothing to do with the Galactic Republic. The Republic, of course, doesn't care about the indigenes' wishes and keep trying to impose itself on them, with predictable results. In the end, this is a story of diplomacy, tact, and cultural understanding. While these are morals which Resnick frequently incorporates into his stories, in "Cobbling Together a Solution," he does it with a fresh voice and an interesting protagonist.

"Alias the Stranger" is a tribute to country music by Larry Tritten. Tritten begins by exploring the concept of the stranger in the Western genre. Although Tritten portrays the stranger, any stranger, as dangerous, it is never really clear in his story how dangerous his stranger is, although the man is shown to be much more formidable than he initially appears. The story is reasonably straightforward until near the end, when the strangeness of the stranger is finally revealed. Although there is a little humor in the piece, most of it comes from the page long sketch in which a stereotypical country song is dissected.

This is a long tradition in science fiction magazine publishing of asking an author to write a story based on an already existing painting. Amazing Stories has done this with a painting by David Rankin and asked Hugo and Nebula Award winner Joe Haldeman to write a story about the painting. In this case, the editor limited Haldeman to a mere 1,000 words, with the result being "Memento Mori." Based on the image of a grey figure lying on a table with a dark figure inserting a long dagger-shaped object into its chest, Haldeman delivers a story of immortality and rebirth. With a limited number of words, Haldeman does a wonderful job of telling his story, but it is the link to the picture that really makes the tale evocative.