Thanks to Gordon van Gelder for the July 2008 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Two stories caught my attention: Reader's Guide by Lisa Goldstein had an interesting twist at the end, at least I thought so. Seems that a young apprentice might be rising up in the organization. This was an interesting format for a story, but probably not one which should be imitated.

The other was Fullbrim's Finding by Matthew Hughes. In this story Mr. Hughes offers an explanation as to why this world seems so imperfect. The vocabulary was almost a roadblock, too many clever new words. But he stayed on this side of decipherable. The character of the detective was slightly derivative of Dirk Gently, but his personality and techniques were not central to the storyline.

Enfant Terrible by Scott Dalrymple is a short story about a gifted child whose gift is not exactly desirable. But child abduction is a controversial subject regardless of the motives.

I've never understood the fascination with alternative histories. 1949 in Nazi dominated Russia is fairly boring (to me) in Albert Cowdrey's Poison Victory.