The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, November/December 2022

A good issue with mostly interesting and wonderful stories, some related to the holidays. I especially enjoyed the stories by John Shirley, Vida Cruz-Borja, J. C. Hsyu, Sara Ellis, Alexander Flores and Jo Miles.

• "Sacrificial Drones" by John Shirley: starting with a dramatic scene in Africa when a boy witnesses a violent act, the story moves forward in time to when a researcher meets a rich African who wants to improve the world using her nanodrone technology. But what stands in their way are warlords out to murder them for threatening their way of life, but not if the rich African gets his way.

• "Though The Heavens Fall" by Louis Evans: when two spaceships have a dispute, it is up to another, much older and more powerful ship to settle the dispute and to ensure justice is done for the cyborg slave at the centre of it.

• "The Shotgun Lucifer" by Bennett North: two fugitives run away together in an unusual world where sound can create vision. But one of there is from a different kind of place and hopes to lead them there to escape their pursuers.

• "Child Of Two Worlds" by Vida Cruz-Borja: a fascinating tale of a girl who grows up in the mortal and fantastic world, and must choose which world to live in when the time comes. But as that time approaches, she meets a boy who wants to map the world, and she makes her choice, if her mortal and magical guardians will let her.

• "Optimist Cleaver’s Last Transmission" by J. C. Hsyu: a woman who acts as a link in a chain of private transporters for private data misses a drop, leading to acts of violence on those around her, which turn on out to be linked to her past as a leader of a gang; but she is a leader with a good heart.

• "Crypt Currency" by Sara Ellis: in a world where hexes and spells live with technology, a girl who snatches body parts from the dead for use in spells get an unusual request: a request that she suspects may be for another sinister purpose. When she acts on the request but in her own way, she may save a life but risks her own.

• "Iconophobe" by Sam J. Miller: set after a series of suicide bombings by a cult group who believes photography is evil and separating humanity from nature, the story follows a journalist who managed to embed himself into the group years ago and wrote up a popular book about his experiences. But one embellishment in the book about an initiation ceremony would come back to haunt him, as well as a person in the cult whom he fell in love in, who may still use him to achieve the ultimate purpose of the cult.

• "To Carve Home In Your Bones" by Aigner Loren Wilson: a rather winding and violent story set in a future where strange creatures have taken over the world. On an island where a crash has occurred, the survivors, all women, struggle to survive as they are picked off, one by one, until only two are left to fulfil what the island's non-human inhabitants require of them.

• "Skin Of The Beast" by Alexander Flores: a fascinating short short story of the wife of a beast, who plots revenge against her beastly husband: a revenge that would require them to change roles.

• "Santa Knows" by Jo Miles: an entertaining Christmas tale about children who write letters to Santa to complain about the app, Santa Knows, that monitors their behaviour. Of course, Santa has to do something about that.

• "Water Music" by Michael A. Gonzales: a saxophone player gets a 'blessing' from an unusual creature that enables him to play extraordinary notes. He then moves to the big city to play, but the playing skill gradually leaves him, making him realize that he would have to meet the creature again, who may not take too kindly to how he had used his gift.