Asimov's Science Fiction, December 2005

The novella Diving Into the Wreck is pretty good; I did not particularly enjoy Ikiryoh and Earthtime. Altogether, an average issue of Asimov's.

• Novella: Diving Into the Wreck, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Professional wreck-diver stumbles upon an impossible ship in an impossible section of the galaxy: a five thousand year old Dignity Vessel, drifting aimlessly through space fifty thousand light years from Earth.
• Novelette: Amba, by William Sanders - In a world done in by global warming, only the once-cold wastelands of Siberia are flourishing. There is a brisk business in smuggling Chinese immigrants into Russia.
• Novelette: The Perimeter, by Chris Beckett - Most people live as virtual beings in a 'consensual field' but a few old sticklers think that the physical world is still the 'real' world.
• To the East, a Bright Star, by James Maxey - The last days on Earth before the asteroid strike wipes out life as we know it.
• Ikiryoh, by Liz Williams - The ikiryoh is a copy of a person into which all the negative traits have been placed, allowing the 'good' original copy to be a better person.
• Earthtime, by Damian Kilby - Marie Lang feels as if she is "a kind of secret agent and angel. And a warrior in a battle across all of time, fighting over a universe in a constant state of being made and unmade." I think she's insane.