The most noticeable problem with the January 2007 issue of Asimov's is that it isn't the December issue of Asimov's. My December has decided not to arrive, and I am displeased.

But the biggest problem is that two of the stories do not belong in the magazine. Neither Cafe Culture nor Gunfight at the Sugarloaf Pet Food & Taxidermy have any element of science fiction or fantasy. There isn't a hint of the fantastic in either story. They're both fine stories, but they're out of place. Cafe Culture belongs in a pretentious literary fiction magazine, and Gunfight at the Sugarloaf Pet Food & Taxidermy could pass as either a detective story or an action story.

The other stories definitely belong in Asimov's. I did not much like Trunk and Disorderly, though. Stross's prose gets in the way of his storytelling. Or more precisely, his prose is a smokescreen to hide his lack of storytelling. Someone so obviously skilled should be able to turn a neat phrase while also telling a good tale, but Stross either fails to do so, or chooses not to.

• Novelette: Safeguard, by Nancy Kress - Children designed as biological weapons are raised in a biodome, until a massive earthquake cracks the dome.
• Novelette: The Hikikomori's Cartoon Kimono, by A. R. Morlan - A young Japanese man working in a tattoo shop strikes up a friendship with a food artist at a local Japanese restaurant.
• Novelette: Trunk and Disorderly, by Charles Stross - An atmosphere surfer survives his jump, but is distraught over his mistress leaving him. However, at the post-jump party, he sees his mistress has been kidnapped by the brother of the Emir of Mars.
• Poison, by Bruce McAllister - A boy's cat is poisoned, so he confronts the witch who lives nearby.
• Cafe Culture, by Jack Dann - A depressed man stops a suicide bomber, then, seizing the opportunity, dons her explosive vest and bombs a target of his choice.
• Battlefield Games, by R. Neube - Soldier in foxhole plays chess with an enemy missile.
• Gunfight at the Sugarloaf Pet Food & Taxidermy, by Jeff Carlson - Julie Beauchain works for the Fish, Parks, and Wildlife Service in Montana. Her out-of-season-hunting sting turns sinister when a strange outsider shoots up her dummy deer with a submachine gun.