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{\large ``Reflections from the Dark'' by Kennneth Pettigrew}

This story was unfortunately trapped into to many cliches and overused
plots, and thus despite the good writing, I wasn't particularly
impressed by the story.  Immediately into the story I find myself
turned off by excessive detail thrown together without sufficient
glue.  I find out what time it is, that Brook went to MIT, is working
hard, has no life, and only then ``why.''  The ``her only solace was
found in physics'' turns me off entirely, having been used far too
many times in B movies.  

Then we find she's working on the ``Atteran 23-457X'', and that she
just finished it.  Give it a better name, no one refers to their
project by it's number in the real world, especially not something
this major.  And when she discovers the final solution, she giggles,
speaks aloud and gets ready to head home for the night?  I don't think
so.  If she's been working 15 hours a day for two weeks on just this
final stage of the project, this has got to be something major
(especially if this is really the first time travel device), and her
success celebration is going to be BIG!  I didn't like her reaction,
it should have been a bigger deal to her.  Same thing with James ---
``this is great.  We have to take data.''  Give them credit for some
sort of a life.

I've read this exact plot before, and thus the ending didn't come as
much of a surprise to me.  Your explanation of why he was trying to
kill her did though --- ``That's when I met the others and I realized
the only purpose that would keep me sane ....  I'm going to erase your
existence from all of space time.''  Space time is usually portrayed
as infinite, if you're doing the traditional alternate timeline theme;
if so, it's impossible to kill all of somebody.  Also, who is ``we''
in the sentence quoted above?  Overall, I'm not certain what the best
solution to the above problem is.  On one hand, I say redo the plot to
be more original, on the other just clear up what's going on with
space time and play up the multiple versions of a person working
together.  


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{\large ``Terraforming'' by Jennifer Murphy}

I really enjoyed the concept behind the story and how most of it was
written.  I would have enjoyed a bit more explanation of ``powers''
and what it was exactly that made the rangers and rulers special.  I
also thought that the spoken conversation needed a bit of work.
Finally, the sudden extra knowledge the main character acquires at the
end is a bit unexpected, giving some better hint of it earlier on
would be nice.

The writing about a woman dying from stomach cancer is quite well
done, as is the bit about her drug use and wishing for more drugs.
The descriptions of Grandma are well done also, although I don't have
a very clear idea of what Grandma is (particularly at the end).  The
description of the ranger could have been done a bit better, and it
seems like the main character makes somewhat contradictory statements
about whether or not he is a ranger.  Their conversations leave a bit
to be desired --- not bad, but could be better.

The plot (which only appears on two pages) is interesting, but I was
left with a question about the main characters second to last
statement: ``There was a war at first, we fought them, and they killed
us, not the planet.''.    If these things want iron, humans are a pretty
small source of it, unless the planet is horrendously low on it.  In
any case, I would've liked more details on this, it seems too thrown
in suddenly at the end.  In particular, what is Grandma, why does she
know about the aliens, and why are all the ones in the dome killed
when being exposed to the atmosphere when the first one wasn't?


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