This selective review was written in April 2004, primarily as an aide-memoire, one in a sequence of 1992 Asimovs which I bought from eBay and found to be those published either side of Asimov's death. This issue is the first post-Asimov. My intention is to have the cover and contents for these issues on bestsf.net and to selectively review stories by my favourite authors.

Stephen Kraus. Bright River.

Kayaking on a lava flow on Epsilon Eridani VI.

L. Sprague de Camp. The Synthetic Barbarian.

"Reggie Rivers takes a couple of his oddest clients yet on safara in the Oligocene".

Michael Swanwick. In Concert.

Set in Sevastopol, home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The story however is about a young guy who is railing against the constricting soviet society, and who sneaks into a rock concert by The Boss. No, not Springsteen, but Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov aka Nikolai Lenin. The guy is a living legend, or to be more accurate, a near-dead legend, as his ageing bones are kept going (and going and going) by chemicals and medication - he makes Keith Richards look like Bo Derek at her peak.

Belting out some of his classics, such as 'Rural Electrification', the concert-goes infuse Lenin with an energy which enables him to rock them one more time.

A passable story, but not one of Swanwick's best.

Jonathan Lethem. Vanilla Dunk.

A clever sports story. Near future baseball in which the baseball stars are helped out by exoskeletons powered by AIs downloaded from the baseball greats from the past. Lassner is one of only two starting white players on the Nicks team, and he and his black team mates watch as Michael Jordan's skillset is coming up on the draft-style lottery. Bemusement and anger are the responses to Jordan's skills going to a white guy. Worse still, the white guy has an attitude and becomes the self-styled 'Vanilla Dunk'.

The no-class Dunk showboats regularly, using Jordan's greatest moves on a regular basis, and Lassner and the Nicks team have to face him and his all-conquering team in the playoffs.

A huge upset takes place, dumping Dunk's team out of the playoffs, as Lassner users his inherent skill and his team-mates use tactics and every ounce of their being to counteract him and his team.

Not being a great basketball fan, I probably missed out an added dimension to the story, but still found it an entertaining read.

Leslie What. King for a Day.

Her first fiction sale.

Tony Daniel. Death of Reason.

Daniel was the reason I picked up this issue, on account of his stories 'A Dry Quiet War' and 'Grist' which Dozois collected in his 14th and 16th annual collections. This earlier work shows promise, but doesn't quite reach the heights of those stories.

Dashiel Hammett and James Lee Burke are credited as influences in the introduction, and full enjoyment of the story will hinge on the extent to which the reader likes thrillers of this kind. I don't, but found the sfnal elements sufficiently strong to keep with it. The POV character is a hardboiled cop, genmod up to a point, and enhanced by computer linkages etc.

He is also a jobbing SF writer, in a sideline which rather detracts from the story IMHO.

He is returning to Birmingham for his grandfather's funeral, and finds himself still persona non grata with a local hood. He deals summarily, and viciously, with two heavies sent to pick him up, fut finally comes face to face with the hood, who wants him to find the murderer of a mutual friend.

There are a few twists and turns to the story, with the beautiful blonde ex-wife playing a pivotal role, as is the AI ghost of the deceased grandfather. In some ways the tech and the story feels a lot like the recent Deus Ex PC games.

Conclusion.

The stories I read in the issue were fine, with Daniel being the pick for me, but none were stories that I would urge anyone to hunt down and read.