When an accident puts his implant out of commission, all bets are off, and she has to pit her cunning against his capacity, and desire, to do her serious harm. Under the unforgiving sun, we learn more about the couple, with the extent of the bitchiness of the woman throwing the actions of the man into a better light. Can she talk her way out of this one?

Or, which makes the story work well, can she find some way out of the situation for them both? Unfortunately a maguffin appears, which saves the day, rather than her intrinsic cleverness, which slightly spoils the denoument.

It appears that it can, with the pair relating both emotionally and, surprisingly, physically. But he is an AI who can incorporate many instances of himself, the better to multi-task, and of course a woman can not share a man with others in this way. For her it is all or nothing, and as the rules are changed to make such powerful AI's as he illegal, she has to choose between him and the Krishna cop who wishes to turn him off.

The boy's wishes are granted, although the Antalou has only to threaten the civil servant, and the link between the boy and the Antalou proves to be a strong ones.

We follow a group of virtual sibs, a cadre, who are approaching their Incarnation Day, and what appears initially to be an adventure story surrounding them, becomes much darker as the strains between one young woman and her mother develop into a life-threatening situation, as the parents have the right to return their virtual children to a zero state, and start again.

He kicks his story off inside the belly of a huge worm, the preferred form of transport for a group of travellers, whose route takes them through places such as Hammer, Mister Low, World's Edge, and Port of Krauss. The world is a strange one, massive islands and continents of wood, floating across the great oceans, those lands riven with earthquakes and at the mercy of tradewinds.

Young Jopale is one of the travellers, and he is a sole survivor of a catastrophic geyser which poisoned his fellow villagers and flooded the valley in which they live. But this small disaster is overshadowed by a greater menance, as the whole continent is faced with an out of control fire which is consuming the very wood on which they live.

One of his travelling companions, Do-Ane shared a secret with him, and as they flee the world-ravaging fires, we find out more about what passes for history and mythology in this far future Earth, and that the Good Mountain of the title may not indeed by a route off the world, but just a name, a name given meaning by humans.

A good addition to an excellent series of stories.

Gregory gets the reader into the head of the woman, who rues ever breaking bread with the women over the road, as the macabre details are revealed.

The story flows very quickly, with the short staccato sentences driving the plot along quickly (perhaps a little too quickly), and gives a lot in a short space.

This story is set in the milieu of 'The Calorie Man', and if not quite up to the heights of the original story, that's more a reflection of just how good 'The Calorie Man' was. The future Bacigalupi posits is a relatively near future Earth which has suffered a lot of societal changes wreaked by multinational agribusinesses and bio-engineered plagues ravaging food crops.

This story opens claustrophobically and intensely, with a nightmare of machetes and blood waking Tranh, who has been sleeping with hundreds of other Chinese, refugees from Malay, in a rundown high-rise in Bangkok. Previously a wealthy businessman in Malay, he had not been quick enough to see the politics and the nationalism that would lead to the rivers of blood which have washed him and his fellow Chinese to such a state of depredation as refugees in yet another country. With only a thin suit, the only reminder of his past he has held onto, to mark him from the thousands like him who are looking for a step on the ladder, he has only his skills and knowledge to help him avoid starvation.

He has to face not only his compatriots in the same situation he is in, but an ex-employee who has managed to do well for himself, and who has obtained the beyond-price Yellow Card which marks him out as not a refugee, but a bona fide citizen of Thailand.

The story follows Tranh through a failed attempt to gain employment to a chance further encounter with his ex-employee, via a scarily dark clockwork prostitute. Bacigalupi gets under Tranh's skin throughout, and you can feel his hunger, and desperation and follow his mental turmoil as he struggles to avoid drowning in the sea of starving humanity.

Following hard on the heels of 'Pop Squad' (F&SF Oct/Nov 2006), a brace of stories of top quality.

The couple knuckle down to the task, travelling vast distances, uploading and downloading into freshly minted bodies, and drawing on help from the various intelligences en route, including, memorably, a snakelike hivemind. In the end it is Leila who is the most committed, and in making the transition through the previously impermeable barrier, gets a tantalising glimpse of what lies beyond, one which she does not share.

She welcomes the alien in charge of arranging the relocation of the townspeople, and the pair get to understand each other very well. As the rock-like alien gradually becomes more human (quite literally!) the bond threatens to become a stronger one.

However, the potential love affair is of course doomed, as is Okanoggan Falls. But whilst the townspeople may lose their homes, humanity has perhaps made a small step, and whilst it may not be the end, or even the beginning of the end, it may be the end of the beginning. (Thinks : I'm sure I've heard that before...)

The team's insertion into a purportedly off-line space hulk, which responds to their presence, and whose AI proves to be particuarly smart, provides an atmospheric setting, and the ending is macabre.