Cover of the May/June 2017 double issue

One of the advantages put forward in favour of the bi-monthly double-issue format was that it would permit the publication of much longer stories. Problem is: if those longer stories aren’t to a reader’s taste then (for that particular reader) it’s a large fraction of the magazine wasted.

For the first time, Asimov’s has published an entire novel in a single issue: “The Runabout” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into the story. So that’s a fair chunk of the May/June issue that I didn’t enjoy. And James Gunn’s “The Escape of the Adastra: Asha’s story”, although a standalone tale, is nevertheless part of a series. It belongs to the world he created for his novel Transcendental. It felt like retreading old ground.

Compared to the March/April issue, this one felt stale.