Sinner, baker, fabulist, priest; red mask, black mask, gentleman, beast - Eugie Foster

Within a society governed by the adoption of personalities via 'masks', which can drive people to extremes of behaviour, a woman is awoken from the perpetual masquerade. While the setting is given little depth or rationale, the story has a neat twist in resolution.

The Push - Dave Hutchinson

The Push is an FTL drive technology which Hansen, along with friends, used to found an independent colony on the planet Reith. Hanson is a stereotypical 'hero', full of wise-cracks, rich beyond belief and able to solve any problem. He is called back to Reith, as a native species there, the Rockers, hitherto hunted by Hansen and others as animals, seem to have become intellgent and a team of government investigators are on their way to uncover this crime...Entertaining but unadventurous.

Johnny and Emmie-Lou get married - Kim Lakin-Smith

Two street racers from rival gangs race to the Church with opposing aims in their souped-up (steam powered?) cars. Would make a great film, rather less exciting as text.

Vishnu at the cat circus - Ian McDonald [NB this is an extract from the story]

The narrator, Vishnu, is a Brahmin, who was been genetically engineered by his ambitious parents for both super-genius intelligence, and long-life combined with half-speed maturation. He tells of his very long youth, a meteoric rise, and then a swift descent to running a cat circus, as a family feud spills over into a world changing technological advance. Despite all the darkness in the story, it ends with a potential of rebirth, just like classical Indian stories.

The beloved time of their lives - Ian Watson and Roberto Quaglia

This wonderful story can be summarised as The Time Traveler's Wife crossed with Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Using a certain ubiqitous restaurant as a time machine and an ad hoc philosophy library, Jonathan and Elena meet up romantically, when not interrupted by extremely fat people on their way to the toilet.

The assistant - Ian Whates

The assistant leads a night-time cleaning crew at a large office block. But 'cleaning' means more that just removing spills - this crew deal with all sort of computer-based threats as well. One night they meet a nasty new variety of robot 'bug'. Fun but the explanation for the 'bugs' is a little far-fetched and does not sit well within the otherwise mundane environment. ( )