Though perhaps at $7.95 Neo-opsis #15 is a bit pricey for the six stories, one poem, and five bits of nonfiction it contains; a reader cannot deny that this Canadian magazine can and does publish good fiction. The humorous science fiction piece, “The Laughing C’rell” by Kevin Lauderdale, is a creative look at first contact. Perhaps building off the success of John Scalzi’s similarly themed tale, Agent to the Stars, Lauderdale writes about a spacefaring race, the C’rell of the title, and their desire to learn about the strange thing humanity calls humor. The narrator is an expert on the subject, and his commission is to explain this rather esoteric concept to the koala-like C’rell. It is a difficult problem, and one that Lauderdale uses as a springboard to explore humor. In my mind’s eye, I couldn’t help but think of a comparison between this tale and the efforts of the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise to teach fellow crewmember Data the meaning of humor. Laced with several riddles, a guy walks into a bar-type jokes, and other such bits of comedy, this tale was thoughtful and funny.

R. S. Pyne tried to give the readers a military science fiction story about old enemies meeting in peace with “Head in the Stars.” But all the reader really gets is a series of run-on sentences and a mishmash of ideas and events.

“It was a newly settled world with a deadly selection of top predators and strangers rarely lived long enough to appreciate the beauty but in the less than five generations, the horses brought out from Earth found a place truly to their liking and made it their own.”

While the intent and theme of Pyne’s story is clear, the execution is so awful that I was left scratching my head in consternation. Editor Karl Johansen should have known better than to include this tale in the magazine without more editing. The story reads like a first draft, not polished copy.

“The Knife in the Mirror” by Marlissa Campbell is a historical fantasy about Doctor Dee, the astrologist and alchemist to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Readers of Marie Brennan’s Midnight Never Come or watchers of the recent movie about the latter portion of Queen Elizabeth’s life, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, will be familiar with both the character and the setting. In this narrative, Doctor Dee, with the help of a book sprite, must defeat an evil Aztec demon god who appears in Dee’s library. Though the storyline is creative, and the creation of the book sprite character downright ingenious, “The Knife in the Mirror” suffers from a couple of key problems:

First, another character, Edward Kelley, Dee’s human assistant, behaves in two opposite ways between the first and second halves of the story. In the first, he appears to be happy that the Aztec demon is in the library. Then, later, he does a complete flip-flop and fears the Aztec demon immensely, and no clear reason why is given.

Second, the story ends in such a way that only having previous knowledge of Edward Kelley’s future can really complete the tale. I had no such knowledge and was left feeling as if I had missed out on some deeper meaning in the narrative—almost as if I had missed the theme entirely.

But for all that, the story is a fun tale with a bookish hero and magic galore. So despite these flaws, I did enjoy it, and anyone who likes Elizabethan historical fantasy should make a point to read it.

Robert Lively’s “JA-22″ was the best story of this issue. A sanitation robot, through pure accident, gains the ability to learn beyond its protocols. That learning is turned in a strange direction by a chance encounter with the art form known as jazz. Using the well-documented connection between math and music, Lively creates a plausible story of the robot who becomes a musician. At once a paean to music and math, “JA-22″ is thoroughly creative and wholly enjoyable, and brings to mind some comparisons to George R. R. Martin’s The Armageddon Rag, at least in its content.

Daniel Pearlman’s “Alien Invasion” is a sad tale about a terrible disease. I can almost imagine that Pearlman has some intimate connection with this particular disease; the words are so heartfelt. A woman begins to believe that the world is being invaded by aliens when the faces she was once so familiar with begin to be replaced by unfamiliar ones. It’s as if pod people were real but didn’t bother to actually look like the people they replaced.

Pearlman does an excellent job of keeping the mystery of the story, while still giving the reader obvious clues to the solution of the narrator’s predicament. When the truth is finally revealed, the same “aha” moment Agatha Christie managed to engender in her mystery novels is given to us by Pearlman. Still, the story is sad, and readers will get something of an inside track to a most terrible disease that affects a large number of people. Terry Pratchett would approve of this story, I think.

The last story of the magazine is appropriately titled “The Last of Us.” A cautionary tale by David McGillveray, it reminds the reader that we, meaning humanity, need to control our baser needs. We have this urge to grow and conquer—an urge that has driven our expansion since man first left his cave to build a house. But this open-ended spacefaring story takes a careful look at the positives and negatives of this need humanity has to create, innovate, and conquer. McGillveray’s decision to not end the story with any sort of value judgment, leaving room for the reader to make his own decisions, was a good one. Readers can conclude whether the final decision of the protagonist was a good one or bad one all on their own, without McGillveray telling us what that judgment should be. That is good writing. McGillveray’s story displays a higher sphere of writing skill, closer to Ray Bradbury or Isaac Asimov, than many another of its ilk, because it avoids being pedantic, unlike most cautionary tales.

The rest of the magazine is taken up with the usual editorials, a poem (which I won’t review here except to say that it is funny and clever), and Matthew Hughes’s advice for writing exceptional stories. Of particular note was Karl Johansen’s continuing series, “A Walk Through the Periodic Chart,” which takes a particular element and discusses its history and uses with humor and wit. I enjoyed that article enough to want to see more, some of which can be found in previous issues of Neo-opsis.

With the exception of Pyne’s contribution to the magazine, each of these stories has enough craft to make them a worthwhile read. If you can get a copy, Neo-opsis #15 is a good place to look for stories that fly off the radar, by authors you have never heard of, that don’t get the attention they deserve.