I'm a little late with my thoughts (I still had 1 story to read before posting), but here they are for what they're worth.
I found "Barbary" a
little hard to get into at first, but well worth persevering with - my favourite of the issue.
"Sister" - liked the voice of this piece; enjoyable story.
"The Perils of War..." - another good one. Liked the snapshot structure.
"Skein and Bone" - slow build-up (although well-written), strong ending with some lovely imagery.
"Two Houses Away" - the opposite, great build-up but the ending didn't quite work for me.
Overall, very good. And I didn't have a problem with the recurring use of mannequins in this issue.
