Welcome to Issue 47 of IGMS. We let a few of the gentlemen make an appearance in this issue, but it's mostly written by the ladies, many of them making a welcome return-appearance.

This issue's cover story is "Fixe," by K.C. Norton:

          "If it's a machine, does that mean there could be someone inside?"

          Captain Pearce places one damp hand on the boy's hair. "You've a quick mind, lad. Why don't we find out?"

"What the Blood Bog Takes" by Barbara A. Barnett:

          "I want to watch," Asthore says, grabbing my hand. She knows my dread of the blood bog, yet pulls me after her, onto the trackway. I try to turn back, but others from our village press close behind us, as eager as Asthore to see the fate of our clan-chief.

"The Debugging of Martin Jarreau" by Rahul Kanakia:

          Subscriber is more difficult to semantically map than most: he is the bottom quintile in terms of semantic recognition. Performance of subscriber's LifeCoach is also in bottom quintile. Subscriber is operating below peak possible happiness.

Jessi Cole Jackson's "I Was Her Monster":

          While it was highly unusual for a sixteen-year-old girl to still have her childhood monster trailing her into her junior year of high school -- we disappeared at puberty -- I would not be called names.

"Intertwined," by Kate O'Connor:

          The fine net of sensors and microscopic wires that wove through her body and mind and into the quantum arc suddenly ended at her skin. She tried to reach out, grab hold of something, but her arms refused to move. Other than basic survival functions, her organic systems were offline.

This issue's audio story is "Antique," by Jared Oliver Adams, read by new voice actor Gabriel Jaffe:

          Grandma had gassed out. And now it was Lochlan's job to sell her antiquated tub of a spaceship. Hopefully he'd make some money off the deal.

Plus, the inestimable Lawrence M. Schoen's latest entry as IGMS's Reprint Editor and Interviewer-in-Chief is his conversation with novelist Fran Wilde, along with Fran's short story, "The Topaz Marquise," (originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies), as well as the first chapter of Fran's recently released debut novel, Updraft.

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show

P.S. As usual, we've collected essays from the authors in this issue and will post them here on IGMS along with our other free columns. Feel free to drop by and catch The Story Behind The Stories, where the authors talk about the creation of their tales.