Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July/August 2020

The long works in Asimov’s July/August 2020 deftly explore the human condition. In his near-future novella, Derek Künsken offers a complex and compassionate account of “Tool Use by the Humans of Danzhai County.” Humans and AIs have to figure out how to cooperate in Will McIntosh’s refreshing novelette about “Nic and Viv’s Compulsory Courtship.”Ted Kosmatka proffers a harrowing motive for why “The Beast Adjoins”; Sean Monaghan combines romance, art, and “Marbles”; new to Asimov’s author Hollis Joel Henry encounters “The Last Water Baron” while also new to Asimov’s Janet Stilson meets “Imaginary Children”; “Bereft, I Come to a Nameless World” Benja­min Rosenbaum tells us, and Megan Lindholm explores a legacy passed along through “Generations.” Both these authors are returning to our pages after being absent far too long. In a new military story by Tom Purdom, we discover why “We All Lose if They Take Mizuba”; Ray Nayler continues the military theme in a poignant story about “Father”; and Peter Wood reveals the frustrating truth behind “Why I’ll Never Get Tenure.”Robert Silverberg’s Reflections spends some time “Rereading Hubbard”; James Patrick Kelly’s On the Net gets “Sporty”; Paul Di Filippo’s On Books considers works by Jane Yolen, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Hugh Howey, Kali Wallace, Lisa Goldstein, and others. Plus we’ll have an array of poetry you’re sure to enjoy.