In "Sides of the Coin," Gustavo Bondoni tells a sort of dark fable. On what seems another planet, terrible creatures emerge from a sealed cube every "few hundred generations" and battle the otherwise peaceful natives. This story follows one such battle, in which various forms of magic are tried against the attackers, who learn more every attack. It's a curious story, which holds the interest, but alas doesn't quite convince. Andrew Knighton's "Our Man in Herrje" is set on another planet as well, on which humans have a slight presence, along with many other aliens. The title character does public relations for the human embassy. As the story opens, a human library has been destroyed in an attack... but the story really concerns the narrator's assignments in the wake of that destruction: damage control and the like. He himself is a raffish character. And all this comes to a sort of head when he is assigned to deal with aliens called Gatherers, who hate untruth of all sorts -- lies, political lies, euphemisms, even fiction. Knighton contents himself, more or less, with presenting the issues here -- the Gatherers have a point, of course, in hating political lies, but when they extend that hatred to Shakespeare...? Not a bad philosophical piece. And finally, A. J. Kirby's "The Ninth Circle" is another curious story, quite absorbing if, in the end, not wholly successful. Centuries in the future, it seems that the remains of humanity are split in two -- effete scientists and brutish soldier types. A spaceship on a never well-defined mission has recovered a long surviving android, with some memories of the pre-plague times. One of the two scientists has been shoved out the airlock, and the survivor desperately tries to figure out from the android what really happened. Kirby plays some linguistic games, and comes to a somewhat bitter conclusion that doesn't seem quite earned. But the story does keep one reading.

Jupiter as with many semipro magazines doesn't really have access to the very best new stories. But it has established a consistent personality, and a distinct devotion to mostly fairly straightforward SF, and the magazine generally manages to featuring enjoyable work.