All the Things You Are, by Mike Resnick.  Illustrated by Pamelina H. 

Short Review:

I’d recomend this story to someone interested in a light, easy read, that will still take the brain out for a thought exploration.  Each step of the story is fairly predictable, but is written in an entertaining style.

Long Reveiw: (no really blatant spoilers, but read at your own risk)

I found the story engaging and well-written.  The premise that we would truly love someone who is ourselves, only of the opposite sex, is not new but we well handled and not the stories only food for thought.  The concept and consequences of a creature like the Nikita native was interesting, and I found it fun to consider how such a creature could have evolved.

My hangup with the story was the flip-side of its strength.  As a well-written piece with great characterization, the pov character was thoroughly established as a thoughtful and intelligent guy.  Yet in the final paragraph of the end the pov character either did not think through his situation or the reader was not given insight into his pondering.  The pov character had to have known that if he chose the same as the other men he would end up with the same results, yet he quickly and thoughtlessly jumped onto that course.

This ending left me feeling flat.  It was as if the author, seeing that he’d run out of room or interest in the story, just gave a quick summary of where the ending could have gone had the story been given another thousand words or so of careful development.

An interesting story overall, but falling short in a few areas which nevertheless do not ruin the story.