Summary: This issue has one standout piece by Ian R. MacLeod, The Chronologist, and a good contest prize winner, The Last Truth by AnaMarie Curtis. The two stories by Yefim Zozulya and Lavie Tidhar almost make the grade, and the Fong is okay (but probably in the wrong market).
Overall, though, a mixed bag (and a lacklustre one for a publication that pays a market-leading 25c a word).
[ISFDB] [Magazine link]

Other reviews:
Greg Hullender and Eric Wong, Rocket Stack Rank Jan/Feb
Kevin P. Hallett and Victoria Silverwolf, Tangent Online Jan/Feb

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Editors, Jennifer Gunnels, Anne VanderMeer, Jonathan Strahan (x2), Diana M. Pho & L.D. Lewis (x3)

Fiction:
Fruiting Bodies • short story by Kemi Ashing-Giwa ∗
The Tale of Ak and Humanity • short story by Yefim Zozulya (trans. Alex Shvartsman) ∗∗+
The Chronologist • novelette by Ian R. MacLeod ∗∗∗∗  
Seven Vampires: A Judge Dee Mystery • novelette by Lavie Tidhar ∗∗+

January/February stories not included in the collection:
Girl Oil • short story by Grace P. Fong ∗∗
Synthetic Perennial • short story by Vivanni Glass ∗
The Last Truth • short story by AnaMaria Curtis ∗∗∗

Non-fiction:
Interior artwork • by Reiko Murakami, Juan Bernabeu (x2), Red Nose Studio (x2), Sara Wong, Dani Pendergast,
About the Author

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This appears to be the first of Tor’s short fiction “newsletters” since March-April 2021 (I’m not sure what the reason for the non-appearance of these is, but I vaguely remember an associated production position being advertised around the same time). As per usual the newsletter misses out some of the stories that appeared on the site during the time period covered so, if you want to keep up with Tor’s original fiction, you’ll need to visit their website (again, I’m not sure why there is this repeated problem).¹

The fiction leads off with Fruiting Bodies by Kemi Ashing-Giwa, which, in an inchoate start, has the narrator, who is from a generation ship whose crew appears to have settled an inhospitable volcanic planet, looking for a woman called Morayo. There is also mention of the arinki, (indigenous?) creatures who come out at night.
As the narrator searches for Morayo, she comes upon one of the other ship members who has been infected with a planetary fungus and is dying:

“How long?” Eranko asks after a moment.
“Turn around.”
He does as I ask, and I carefully pull aside the few lank bits of reddish-blond hair he has left. I run my fingers over his skull—there.
A round, almost imperceptible bump. The pileus of a fruiting body preparing to pop his head open.
I was a mycologist, Before. The transmission and development of the contagion are quite similar to those of the entomopathogenic Earth fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, only differing in minor ways. The zombie ant fungus, it was called. The colonists had hoped I would be able to save them, given my expertise.
“A fortnight, at most,” I tell him.
Eranko gives a shallow, croaking sigh. The infiltrating mycelium has begun to decompose his lungs. Less than a week, then.

The narrator (spoiler) eventually arrives at the settlement and rescues Morayo. During this episode she kills four men and we learn that she has been given a serum developed by Morayo, which has adapted her to the planet (although the narrator is accused by the men of being one of “them” before the killing starts).
Then the story abruptly stops.
This piece could definitely do with another draft, especially sentences like this one:

But the greatest of our reproductive technology died with the Before, so I suppose it would be more accurate to say that only a piece of me is their future to them.

What? I also note that the “Great Filter” idea is clumsily introduced at the start of the piece, in the first paragraph and then the third. It would have been be clearer to link these: “Ancient Scientists called this the Great Filter. Our Great Filter was the arinkiri—the night walkers.” But what we get is the first sentence in the first paragraph and then the Great Filter idea appearing again after a wodge of terrain description in the third:

“But now, those of us still living call our species’ Great Filter the arinkiri—the night walkers.”

This story is unpolished, unclear (probably because there is too much going on in its short length), and it ends abruptly. There are a couple of reasonable body horror scenes (see above) but this is one that should have probably been left in the slush pile.
∗ (Mediocre). 2,700 words. Story link.

The Tale of Ak and Humanity by Yefim Zozulya (1918),¹ translated by Alex Shvartsman, begins with an announcement of the formation of the Board of Supreme Determination, an organisation that will decide who has the right to live. Those deemed to be unnecessary will be required to leave life within twenty-four hours:

For those unnecessary people who cannot leave life, because of their love thereof or due to their weak character, the judgment of the Board of Supreme Determination is to be carried out by their friends, neighbors, or special armed squadrons.

This announcement causes panic amongst the populace until they learn that the highly respected Ak is one of the Board’s members.
The next part of the story sees a family interviewed: the son gets a five year deferment; the mother and father do not. The supervisor mentions to the guard that the couple will probably be unable to leave life themselves. We subsequently see records of other assessments—then Ak starts to have doubts about the process, and stops it before he disappears.
When Ak later returns at the end of the story he appears to have changed his mind (or has gone mad), but the officials ignore him and continue with their new task describing their joyous observations of the populace. The latter continue living their lives as if Ak had never existed.
I thought this might be an allegory about Stalin’s purges, but it is actually, according to the introduction²—and I would have guessed from the date had I known—about the Bolsheviks shortly after the Russian Revolution. It’s not a bad piece given its age, but the back and forth ending is weaker than the rest.
∗∗+ (Average to Good). 3,800 words. Story link.  

The Chronologist by Ian R. MacLeod opens with the narrator of the story revealing how, when he was an eleven-year-old, the Chronologist came out of the time haze to service the town clock:

After the last hedge and scrap of farmland lay a boundary of unkempt wasteland that we had all been warned never to approach, let alone cross. But from up here, peering on through the time-haze, I believed I could make out a little of what lay beyond, and for one moment I was sure there were fields as prim and regular as our own, and the next I saw hills and sunlit meadows, and deep woodlands, and places of ravaged gloom. And beyond even this lay a staggering sense of ever-greater distance, where lights twinkled, and towers and spires far higher and more fabulous than our own gave off signal glints. I was sure that snowy mountains lay out there, too, and the fabled salty lakes known as oceans, and other places and realms beyond anything we in our town were ever permitted to know.

The narrator has this wanderlust reverie as he watches the Chronologist service the town clock in the tower (he manages to sneak up with his father the mayor), and later steals a book from the man’s bag. The narrator later follows the Chronologist out of town, but loses his nerve when the latter disappears in the time haze.
After the Chronologist’s visit the temporal irregularities that had been plaguing the town end, their long summer gives way to autumn, and we learn more about the strictures of this community and the world in which it exists:

I also I found myself irritated by many other things, not least my father’s bumbling inability to manage his own buttons, let alone our town, and the pointless and repetitive tasks we children were expected to perform at school. After all, I had already seen much farther than here, and believed I would see farther still. Why should I have to endlessly draw and redraw the same street maps of our town, or memorise the weights of every recent harvest, or count the number of seconds in each hour, or copy out calendars from years long erased?

Sometimes, though, although I wished she wouldn’t, [my mother would] begin to speak in a crackling, quavering voice that came and went like dry leaves. Gabbling nonsense, or so it then seemed, of the times when the arrow of time flew straight and true.
Marvels and miracles. Machines bigger than houses or smaller than ants. Some that could peer so far into the sky that the past itself was glimpsed. Others that looked so deep into the fabric of everything that the quivering threads of reality could be examined, then prised apart, to see what lay beyond. And it was through one of these rents, or so her whispers told me, that a hole of sheer nothingness widened, and the fabric of everything warped and twisted, and the time-winds blew through.

Eventually, the narrator finds the courage to walk into the time-haze—but exits it walking back into his town. He then decides to sabotage the town clock to force the Chronologist to return (he practises first on the clock in his house, which causes some odd temporal effects).
The final part of the story (spoiler) sees the Chronologist arrive to repair the damage that the narrator has done (the time-storm created has disrupted time and causality in the town). The Chronologist instructs the narrator to follow him up the tower and, when the latter does so, he falls off the ladder and through a time storm. When the narrator comes out of the disturbance he finds himself walking into a strange village where he later, of course, fixes their clock.
Although this time-loop revelation is perhaps an obvious development (the narrator is obviously the younger Chronologist), the story more than maintains reader interest by providing an account of the narrator/Chronologist’s subsequent life and strange travels:

I have visited towns where the clocks are lumbering and primitive, and the people are frankly primitive as well. There have been others where their devices are little more than light and energy, and time somehow pours down from the skies. I have spoken with machines in the shape of people, and people in the shape of machines. I have been to places where the clock tower is worshipped through human sacrifice, and others where the inhabitants have razed it to the ground. It is in one of these ruins, or so I imagine, that I found my metal staff, which appears to be the minute hand from the face of a town clock, although I can’t be sure. I have yet, however, to come across a volume on the repair and maintenance of the commoner types of timepiece. Unless, that is, I’ve already lost it, or it’s been stolen by some ill-meaning lad, or I’ve forgotten that I have it with me right now. My memory’s not what it once will be. Or was. Or is.

The story then fittingly closes another sort of loop with the Chronologist’s elegiac reflections on an eleven-year-old boy’s wanderlust:

There will, I suppose, come a day when I will force some foolish child nurturing dreams of reaching other times and lands to follow me up the ladders of the clock tower in a particular town. Or perhaps it has already happened, and the event lies so far behind me that the memory has dissolved. Either way, I know I can never tell him that there is nothing more precious than waking each morning and knowing that today will probably be much the same as yesterday, tomorrow as well, although I wish I could.

A feeling that is hugely underrated.
This a very good story in a number of ways: it is well written, creates a self-contained and intriguing world which also manages to hint at an off-stage vastness, and, finally, it has the thread of a human life running through it.³
One for the Best of the Year volumes.
∗∗∗∗ (Very Good). 7,300 words. Story link.  

Seven Vampires: A Judge Dee Mystery⁴ by Lavie Tidhar is the fourth story in the writer’s ‘Judge Dee’ series, and opens with the vampire judge and his familiar Jonathan (the perpetually hungry narrator of the story) walking away from a Paris that is not only on fire but also experiencing a vampire pogrom. Further down the road they meet six other vampires and, after some tense introductions and exchanges (Judge Dee has to forbid the others from feeding on Jonathan), they later discover the body of a seventh member nearby, sans head.
As the group journey to Calais to get a boat to England we learn more about the various members (including the fact that Dee appears to be an enforcer of the Unalienable Obligations of Vampires) while, one by one, three of them are murdered.
By the time they get to Calais there are only four vampires left, and Dee eventually calls them together to solve the mystery of who the killer is (we then find out (spoiler) that Dee has previously tasked Jonathan to search the vampires during daytime for the evidence he requires to confirm his theories). Dee explains to the group (“You might be wondering why I have assembled you all here”) that there are two killers: Jack killed Nils and Gregor with a silver knife (discovered by Jonathan) for a treasure map of a Western continent called Vinland (ditto), and Melissandra killed Lady Aisha, who she disliked, in an unrelated act. Dee throws the two miscreants overboard.
When the three remaining travellers arrive at Calais the (still religiously pious) Brother Borja steals the map and disappears. Judge Dee tells Jonathan that Borja will regret this due to the treatment of vampires on that continent.
This is pleasant enough fluff but it is one of those stories where only the author can solve the mystery as there are insufficient clues provided to the reader—who are little more than passive passengers for the duration of the tale (probably not a good thing in a murder mystery story, even a semi-humorous one).
∗∗+ (Average to Good). 9,550 words. Story link.

The next three stories aren’t in the newsletter, and are all winners of the “LeVar Burton Reads writing contest, as co-presented by FIYAH Literary Magazine and Tor.com!”
The second place winner is Girl Oil by Grace P. Fong, which opens with the Asian narrator, Chelle, at the beach with her college student friend Preston and another woman called Wenquian. Chelle is romantically interested in Preston but he is interested in Wenqian.
Chelle later goes to an advertisement casting in the Valley and gets some uncomplimentary feedback from the Mandarin speaking (there is a cultural identity subtext to the story) producer (“let’s face it, you are a little fat”). On her way out one of his assistants gives her an experimental body oil from that may help with her problem.
When Chelle gets back to her room she finds that Preston is, much to her displeasure, with Wenqian. After the two of them leave to have dinner Chelle has a shower:

I dab beads of oil on my face and pat them with the balls of my fingers like I’ve seen Wenqian do. It goes on light and colorless but smells like sulfur and charcoal. It burns and turns my nerves to steam. The tingling continues long after I’ve dressed.
I check the mirror again and I’m shocked. My face is my face, but firmer, brighter, thinner. This might actually work. I massage more into my soft arms, jutting stomach, and radish calves. Sparks dance under my skin until I double over on the bathroom floor. I stumble through the ache and pull myself up to the mirror. The me that rises is brighter, lighter, slimmer. Maybe she can finally fit in.

The next day Chelle buys a new dress—she fits into a medium size for the first time—and then texts Preston while she is at the beach, asking for an audition with his movie-maker father. That night she applies more oil, even though the instructions say to stop if there is a burning sensation (which she has been experiencing).
The rest of the story (spoiler) sees more three-way romantic complications and Chelle’s overuse of the oil to the point that she almost drowns at the beach (for some reason the oil now makes her unable to swim). Then matters deteriorate even further when creates a hole in her body (“the flesh thins and parts, turning into yellow smoke”). When Chelle finally goes to a call back audition with Preston’s father, she discovers that no-one can see her: she has become invisible.
Finally, Chelle returns to the beach and dissolves in the sea, becoming part of the ocean. The last line has her reconcile with her body/size, “I am so big, and it is so wonderful.”
The slimming oil metaphor/arc of this story may work for young women readers who have body image and boyfriend hook-up issues, but I’m not sure how much of the rest of the short SF reading field (whatever that is nowadays) will be interested.⁵ That said, even if the content is niche, it is well enough written.
∗∗ (Average). 5,000 words. Story link.

The third place winner is Synthetic Perennial by Vivianni Glass (Tor.com, 22^nd February 2022), which opens with K’Mori, the narrator, restrained in a hospital after undergoing surgery. We soon learn that:

I am the first person in modern history to have ever been scientifically resurrected. Excuse me: revitalized. “Resurrection” is a religious and political minefield. I don’t understand the specifics of the procedures; I just know that I have four different people’s organs in me, and my new pancreas allows me to proudly say that I am a cyborg.

A kind nurse, Lillian, arrives later on and, the next day, she puts K’Mori in a wheelchair and they roam about the hospital. During this excursion Lillian asks K’mori if she is going to reply to a boy who has contacted her; we also get a dribble of backstory. At the end of their walk, they see K’Mori’s “followers” on the streets outside the hospital.
The rest of the story (spoiler) sees K’Mori dream about her cousin Kenny, who brings her something in a box and tells her that they won’t let her go. K’Mori awakes from this to discover (I think) that she is having a medical emergency during an attack on the hospital.
This is a fragmentary piece that is little more than a set-up and climax. There is no real plot, or development or examination of the story’s gimmick.
∗ (Mediocre). 4,750 words. Story link.

The winner of the contest is The Last Truth by AnaMaria Curtis (Tor.com, 22^nd February 2022), which begins with Eri, a lockbreaker, opening a chest on a ship so it can be plundered later on:

The lock on the next chest glows red when she approaches it. It’s a standard truth-lock, spelled by Mr. Gilsen’s lockmaster to recognize its true owner. He’s a wealthy passenger unlucky enough to have hired Mareck’s whole ship for his travel, and he’ll be the last person Eri has to steal from.
“Open,” she says.
“I require a truth.”
“I am your rightful owner.” It never works on the locks she deals with, since it’s a lie, but she’s supposed to try, to test for weaknesses. This lock remains a stubborn red.
“I require a truth,” it repeats.
Eri reaches for her tiered truths and plucks out the one that seems least painful to lose. “The ship that brought me from Ekitri to Sild was overcrowded, and my bunkmate elbowed me in her sleep and bruised my jaw one night. It hurt to speak for weeks. I learned to make myself understood without speaking; this is why Mareck picked me to be a lockbreaker.”
The lock glows a soft, welcoming yellow. The ache in Eri’s chest deepens a bit. She wonders what she just gave up. It’s a tricky business, opening truth-locks. Only truths a lockbreaker has told nobody else can open a lock. As soon as a truth is spoken aloud to the lock, it disappears, unusable—and the memory that sparked it goes too.²

After the story’s gimmick has been laid out (Eri can burgle these locked chests at the cost of her memories) she realises that there is someone watching her. That person is a musician called Aena who, after they talk, convinces Eri to open a chest that contains sheet music that she wants to see before a forthcoming test of her musical skills. Eri, who is cautious of the musician (music is a potent and semi-magical force in this world), agrees, and a relationship is formed when Eri recovers a lost memory when later listening to Aena sing.
When Aena then asks Eri to get her violin the two become even more deeply entwined, and they then agree to run away together when they get onshore (Eri hopes that, with Aena’s music, she may be able to eventually recover all her lost memories).
Complications develop in the last part of the story (spoiler) when Eri encounters a particularly strong lock that the captain of the ship insists she open to gain her freedom. However, doing this will require the remainder of Eri’s memories, so she leaves herself a note saying to steal the violin and then contact Aena—and wonders if she will be able to understand her own instructions . . . .
Eri succeeds in an engrossing last section, and the last paragraph is suitably uplifting:

The woman bends down to take the violin from Eri’s hands and presses a soft kiss to Eri’s temple as she straightens up.
“We don’t have much time,” she says, opening the case, making sure the soundproofed door is sealed, “but what we have, I will give you.”
She puts the violin to her chin and begins to play.

The story’s gimmick of telling truths (sacrificing memories) to open locks is, to be honest, not the most convincing, but it is the only major credulity-stretcher in the story, and the rest of it is well told and plotted. If you like the sort of fiction that appears in Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine, you’ll like this.
∗∗∗ (Good). 5,350 words. Story link. 

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The Interior artwork is the usual modern/abstract stuff, and none of it is really my cup of tea, but the best is probably the Bernabeu for the Zozulya, followed by Red Nose Studio’s one for the Tidhar story. (I’m not sure the Red Nose style suits their other work for the MacLeod, which would probably have been better served by a more serious illustration). The other illustrations are by Reiko Murakami, Sara Wong, and Dani Pendergast. 
While I’m talking about the art I suppose that I should mention that the PDF version of the newsletter (it is also available in mobi and epub) has hideous square pages and a sans serif font. It looks as if it has been designed by someone who doesn’t read.⁷
There is a single About the Author note after the Tidhar story (I think the others were probably missed out by mistake).

•••

A mixed bag of stories with only the MacLeod and Curtis stories really worth your time.  For a publication/venue that pays as much as this one, I’d expect better.  ●

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1. There is also a 1919 publication date for The Tale of Ak and Humanity, and a 1922 one too (this may be for the story’s subsequent book publication).

2. The introduction to The Tale of Ak and Humanity states that the story “helped establish the anti-utopia genre, and directly inspired and influenced Zamyatin’s We, which was finished a year later.”

3. The Chronologist’s self-contained world, and the single human life it spans, reminds me somewhat of David I. Masson’s Traveller’s Rest (New Worlds #154, September 1965).

4. I’m not sure why Tor didn’t keep the “Judge Dee and . . . ” format of the previous three stories for Tidhar’s tale, i.e. Judge Dee and the Seven Vampires.

5. The SF short fiction field has been metamorphosing into a literary small press for decades now; we have probably arrived at the end of that cul-de-sac.

6. This quoted passage is where the The Last Truth should start—there are a couple of unnecessary and/or confusing paragraphs before this (the first should be further into the story and the second deleted).

7. The PDF cover and one of the pages: