The April 2000 "Special 22nd Anniversary Issue" of Asimov's Science Fiction contains 3 novelettes and 3 short stories as well as several columns. Arthur C Clarke has an essay in here where he predicts events of the 21st century (rather ridiculously I would say). Norman Spinrad's essay and book column discusses rather blisteringly the state of science fiction publishing and a number of important books of that time including Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomican" in depth, Peter Watts' "Starfish", Ken MacLeod's "The Cassini Division" and China Miéville's "King Rat" among others. It was instructive. Overall I thought this was a surprisingly subpar issue, with no really good stories for my tastes and several weak stories. The fiction stories are:

The Prophet Ugly - novelette by Robert Reed
Green Chains - shortstory by Deborah Wheeler
Regression - novelette by Brian Stableford
From Mars and Venus - shortstory by Robert R. Chase
At Lightspeed, Slowing - novelette by Cory Doctorow
The Gravity Mine - shortstory by Stephen Baxter
Green Fire - novelette by Eileen Gunn, Andy Duncan, Pat Murphy and Michael Swanwick

Robert Reed's "The Prophet Ugly" was an interesting story but it should have had a better resolution and ending. It went from intriguing to blah. Deborah Wheeler's story contained no science fiction element that I could discern. There's maybe a bit of a ghost story in it - it isn't a bad story but it doesn't belong here.

Brian Stableford's "Regression" started off interestingly enough, but then it grew tedious for me and ultimately
disappointing. Wikipedia says Stableford has published more than 70 novels. I don't think I've read one of them although I have probably read several of his shorter fiction stories in anthologies and magazines over the past 40 years. I remember his name showing up on a number of those DAW yellow paperbacks but whatever his stories were about they didn't catch my attention obviously. I guess I'm not a Stableford fan.

Robert Chase's "From Mars and Venus" was an interesting little piece on life, men, women and comet dust. Cory Doctorow was not widely known when "At Lightspeed Showing" was published. It isn't remotely science fiction so I'm not sure why it appears in the magazine, but it is well written and interesting, set in Costa Rica where a man has gone to escape from modern life.

That makes two stories in this issue that are really not science fiction stories.

I would say the best of these stories was Stephen Baxter's "The Gravity Mine". It is set in the far far future when all the stars and galaxies are gone - but human conciousness persists. Alas the story just gives us a glimpse, since it is only 6 pages long. The intro to the story describes it as a "pendant" to Baxter's novel "Time" in the Manifold series.

"Green Fire", a collorative tale in which Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and L Sprague DeCamp are involved in the Philadelphia Experiment during WW2, was enjoyable if a little overlong. ( )

A fairly lackluster issue considering the quality of the authors writing for it. "Green Fire" is the best story, but is still not great. Has an interesting books essay by Spinrad and a strange column by Arthur C. Clarke about the history of the 21st century where he seems to be just putting down some unrealistic wishes rather than actually predicting.

"The Prophet Ugly" - Robert Reed 3/5
Homo Erectus returns from the stars to help humanity. Interesting idea that didn't seem to go anywhere.
"Green Chains" - Deborah Wheeler 1/5
Mainstream story about grieving. Didn't belong in Asimov's
"Regression" - Brian Stableford 3/5
Drugs help a man bring out a past personality. Interesting, but I didn't get the point of it.
"From Mars and Venus" - Robert R. Chase 2/5
Poorly written story that takes a long time to get to some speculation that sex may be an alien experiment.
"The Gravity Mine" - Stephen Baxter 3/5
A being in the extremely far future ponders how it came into existence.
"At Lightspeed Slowing" - Cory Doctorow 3/5
Basically mainstream story about a man who tries to escape stressful involvement with technology by working on a farm in Costa Rica.
"Green Fire" - Michael Swanwick, Andy Duncan, Eileen Gunn, Pat Murphy 3.5/5
Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp along with Grace Hopper become involved in the Philadelphia Experiment during WWII, which sends their ship across dimensions. Entertaining, but nothing really special. ( )