In each story in Grantville Gazette 85, a character wants something. In Virginia DeMarce’s “Angels Watching Over Me,” Ryan wants a gravestone for his wife. The church politics at St. Martin’s just came with it.

In “A Pilum for Your Sternum,” by David Carrico, more than one person wants a book, but Archie is pretty sure he can obtain it.

Jean-Baptiste de Sade wants to know what to do with his disreputable descendant in Tim Sayeau’s “Vicious Practices.”

Next, Iver Cooper explains what those who want photographs do and don’t have in the new timeline, in “Photography in the 1632 Universe, Part 1: Silver Shadows.”

Kristine Kathryn Rusch talks about “Conventions.”

In this issue, we have three stories in the Universe Annex by three authors new to the Grantville Gazette. Find out what the protagonist wants in Yaroslav Barsukov’s “The Blue Room, Said the Wishmaker.”

Make wants his wife’s ghost at rest in Marella Sands’ spooky “The Ghost He Knew Best.”

A developer wants to put a resort in Harper’s Landing in Shoshana Edwards’ “Easy As Pie.” However, the townspeople just want him gone.