Readers turn to Outside magazine for chronicles of adventurers who traipse the physical world in pursuit of the limits of human ability and strength. But the evidence in two engrossing stories in the November issue suggests that perhaps the magazine would be better called Inside, since the most profound limits reside within each of us.

The more trumpeted story of the two is offered as the exclusive account of the four climbers who were kidnapped in mid-August by armed rebel fighters in Kyrgyzstan. News accounts at the time described their escape after six days' forced march up and down the peaks of Central Asia, but writer Greg Child had intimate access to all four. He relates their witnessing a soldier's execution at close hand, and the several times they found themselves in the hail of AK- 47 fire.

Unquestionably, their travails required superhuman endurance, but the nub of the story is Tommy Caldwell's near-instantaneous transformation from pacifist to killer. The story leaves little doubt that the quartet was in mortal danger and that their actions, specifically shoving a teenager off a 1,500-foot cliff, were in self- defense. But someone had to do it, and now that someone has to live with it.

Jason Smith, another climber, had grown used to the idea days earlier, and was awaiting his opportunity to strike when Caldwell sprang. Perhaps because he didn't get the chance, Smith has an a different take on their experience: He tells Child, "I said to everyone that if there was a week I wanted to relive, then this would be it."

Less ballyhooed is writer Bill McKibben's story of the last six months in the life of his father, former Globe editor Gordon McKibben. Illness struck after the younger McKibben had embarked, at 37, on a year of intense training as a cross-country ski racer in order to explore his physical limits. Part of the pathos is the contrast of his body's strengthening while his father's withers, but McKibben's sharing of emotions and small details completes the story's power.

Enough Net? Not yet.

One of the amazing info-nuggets in the October Yahoo! Internet Life is that the Google search engine has at least partially indexed a billion Web sites. It's not so much that Google has done it; it's that there are that many sites and plenty more to go. Just how is anyone supposed to keep up?

One answer is Internet Life. It's useful in several ways, particularly the monthly clip-and-save scorecard of Web sites mentioned in that issue, which range from quackwatch.com to stopclownpornnow.org. This month it is a foldout, which attests to either the breadth of content or the ads that have been incorporated into it.

This month's issue presents a series of stories on Internet privacy that's well-reasoned and well-presented, but the topic is approaching weather status: Every-one talks about it, but nobody does anything about it. Is there anyone who doesn't yet know that you shouldn't post anything to the Net that you wouldn't show your boss, or your spouse, or your mother?

Meanwhile, the November Spin adds its oar to Internet coverage, specifically Web radio. There's plenty to be learned (did you know that 3,700 broadcasters now send their signals on the Web?), and the in-depth package entertains, especially with its pithy capsules on Web-only audio programmers.

Ex nostalgia

Nora McCall has been reporting perceptively from the intersection of men and women for Boston magazine since June. In the October issue, she combines experience and observation to explore the desire to seek out the great love who got away. I've had the urge more than once (and indulged it), and I would wager that if you haven't, the person next to you has. Is McCall a reason to buy the magazine all by herself? Well, yes, she might be.

`Talk'ing about Boston

The October Talk magazine starts out as if it could also be based in Boston: The cover lad is Cantabrigian Ben Affleck, who's still a regular guy, and the off-lede takes up the reborn question of whether Albert DeSalvo was really the Boston Strangler. Writer Gerald Posner (previously notable for his "Case Closed" study of the JFK assassination, among other investigations) repeatedly, somewhat self-aggrandizingly, cites documents he says no one else has seen, but doesn't carry the story much further: DeSalvo was a bad guy, but he might not have been responsible for any or all of the 13 deaths attributed to the Strangler.

Boys against girls

The October Esquire offers its annual chestnut featuring "Women We Love," which is fine, not particularly compelling, but reasonably informative. (Best entry: Former Boston mag senior editor Sean Flynn recalls the days when Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri was an intern there. She'd already penned some of the stories that would win the prize, but to the editors, she was still just another anonymous functionary.)

What makes the issue worth mentioning is actually another publication, Bust, whose title tagline is, "for women with something to get off their chests." (Oh. That bust.) Its fall cover theme is "Men We Love," and it makes for an interesting comparison. The formats are not dissimilar: fairly short takes on individuals who have somehow risen out of the crowd.

Esquire's are editors' choices; Bust's apparently are reader nominees who were then written about by regular contributors. Esquire's focus is largely on celebrity, though certainly Lahiri's fame is based wholly in substance. Bust's are far more numerous and go further afield, ranging from Johnny Rotten to John Sayles, Paavo Lipponen (prime minister of Finland, who's taken paternity leave twice) to the Dalai Lama.

Even beyond their respective lovefests, Bust is the edgier magazine. It has a strong voice - young, bold, and feminist - that is far less represented in the media stream. Some of its parts might offend, but they're not mean, and besides, that's part of the fun.