Analog Science Fiction & Fact, March-April 2021

 

Flash Mob • novelette by Meg Pontecorvo

A young single mother studies squids. A species that usually lives on the coast of Japan is swarming on the US pacific coast. They use light flashes to communicate. She notices the squid response to light stimulus but doesn’t succeed in recording it. An ok story where science fiction content was very scant. ***½

The Trashpusher of Planet 4 • short story by Brenda Kalt

An alien generation ship is approaching a solar system. The culture and biology of the aliens are based on rigid castes. One individual has been born between castes and is scorned. The ship AI has a task for him, he should repair a partly destroyed shuttle and examine the fourth planet of the system - it might be habitable. A fairly good story from an alien point of view, but I wonder what happens with the inhabitants of the third planet? ****-

It's Cold on Europa • short story by Filip Wiltgren

A woman is living on Europa moon mining ice. As a companion, she has an android version of her wife. The android's memory and personality are updated regularly. After the last update, the android behaves rather coldly towards the main character. It would be easy to hack the personality profile, but would that be ethical. It is a pretty good story, but the ending was worse than the first half of the story and it was too abrupt. ***+

Tail Call Optimization • novelette by Tony Ballantyne

 A mechanical construct has a cloned mind. There are other similar constructs with similar minds, or at least they are supposed to be similar. His mind seems to work worse, there is a computer worm eating his processing space and his body is in very poor condition mechanically. He is digging up the remains of a mystical high-level civilization for valuable parts. One day he finds a processing space that contains a human mind. A pretty good story, might have been in a little longer format, the end felt a bit rushed. Also, it took some time to really get what the word ”ve” meant, it was apparently used to replace he/she. ****-

The Acheulean Gift • short story by Matthew Claxton

Children with genes of cavemen have been created by genetic manipulation. There has been a backlash and, apparently, the company that created the children has gone bust. The children have trouble adjusting and are on a summer camp of sorts, where they split flint for arrowheads among other things. They work together very well. A pretty good story but I don’t believe human genes would allow so highly instinctive behavior – up to being an extremely talented stone worker. ***+

If a Tree Doesn't Fall • short story by Jerry Oltion 

A man finds a floating tree in a faraway forest. Is he hallucinating? A simply implausible story, pretty subpar for Oltion. (There is an antigravity vest tied to the tree - how to get it to civilization?) ***-

John Henry Was a Steel Driving Man • short story by Shane Halbach

Welders who are building a space station are going to go on strike due to poor work conditions. Just when the strike is starting there is an alarm of a solar storm. Surely that is just the management scheming? (As a worker sabotaged the station, it takes a suicide mission to save all lives. Also, the company is guilty of stupid - far too stupid to believe - cost-cutting.) A fairly ordinary analog-style story about solving a dangerous situation. ***

Damocles • novelette by Sean McMullen

In WW2, a member of a fighter plane crew was ordered on a secret and urgent mission. Apparently, his late grandfather had invented a ray gun of sorts. His daughter (who was presumed dead) has been in captivity for years, and she hasn’t revealed the secret of the weapon. Maybe the main character might have some influence on her aunt? A very good cyberpunkish story about an invention that might be too dangerous to exist. ****

 

Recollection • short story by Elise Stephens 

In a post-apocalyptic, rebuilding world, a government inspector comes to a small village. There is relatively little she can do, but at least something. She can’t help the well that is drying out though. There are rare recordings of the past. The inspector has some and according to a rumor, someone who recently died in the village did have one too. The background was scant, but it was a reasonably good story in spite of that. ***

The Burning Lands • short story by Tom Jolly

A detective examines strange fires. In one of them, several campers were killed, in other dead animals were found on site. Traces of methane were also found locally. Where could it have come from? (Genetically modified methane-producing bugs). A pretty basic story, but told well. ***+

Hillman, Charles Dallas, Age: 35, No Partner, Parents: Deceased • short story by Ron Collins

A man who is hiding from police volunteers for a scientific study where he gets to stay at a faraway hotel for a long time. It turns out that his personality is recorded, and it eventually spreads around the internet. He himself isn’t the same anymore. A pretty good, surprisingly optimistic story. ***½

The Pond Who Sang • short story by Charles Hand

After an extremely unlikely accident mixes neural networks and special chemical switches producing something new. It is a pretty good story, but it is just too short and just a beginning for the real story. ***

Second Hand Destinies • short story by Marie Vibbert

A rundown space station has very rundown inhabitants, one is even dead and inhabited by a parasitic being. A visitor arrives - does she have money to pay for her visit. A decent story, once more a bit too glimpse-like to be really good. ***+

The Shadow of His Wings • short story by Ray Nayler

Guerilla-style fights are still going on somewhere in the Middle East. It is possible to upload one’s personality to the mind of an animal, for example, a falcon. A young boy gets involved with the rescue and capture of one such creature. A pretty good story, once again it was a bit too short. ***

 Problem Landing • novelette by Sean Monaghan

 A small Martian colony is waiting for the landing of the first colony ship - which has private funding. The landing fails and the ship falls down. There is no communications working to the ship and the landing site a good distance away. A pretty standard ”rescue” story, nothing which hasn't been seen dozens of times before in analog. As such the writing was ok, but there were no surprises of any kind anywhere. ***-

Invasive Species • novella by Catherine Wells 

A man lives in a small restricted colony on an alien planet and works in security. The planet has natives, who are very peaceful and calm, but have very strict restrictions: humans are not allowed outside a very limited zone, and all flying reconnaissance is strictly forbidden. The aliens (who have some shape-shifting abilities, like most animals and plants on their planet) work at the base in menial jobs, delivering stuff, cleaning surroundings, and taking care of children. They have been very trustworthy and have never caused any kind of trouble. Inside the zone, humans are allowed to mine minerals. The main character’s wife has disappeared. The human zone has been thoroughly searched without any sight of her. He decides to ask permission to seek outside of the human zone, and to his and everyone else’s surprise, he is granted it. A very well-written and fairly good story. There are some problems with logic and there were some huge coincidences. In fact, I figured out how the wife disappeared a few pages into the story, but dismissed it as far too unbelievable and stupid (alien – human spontaneous hybrids?). In spite of the faults in logic, not a bad story at all. ****-

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, January-February 2021

 Mixed Marriage, novelette by Dan Helms

In the future China people live on alternate days: some people work and live on Mondays, and another set on Tuesdays and so on. The other days are spent in suspended animation. People live in very small apartments, which are shared with six other families living on other days. A man who lives on Fridays has fallen in love with a girl who lives on Sundays via recorded video messages they use on work to transfer information. Sunday people are known to be lazy and carefree, and the family has some reservations about the marriage. When the girl arrives on Friday, she turns out to be very beautiful but also very open and talkative, very different from any Friday people. It turns out that the different days have developed pretty different cultures, a pretty good story with a premise lifted from Farmer’s Dayworld -series. Apparently, people age during the days they sleep. I find it hard to believe that a child’s mental and intellectual development and schooling would be possible in way in one-seventh of time. ****

A Shot in The Dark,  novelette by Deborah L. Davitt

A man is working alone on a moon of Uranus. His only companion is an AI. He is asked to match speeds with a strange object which is approaching the solar system. From early observations, it seems to be very smooth for a natural object. When he gets near, it seems clearly artificial, but is it peaceful or not? A fairly good story - or the beginning of a story, as the most exciting things most likely will happen after the story ends. The writing was pretty good and concentrated mostly on the thoughts and feelings of the main protagonist. The main character makes a pretty far-reaching conclusion at the end - I don't think that there was enough evidence for what he thought the probe was doing. The silly mistakes department: the ship is "burning fuel to match pace”, so it can’t stay long near the ship. In reality, once you match the speed of the other ship, you don’t burn any fuel. ****-

My Hypothetical Friend, short story by Harry Turtledove

Aliens use humans to produce things that humans really don’t even understand. They pay with “trinkets”, a technology which for them is beyond simple, but is next to incomprehensible for humanity. An alien comes to visit the human factory as its stay on Earth is ending. A short, pretty good story: The silly mistakes department:  Air conditioning on an electric car doesn’t (of course) need a running engine. Why would it? And an electric car doesn’t have an “idle”. Why would it? ****

Photometric Evidence of The Gravitational Lensing of Sao23820 By A Nonluminous Low-Mass Stellar Object, short story by Jay Werkheiser

An astronomer makes a discovery that apparently is totally impossible and would redefine all known theories. He tries to publish it and doesn’t manage and practically destroys his career before giving, but not without a final “And yet it moves" thought. A fairly good story, but I wonder why the astronomer stuck to his explanation. If the observation is a real one, and it defies everything which is known, you should find a model that would explain the observation, not stuck to something which seems and most likely is impossible. ***+ 

Conference of The Birds, short story by Benjamin C. Kinney

Krina has stolen antiviral data and she is pursued by animal-looking drones, but are all drones bad? The story was a little hard to get into and didn't really make an impact – there was a bit too much explaining. ***-

Interstellar Pantomime, short story by Martin Dimkovski

The objects in space analyze each other and one gains information it was supposed to get. Just a short scene, not an actual story. **

The Tale of Anise and Basil, short story by Daniel James Peterson

A human rebel tells a story for “the Diamond Empress” to survive. It was supposed to a perfect story - and in a way it is. But a pretty stupid at the same time. Like this actual story (a scene), is also. **+

The Practitioner, short story by Em Liu

A medical student observes from the future the actions of an abortionist as a part of ethical education. She also helps at a free clinic in her free time. A pretty well written and good story, but the ending was a bit too much fantasy rather than science fiction. The silly mistakes department: still totally rotten healthcare in the US at 2092? Nothing has changed? And corticosteroids as a primary treatment for a child’s psoriatic arthritis? In 2092? It isn’t recommended (or even the cheapest) treatment even now. A totally stupid detail. ****-

 What Were You Thinking? short story by Jerry Oltion

A man who works at a behavioral science lab starts to wonder how his girlfriend’s cat operates. How many behavioral rules and patterns does it have? It turns out that it's not so many. But do people operate on set patterns? Maybe that is a question that should not be looked at too closely. A fun, well-written story, like almost everything by Oltion. ***½

The Liberator, novelette by Nick Wolven

A man is on an undercover mission. He is infiltrating a group that works undercover beyond the state borders. They are apparently involved in something horrible. He succeeds in his infiltration, but it turns out that the group was onto him. But he manages to call in a strike to destroy the horrible compound that produces humans with no genetic alternations whatso  *ever.

The Nocturnal Preoccupations of Moths, novelette by J. Northcutt, Jr.

Martian colonies are almost abandoned and surviving is hard. The keepers of the seed bank are facing pressures especially hard. A slow-moving tale where characters discuss things like they were presenting a doctoral dissertation with long complicated words and sentences - no one talks like that. ***- 

Changing Eyes, short story by Douglas P. Marx

Another story of a Martian colony. The colony is struggling, but the fourth-generation descendants of mountain living Sherpas of Hilayays are able to almost survive. For some reason, they still are very spiritual people burning incense. There is a plan to “reignite” the planetary core with “Quark-shots”. Due to apparently extremely poor planning, there is a hitch, though. A shortish, extremely implausible story. (I wonder what would be the energy requirements to melt the inside of a planet?) **

A Working Dog, short story by Anne M. Gibson

A dog chases robotic lawnmowers which are shaped like rabbits. So much so, that he is in danger of dying from exhaustion. The designer ponders how she should change the design – but there is another way of looking at the problem. A shortish and amusing light tale. ***+

So You Want To Be A Guardian Angel, short story by Michael Meyerhofer 

Some sort of info dump and behavior manual for those who guard humanity against asteroid strikes. Meh. **½

We Remembered Better, short story by Evan Dicken

Apparently the abusive mother has used her last money for a memory recording of one day. Her descendants aren’t too happy and aren’t even sure if they want to see the thing. Too short for the reader to care, either. ***-

The Last Compact, short story by Brian Rappatta

A young man who lives on Mars has been helping in the upkeep of an AI saint. When a project is being scrapped and he and his mothers are moving away he is torn, when the AI is scheduled to be archived. An Ok snip of a real story, far too short with too scant background to make me care of the characters. ***

Riddlepigs and the Cryla, short story by Raymund Eich

Dinosaurs are being raised on an alien planet. One has broken free from its containment and hurt a very valuable pig which is being used for harvesting organs for transplants. A team comes to look for dino. A short scene rather than a real story - there was no background, and there was no connection to the characters. ***

Belle Lettres Ad Astra, novelette by Norman Spinrad

”Elon Tesla” has expanded all over the solar system. Travel between planets is slow, but apparently perfect deep sleep that doesn’t age people has been invented. There are indications that a Dyson sphere has been found, but there is no radio traffic coming from there. Travel to there would take a lot of real time, but little subjective time for the passengers.  Fairly loose story with not much plot and a lot of rambling description of the world. ***-

By the Will of The Gods, novelette by Charles Q. Choi

An orphan is brought up by a strange caretaker in a temple which is situated on a kind crossroads of space routes. The caretaker doesn’t seem to be very good at repairing things, but he has some strange missions and teaches the orphan to fight. Then he is killed and the orphan tries to find out why and by whom. The story takes some time to get going, but turns out to be pretty good and well written. ****-

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November-December 2020

An ok issue, but Analog would, really, really need a science editor. More and more stupid errors seem to creep in issue by issue.

Together, We Can Be More! • novelette by Juliette Wade

A space station is repurposed for several different alien species so that they can learn co-operation, their languages, habits and to make friends. Told in snippets from different (in most cases alien) viewpoints (the aliens having pretty human psyches and even languages which resemble English in structure [two personals pronouns for genders]). A bit of an overlong story with little cohesive plot. **+

This Hard World of Unwanted Beauty • novelette by Evan Marcroft

A human ship has crashed on a world where most life is apparently silicon-based ends horribly sharp and maims and kills when touched. However, somehow there are intelligent creatures, who help humans, carry them around apparently as pets, give them pieces of their flesh to eat, and parts of their skin as “cloth” (I don’t really understand the biochemistry of that). The humans consider this horribly demeaning and try to get to the emergency transmitter to get help. The aliens feel a bit anthropomorphized and chemistry is bizarre. Human behavior and attitudes feel strange, also. ***½     

A Purpose for Stars • short story by Brad McNaughton

An altruistic doctor is on an alien planet performing procedures for a condition that affects the faces of the local intelligent species. The colors on faces are used as part of local communication, so the condition which prevents that is socially debilitating. One child has a heart condition that poses a huge risk for the procedure and it is most likely the child will die from it. The mother presses for the operation. What should they do?  A pretty good but slightly short story. ***½

Ghost Strike • short story by Brenda Kalt

Down in his luck, asteroid prospector gets an offer he can’t refuse. He is supposed to find an old discarded lump of ore. He doesn’t find that but something more valuable. A problem-solving story with nothing really new. ***

Peaceweaver • short story by Marissa Lingen

An artist joins an alien race to enhance co-operation and friendship between species. How does a composer present his art to a species which has no concept of music? There is something all artists everywhere share. Reading critiques. A short entertaining story. ***

The Polar Bear Sleeps On • short story by M. Bennardo

A polar bear escapes the zoo and has moved into an upper-class apartment. The people there have died. There are food stores but they don’t last long. A well-told postapocalyptic story. I don’t get why the bear was so lethargic, though. ***-

Beloved Toiler • short story by George Zebrowski

Orson Welles’s Magnificant Ambressons is being recreated but the original footage which was thought to be lost is found - or something. The first half of the story is the history of Orson Welles and Citizen Kane and Magnificent Andersson told in more than 100-word-long sentences (no kidding, I counted). A pretty bad story; more of a history lecture and not very well told. **-  

Brought Near to Beast • short story by Gregor Hartmann

Pleistocene ecology with mammoths and dire wolves has been created in North America after ChoRen, a group that took global power and eliminated religion and superstition (and most of the humans). A game warden has lived for a long time with animals and when a veterinarian comes to visit, is gone pretty much “native”. The professionalism of them seems to be pretty bad, as the feed rhododendron leas for the mammoths - it is a poisonous plant, after all. The leader of Choren is coming to visit. A pretty clumsy and bad story with a LOT of forced exposition and explaining. **+ 

Trial and Error • novelette by Grey Rollins

A research group has landed on an alien planet with sentient aliens. The aliens are not at all interested in humans and mostly ignore them. There is a disastrous encounter where both humans and aliens end up dead. The cook of the ship has a plan for a peaceful solution, but some hotheads want revenge at almost any cost. I don’t understand why the members of a research/diplomatic mission would be horribly stupid, bigoted, and violent persons. Wouldn’t there be some sort of vetting process to weed out idiots? Otherwise a very good and well-written story. ****-

Asleep Was the Ship • short story by Eric Del Carlo

A human is working as a “breath” on an alien space ship. He stays awake as the alien pilgrims sleep while the ship passes a region of space which for some reason is harmful to the alien minds. He must watch over the sleeping alien during the transit. A few days into the journey he hears steps… is someone else there? A fairly good story, but 40 days at about half food rations (apparently there is no leeway in the food stores at all) isn’t going to kill or even seriously hurt anyone. ***½

Ashes • short story by Mario Milosevic

Hundreds of years' old woman is at her mother’s funeral, who died by suicide when she was 950 years old. They have evolved to live for a long time by conceiving from the last possible egg. The funerals are bittersweet and festive and the won powders on her own life. Otherwise a nice story, but the premise was horribly stupid. EVOLUTION DOES NOT WORK THIS WAY. The genetic set-up of a child doesn’t depend on which order the children are born. The second story with Lamarckian evolution in Analog in a short while. **-

State of Grace • short story by Clancy Weeks

An interstellar spaceship encounters a disaster mid-transit. The automatic systems can’t handle it and the ship AI wakes one passenger, an engineer who can make the repairs. The downside is that repairs will cause radiation damage which will certainly kill him from cancer in a few years. Actually, it doesn’t work like that - after a single radiation dose (which apparently doesn’t even cause severe radiation sickness) the cancer risk goes well up, but cancer is anything but a sure thing. According to the data I found, a single 1000 mSV dose, which will give you pretty bad but usually survivable radiation sickness, gives you a 1:13 risk of cancer due to radiation, and it takes years or decades. In spite of the bit shaky background, the story was very good with a nice development of the characters. ***½ 

Why Things Work on a Starship • short story by Stephen R. Loftus-Mercer

An engineer in a space ship is very good and is able to improve on the designs on the ship. The captain recognizes that but warns him of two original designs as more or less mediocre other crew wouldn't understand in a dangerous situation, but...  A nice, but short story. ***

Winter's Spring • novelette by A. P. Hawkins

A ship that has run from the Earth, which is under an alien attack has arrived at its destination. The planet they are supposed to colonize is cold - very cold. Much colder than it was supposed to be. Is it even possible to establish a colony so that the crew will be able to WAKE up the sleeping colonists? They try to establish farming, but the ground doesn’t seem to warm as it should. As a surprise discovery they find out that the frozen ground acts as a heat sink. No shit. Who would have thought? The energy needed for heating is running out. Using geothermal energy and drilling through 10 meters of frozen ground would be too demanding so they invent another approach: build gigantic wind turbines on the other side of the planet (where it is constantly windy) and use robot tractors to haul loaded batteries from there - that uses so much fewer resources! The writing is average, but the characters are stupid beyond belief. **

Enter the Fungicene • novelette by J. M. Swenson

A small group of clones are working to restore Earth. Most humans are dead; only a few cloned women have been single-mindedly worked towards their goal for thousands of generations. Vivian 2698 is an engineer (as are all her predecessors). She is known for being sometimes unorthodox and behaving in somewhat novel ways, something the other clones, who work as scientists, really don’t understand. The earth is filled with a wide variety of fungal growth. A breakthrough aiming for the reintroduction of normal plants seems to be very near, possibly in a few weeks. Like it has been for the last thousand years or so. Is there a way to turn the biosphere back to what it used to be? Or should it be done? A pretty good story, perhaps some small tightening might have made even better. ***½

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September-October 2020Publication Record # 789770

 A fairly good issue, a bit above average, I believe. 

Mimsy Were the Borogoves • (1943) • novelette by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore [as by Lewis Padgett]

This is one of the all-time classics. I read this story before — decades ago — and I was surprised by how many details I remembered. Two kids find a crate sent from the distant future. It is filled with learning toys that begin to teach them a new kind of thinking that may evolve the children into something else. Even some 80 years later, it is still a good story. The only downside was a far-too-long lecture by a psychologist.  ****+

 Minerva Girls • novelette by James Van Pelt

Three girls have always been friends. One is very smart in theoretical science, one is brilliant at making stuff, and the third has access to a practically limitless cache of electric parts at her father’s junkyard. At least one of the girls will move after the summer and their friendship might end. What to do? Go to the Moon, of course. Together they manage to invent and build an inertia-less gravity drive. It's a fun story that was well written; it felt very much like a Heinlein juvenile (one of the good ones). The plausibility wasn’t very high, but considering the style of the story, that wasn’t a problem. **** 

City • short story by Joel Richards

A successful businessman lives in a city where anyone might shift to an alternate reality at any time. He has just shifted to an alternate reality where he finds himself even wealthier than before. He contacts former lovers and friends to see whether they know him. It is a nice background for the story, which is quite well told, but it's more a sequence of vignettes than an actual tale with a cohesive plot. ***+

Where There's Life • novelette by John Vester [as by John J. Vester]

Humans are studying Mars while the last Martian creatures are trying to find water from deep below ground. Water has been running out (I wonder where the deep water is going, as it isn’t prone to evaporate like surface water). A comet is going to hit Earth, which would leave the Martian colonists stranded and alone; some even consider returning to Earth (Why? To die there?). One human encounters the Martian creatures and brings them to "normal" pressure and temperature — surely that couldn't harm them! The story is based on huge coincidences and criminally stupid actions. Not very good. **

The Chrysalis Pool • short story by Sean McMullen 

 A young man who enjoys running alone sees a beautiful, naked water nymph in almost any body of water he runs beside. A psychologist tries to analyze what is going on with a portable EEG scanner (and the tech who built the apparatus installed a camera as well). Will the camera capture the nymph? OK story, but the details of the EEG don't make much sense. ***

 A Skyful of Wings • short story by Aimee Ogden

A seed ship is on its way to drop a carefully calculated selection of Earth species when it suffers a malfunction and cannot make the stop — but it can still drop the seedling pods (I'm not sure how it would work with speed differences). The crew has one chance: they must drop some species and travel hibernated in pods. Apparently, every animal species has just one pod (doesn’t make much sense from the redundancy point of view). An OK story, more than a bit hurried. ***-

 Going Small • short story by Jacob C. Cockcroft

Earth is going to be destroyed by a giant meteor. Humanity has built a very tiny ship with a powerful AI with robotic capacity containing human embryos and is going to send it to another solar system. The AI is a bit bored during the travel but the ship arrives safe and sound. The narrative is just a description of events, more or less — which doesn’t even really make sense. Why build just one ship? It is not as though there were not sufficient resources to build more than one — and after the ship design was proved to be viable, such ships could have been built by the hundreds. Also, why not turn down the “clock speed” of the AI for the duration of the travel? ***

 Casualties of the Quake • short story by Wang Yuan

A man travels back in time to before the earthquake that killed his son. Can he alter the events? If so, what are the consequences? It's an OK, bittersweet story. ***

 The Home of the King • short story by Dan Reade

A reporter interviews a famous boxer who has reskinned — that is, transferred his mind to a new, healthy body. The story examines his background, the reporter’s background, and dives deep into what reskinning means for sports in general and boxing in particular. It's a boring story that was written as though boxing were an honorable and admirable pursuit instead of a barbaric thing which should have been outlawed decades ago as something which normalizes violence. **½

 Seeding the Mountain • novelette by Maggie Clark [as by M. L. Clark]

Nanotech has malfunctioned at several places in the world and they are at least partly under quarantine. One place is a mountain in Guatemala. People living nearby are trying to survive even if some strange and dangerous things are happening. I didn’t get into this story; the writing was thick and hard to read, and the characters seemed to discuss things endlessly. It felt far too long. **+

The Writhing Tentacles of History • short story by Jay Werkheiser

 Future descendants of squids dig up strange fossils of a mammal that looks like it walked on two feet, which doesn’t make any sense to them. It's an interesting society with fascinating creatures. Surely there would be massive amounts of physical remains of humanity — glass and ceramics are very resilient. ***

The Boy Who Went to Mars • short story by Mary Soon Lee

The son of a billionaire has lived without any real contact with his father. The father is establishing a Mars colony and asks his son to join it. The son is good in science and engineering, and really wants to join, but he isn’t keen on being with his absentee father. Eventually — at his mother's urging — he relents and goes to Mars. It's a pretty good story, even though it is too short and gives only glimpses of what happens. ***½

The Treasure of the Lugar Morto • short story by Alan Dean Foster

The archeologists are after a fabulous treasure. The find in under the remains of an apparent shopping mall: an untouched seed bank full of seeds which are unmeasurable valuable in a post collapse world. An ok story. ***

I, Bigfoot • novelette by Sarina Dorie

A bigfoot whose name is Bigfoot is interested in humans and goes on a scavenger expedition to the suburbs. He is especially interested in National Geographic magazines featuring Jane Goodall. He helps a young runaway who is almost raped. The leader of his tribe is not happy about the contact with humans. It's a pretty nice warm-hearted story. However, the psychology of the bigfeet is practically exactly human, which felt pretty strange. ***½

Draiken Dies • [Draiken] • novella by Adam-Troy Castro

Continues (and finishes?) an earlier series of stories. A retired spy has been chasing the spy organization that had once used him. Now his female companion has arrived on a planet where the organization has its headquarters. The spy organization captures her, fills her with truth serums and monitoring equipment, and asks where her companion is. She tells them that she killed him. Why? What is her angle? She can’t lie, so she apparently really killed him — but why come to the planet where the risk of capture is extremely high? Like most of the rest of the series, it is a very good story, smoothly written and exciting.  ****-

 

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July-August 2020

 

A pretty average issue.

Sticks and Stones • novelette by Tom Jolly

A spaceship has been on an exploratory mission and has found an intelligent bacteria colony from another planet that is on board. They have been forbidden to ever return to Earth, and the crew is bitter about that. There is a promise of a world with an oxygen atmosphere and they go there. They find a bizarre world with a lot of promise, have some adventures, encounter some hostile creatures and possible invaders, and eventually, everything goes well. A very naive story where both plot and writing are straight from the 50s. I am not sure if this should have been taken as a parody - but it was too near to the original style to mock it well enough. There were some problems with logic, also. If you always have a mess with tomatoes when you transit from 1 g to zero-g, shouldn’t you pick up the ripe fruits beforehand? If they are carrying an alien organism considered so dangerous that they can never return to Earth, how can they study other inhabited worlds for the same reason (wouldn’t that go without saying)? ***

Flyboys • novella by Stanley Schmidt

A young boy of a species where males are flyers and females aren’t, passes his initiation to adulthood. There are humans on the planet, also. There has been a battle between the humans and flyers, but after a peace treaty, things seem to have settled down. But there are some flyers who want humans out and they kidnap the youngster and try to persuade him to help them. A fairly nice story with average writing and a fair amount “as you know, Bob” style of exposition. The aliens behave very human-like, up to judicial customs. ***½

The Mad Cabbage • short story by Céline Malgen

A young scientist is studying fermented red cabbage as she notices that its color is off: the solution is far too acidic for what it is supposed to be. Lactic acid bacteria aren’t supposed to survive in such conditions - what is going on? A very simple story with very little actual plot. ***-

Aboard the Mithridates • short story by Sean Vivier

A spaceship is traveling to a planet with high sulfur content in the air. The air in the ship is slowly being adjusted to that content so that the passengers evolve to it. There is some gene therapy but strangely it is used after the air change to help current passengers (with autosomal changes?). One boy struggles with adjusting. I wonder why he isn’t on the list for gene therapy? The author seems to have an extremely strange Lamarckian view of evolution, and a bad understanding of gene therapy. Does Analog really have no editor who has any grasp of science at all?  A pretty bad story. **-

On the Changing Roles of Dockworkers • short story by Marie Vibbert

A dock worker tries to find out why a robot doesn’t work like it supposed to. It has become self-aware. But could it be talked around to continue working? A short simple OK story. **½

Mars, the Dumping Ground of the Solar System • short story by Andrew Kozma

Mars is a slum where the most inept people, criminals, and unneeded scum live. All planets (including Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury) have been terraformed and the genetically modified workers of that process live in apparent slum-like conditions on Mars. A girl has gone missing and almost no one cares. The story apparently tries to achieve some sort of a racial point, but manages to be clumsy and extremely stupid, and the “science” part of the story, which is implied, would have been ridiculous even in a story written at end of the 40s. Terraforming Jupiter and Venus is easier than using Mars for a living? Transporting the works to Mars, when the planet they have designed it for would at least have the right gravity? **

Retention • short story by Alec Nevala-Lee

Someone is trying to cancel his cable service/security system and is talking to a very insistent bot, which won’t allow cancellation. It talks and talks and eventually it turns out both are bots that have been left behind by disappeared humans. ***½

Keeping the Peace • short story by Elisabeth R. Adams

Lizard like aliens want to conquer habited worlds. They have sent ships to nearby solar systems with little success, but then the ship from Earth arrived offering information of a ripe catch to be won. But the lizard who is responsible for the solar conquest is having second thoughts. Not bad, takes a while to get into as there was little backstory, but this time that approach worked pretty well. ***½

Ennui • short story by Filip Wiltgren

The AI of a generation spaceship is worried, as its immortal passengers start to give up on life without any reason it can understand or correct. There are also similar problems at the other human settlements. The AI tries to find a solution, but eventually an alternative solution by the AI is needed. A pretty good and even moving story. ****

The Offending Eye • novelette by Robert R. Chase

Continues an earlier story. There are three factions of humans: Stability (authoritarian and conservative faction), Eternals (aiming to prolong human life span at almost any cost), and TransHumans (who aim for uploading human consciousness to computers). A political officer (who keeps watch on too much free thinking and anything which might hint on a machine AI), has returned from an exploration trip where there was a find which might be a threat to all factions of humans. Also, the computer on that ship has apparently achieved self-awareness, and that demands careful study and eventually even visiting the enemy camp, Eternals. Clearly a better story than the first part. There was still a bit too much obvious exposition at places, but there were fewer problems with logic. Even the writing felt better than before. ****-

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, May-June 2020

A lot of space is taken by the classic story (Weyr Search by Anne McCaffrey) which I read not long ago, and by a serial (which I hope to read later). The quality of the stories was pretty average, or even below average, and there were some very stupid details in many of the stories. Is the editing of Analog going downhill?


Moral Biology • novella by Neal Asher
An expedition goes to a planet that is protected by orbital platforms. It is unclear if those platforms are supposed to protect the planet or to stop something from escaping. The expedition is led by AI, and a member of the away team is AI with an android body. Their ship is shot down; they land and study strange creatures that show clear indications of biological engineering, and seem very dangerous. A pretty clumsy and slow-moving story, with vast, vast amounts of exposition and a fair amount of "as you know Bob"-dialogue. The team takes totally stupid risks, and I don’t think that the end of the story (or anything really) worked. **-
A Breath of Air • novelette by Tom Jolly
A group of people has “homestead” rights to an area on Mars. The people who lived in that place had died in an accident. There seems to be a lot of bad luck and strange accidents - perhaps the less-than-friendly-looking neighbors are trying to drive them away? After a bigger accident, which practically destroys both farms, things look bad. Nothing unusual or new, but a smoothly written and entertaining story. ****-
Candida Eve • short story by Dominica Phetteplace
All but one of the members of a Mars expedition have died of a disease that has spread like a pandemic on Earth soon after their launch. She buries the dead members (wtf, why intentionally bring bacteria and even the deadly pandemic virus from Earth to Mars?) and starts to do whatever research she can do alone. The story has a nice feel, it is more relevant now than when it was being written, but there are a few too irritating stupidities in it. If you send self-learning robots on a vital space mission, wouldn’t it make sense to teach them the most basic functions before the mission leaves, so that they wouldn’t have to learn how to hold a screwdriver as the first thing on the mission? But, on the other hand, apparently no testing at all had been done about how drones work, otherwise their malfunction would have been easily prevented by ANY testing. ***½
A Compass in the Dark • short story by Phoebe Barton
A woman has moved to the far side of the moon and returns to bury her father, who believes that souls need a magnetic field to escape. The writing was nice, but the story was too short. And at the beginning, I was very baffled when it was mentioned that the Earth and the Sun are seen as sickles on the sky. I was trying to think about a place where that could happen, but wasn’t able to. I still can't think how that would be possible. ***-
It Was a Tradition When You Turned 16 • short story by Eric Cline
A treatise of electric cars, the disguise of a father giving his daughter a driving lesson while she thinks the whole thing is unnecessary and quaint. Not actually a real story. ***+
Calm Face of the Storm • novelette by Ramona Louise Wheeler
Bret is nearing the end of his adolescence and flies alone. He gets caught up in a storm and is blown away to strange lands. He meets an intriguing female of the other tribe, which was thought to be mystical, and she goes into winter hibernation, as is the way of her people. He flies farther, and finds strange but dangerous creatures. When he eventually returns home, he is not believed. A pretty standard coming-of-age story, but the setting was really strange. At first, I thought it took place on a colony planet, but then it was obvious that the planet was the home planet of flying creatures, who apparently have a spaceport and satellite location system, but don’t really know much of the geography, peoples, and animals of their own world...WTF is going on? Is there a rational explanation for this all, or is the author just lazy? ***

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March-April 2020

A pretty average issue.

Noise Level • [Martin Nagle] • (1952) • novelette by Raymond F. Jones
A reprinted classic story. A group of scientists is invited to a military base with utmost security. They are shown a film, which appears to prove that antigravity is real. An inventor wears a west, rises high on air and lowers himself down. Then he gives a rambling explanation of his invention, riddled with nonsensical references to astrology and other pseudoscience. When he is giving a second demonstration, his apparatus starts to smoke, then he falls to his death and breaks the machine. Scientists are supposed to recreate the invention. The inventor’s lab has no notes. His books are a strange mix of science and esoterica. Is it possible to recreate his work? A bit overlong, very Campbellian, even irritatingly Campbellian story. I think I have read pretty much the same story with a different invention (FTL-travel?) somewhere? Or have I read this one and mixing my memories? ***½
Camphor • short story by Mark W. Tiedemann
A planet has had an ambassador for a long time, but he really doesn’t understand the people of the planet. They have a strange taboo about bare arms, and everyone keeps their arms always covered. There might be an invasive animal who might be a carrier of severe disease that demands swift action. A lot of the story is just discussion. And there was too little backstory, so it was hard to get involved with it. ***
Expecting to Fly • short story by Manny Frishberg and Edd Vick
A girl is brought up by insectoid aliens, who go through a cocoon phase and transform from a pulpal phase to an adult phase. She is unhappy, as she can’t-go through that, learn to fly, and find her purpose. Then, she is rescued by humans. But adjusting to human life can be hard. A pretty nice, well-told, but, at places, slightly hurried story. ***+
Midstrathe Exploding • short story by Andy Dudak
An explosion of a city has been frozen. It will take a thousand years to happen. Tourists and religious fanatics journey to the wavefront of the explosion. A nice story with good mood, but once again there was not enough backstory to really get into it. ***
Dix Dayton, Jet Jockey • short story by Liz A. Vogel
A single passenger ship notices that a pirate ship is approaching a vital supply shipment. He doesn’t have any weapons. What to do? A simple scene-like story with little actual plot. ***
Cooling Chaos • short story by Gregory Benford
A “story” about how spreading aerosols to a higher atmosphere might stop global warming. There is a plot of sorts, but it is extremely thin. Another non-story. **
Respite • short story by Catherine Wells
A man arrives at a space station where no one has come for a long time. The people there have barely survived, and machinery is breaking down. The man who came has actually been building the station hundreds of years ago and is still alive due to antiaging treatments and time dilation. He can take only eleven people back with him and getting help will take more time than the machinery will last. A good story that works well as itself. ****-
Curious Algorithms • short story by Hayden Trenholm
An AI vehicle transports people who come from another side of a wall. It isn’t entirely clear what is on the other side and if people escaping or being deported through the wall. It isn’t entirely clear where the car is taking those people. Is it to a "rescue camp" that is really for imprisonment? The car wonders about that and even more when some restrictions are removed. Another story with a scant background that was more of a scene from a larger tale. ***+
War Lily • short story by Beth Dawkins
A soldier who has died in duty has three sessions where an AI recording of her personality can be accessed for a limited time. Nice and sweet story, but without an explanation of why the AI is so limited. ***+
On the Causes and Consequences of Cat Ladies • short story by Richard A. Lovett
A husband and wife team has developed a food that turns rats smarter. FDA didn’t allow human tests, and a foreign pet food company bought the patent. The husband has died of glioblastoma (he had been sampling his wares, so perhaps FDA wasn’t so wrong after all.) The wife lives with her cat, who dies after been mauled by unknown animals. But soon, there is another cat, and then second and a third. They all seem to be very particular about their food. A pretty good story with a not-too-happy ending. ***½
Zeroth Contact • short story by Joshua Cole
An astronomer spots a disk that seems to be eating a metal-rich asteroid. Eventually, several of the disks are spotted, but no attempt of contact with them seems to succeed. A pretty nice story where humanity is just a bystander. ****-
Lemonade Stand • short story by Brenda Kalt
A daring rescue attempt at the asteroid belt involving an emotionally absent father and an ex. This is a somewhat-too-short story where everyone seems to have close connections, more or less by an accident. ***
Rover • short story by A. T. Sayre
A Mars rover has been able to scavenge parts of other abandoned mars probes and has been able to function well past what was expected. It hasn’t been able to contact the Earth base for a long time, but then it finds a signal of a beacon. I wonder how the probe was able to achieve that level of AI. Also, the ending was a bit too unexplained. ***+
One Hundred • short story by Sean Monaghan
A Martian colony of 100 people is barely surviving after Earth has been destroyed by an asteroid strike. They are making advances, but slowly. A pretty good story, but perhaps it was too short - it wasn’t easy to learn to know the characters and their predicaments in a short story. ***½
One Basket • novelette by Charles Coleman Finlay [as by C. C. Finlay]
An asteroid colony is running low on water (I wonder where the water has gone, it should be 100% recyclable). A teenage girl is doing her homework when her grandmother asks her to go outside to gather eggs. A nice but simple story with a very strong YA vibe. ***½

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, January-February 2020

The Quest for the Great Gray Mossy • novelette by Harry Turtledove
Mieville’s Moby Dick told as a dinosaur story. Mammals are only disgusting small critters (how irritating and disgusting they are is mentioned a few too many times). There are whale-like creatures, though. They are not mentioned to be mammals, but they behave just like whales. They produce oil, ambra, and meat, just like whales. If the mammals didn’t evolve to large creatures on dry land, where did the whales come? Other than the protagonists being lizards, there were no fantasy or SF elements at all. As I haven’t read the original, I most likely missed most of the references and found the story to be pretty boring. ***
Wheel of Echoes • short story by Sean McMullen
After some farfetched circumstances, a recording of Shakespeare acting as Hamlet is recovered. A smoothly moving nice story, but the effects of the find on Shakespearean studies is extremely hard to believe. Why would anyone really care if Shakespeare was a mediocre actor? ***+
Hive • short story by Jay Werkheiser
Humans and insectoid aliens whose entire communication and even intelligence is based on pheromones encountering each others. Both think that the other is a mindless animal. A pretty good story about a truly alien intelligence. ****-
The Greatest Day • short story by Eric Choi
An alternative history of the disaster of spaceship Columbia, where the damage was noticed midflight and an attempt was made to salvage the crew. Things don’t end as badly as in our reality. An OK story, well written, and even partly moving, but not entirely plausible at all places. ***+
Welcome to the New You: Terms and Conditions for the iCRISPR Gene-Editing Kit • short story by Douglas F. Dluzen
An advert on the home kits for crisper DNA modification. An amusing story which isn’t very far on the future (if you don’t consider the fact that changing autosomal DNA doesn’t usually cause phenotypical changes). ***+
The Grass Bows Down, the Pilgrims Walk Lightly • short story by Izzy Wasserstein
Aliens give humanity technological and scientific secrets if humans are able to solve puzzles. The protagonist tries to find out why grass “bows” on a planet and reminisces her life. A bit of a short story with a scant background. ***
All the Turns of the Earth • short story by Matthew Claxton
A youth falls to the past without an explanation and makes friends with a pterosaur. Then he falls back and always partly misses his former life. A fantasy story, not sf. Nice writing and mood, but there is not much of an actual plot. ***-
One Lost Space Suit Way • short story by A. J. Ward
An old, intelligent, and self-aware space suit runs away and has many adventures. A short story that aims for a sad, bittersweet mood and pretty much succeeds. The plot itself is partly implausible, but the story works fairly well nevertheless. ***+
Around the World in Ninety-Six Hours • short story by Wendy Nikel
A sister of two siblings is on a Venus expedition while the brother is on a Mars expedition. The Venus group is using Morse code to communicate with the ground robot vessel for some contrived reason. The siblings bicker like ten-year-olds. The brother gets into trouble on Mars. The solution to how he is rescued is pretty obvious after reading the first two pages or so. A pretty unsurprising, standard “in peril” story. ***-
Birds of a Feather • short story by Gregor Hartmann
A scientist has developed an easy way to create radio telescopes which function at space. His approach uses tiny metallic shards, millions of them, and their reflections are analyzed by a sophisticated computer program. But he doesn’t get funding. His twin brother helps him to test his idea in reality (and most likely to prevent any low orbit space flight for centuries...but that wasn’t mentioned in the story). ***
Guns Don't Kill • short story by Richard A. Lovett
Hunter tries to shoot a deer after hunting season. Game warden gets an automatic message about poaching about to happen. What happens when guns get very automatic and autonomous? A very good story, Hopefully, things go in this direction. ***½
Q-ship Militant • short story by Joel Richards
A spaceship which is a disguised warship is chasing a “slaver” ship - that is, pirates who have stolen AI cores from other ships. Just a fragment that tells the story of one such chase and battle. There was little background and little reason to care about characters or events. **½
The Shocking Truth About the Scientific Method that Privatized Schools Don't Want You to Know • novelette by Sarina Dorie
A teacher teaches in a school where the curriculum is dictated by private contributions. When the contributor supports creationism, the teaching of science is hard and frustrating. A teacher starts an extracurricular course, but the school isn’t happy about it. A pretty good and sadly plausible (at least in the US where schools seem to be in a sorry state) story. ***+
Hubble Rising • novelette by C. Stuart Hardwick
A recovery attempt of Hubble space telescope ends in an accident. Everything looks bad, but a resourceful crewmember manages to save the day. Nothing which hasn’t been seen on a hundred Analog stories before. ***

Analog Science Fiction -> Science Fact, May 1966

8 • The Wings of a Bat • [Lake Possible] • novelette by Pauline Ashwell [as Paul Ash]
A group of miners has traveled to the Cretaceous period. They raised together (with the lead of a medic, as he had more free time than the others) a young orphaned Pteranodon and released it into the wild once it was grown enough. During a storm, there is a threatening situation when the medic seems to be chased by a full-grown lizard bird. There was nothing really surprising, but a well-told version of a familiar story. ***
31 • Call Him Lord • novelette by Gordon R. Dickson
Nebula winner and a Hugo finalist.
The future emperor of a galactic empire arrives on the Earth, which is a backward planet compared to others. But according to tradition, emperors must tour the Earth before their coronation. There is a family who has always acted as their bodyguards. It turns out that the guard is actually guarding something even more valuable than the life of the prince he's supposed to look after. An excellent story. ****+
72 • Two-Way Communication • short story by Christopher Anvil
Someone has invented a device that not only can receive any radio transmission, but also send audio back to the microphone which is emitting the sounds. A very stupid story which is apparently meant as humorous but really isn't. **+
84 • Under the Wide and Starry Sky... • short story by Joe Poyer
The story happens approximately at the time of writing. An astronaut is marooned during a spacewalk, his oxygen system is damaged and he soon won't be able to breathe anymore. The spaceship (strangely) has almost no fuel left, and can’t be maneuvered to pick him up. A pretty standard rescue story, but orbital mechanics and orbital speeds don’t really add up. At one point, the speed of the space capsule is mentioned to be 138.000.000 feet/sec, which corresponds to about 151 million kilometers per hour. That is more than 10% of the speed of light... **
101 • The Alchemist • [Conrad Patrick] • novella by Charles L. Harness
Another Hugo finalist and was also nominated for Nebula.
A chemical reaction that should not have taken place actually does, after a strange man messed with the vials. It turns out he might be an alchemist. Pages of description of imaginary chemical reactions and intricacies of patent law ensue. An extremely slow story in which practically nothing seems to be happening. Such an unbelievably boring story that I gave up about halfway. I glanced at the last half - apparently, everything was due to some psi-powers. Totally unbelievable that this story has received the nominations it has. *

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November-December 2019

An Eye for an Eye • [The Ascension (Jerry Oltion)] • novelette by Jerry Oltion
A human spaceship lands on an alien planet with aliens who apparently are near to an industrial revolution. A convoy of caterpillar-like aliens approaches the ship. One of them breaks off his eyestalk and gives it to the humans. The expedition is a bit baffled but takes it, and the aliens leave. The aliens seem to lose their interest, and even seem irritated when they meet the humans again, and when the humans refuse to eat a severed finger offered by the aliens, the aliens seem offended. Meanwhile, the severed eye seems to contain surprisingly complex and extensive neuronal structures. The story continues an earlier one, this time from the human viewpoint. A pretty good one, even if there were shades of an idiotic plot – it was painfully obvious for the reader what was happening even when characters were in the dark. ****-
Formless • novelette by Gary Kloster
A soldier approaches a planet. It has been invaded by the “formless”, who are disgusting creatures who have destroyed humans on Earth and have apparently followed them here. The soldier’s ship is hit and he falls on the mercy of the formless. But not everything is what it looks like. A pretty nice story. ***+
Moon Santa Mongo • short story by John Edward Urh
A shop owner on the moon has had some hard times. There are not many tourists and his assistant left suddenly. He hires a veteran who seems homeless and apparently has memory problems. A fairly warm-hearted Christmas story. ***½
The Prince of Svalbard: A Saga of the Thaw • short story by Louis Evans
A Viking saga of a raid to Svalbard seed vault. Ponderous language and I didn’t really get into it. I wonder what is the timespan after the accident - at first, it seemed like centuries and then there was someone alive? **
Filaments of Hope • short story by Marissa Lingen
A Martian colony was canceled. The developer of a lichen suitable for the production of food there is invited to Iceland. They want to use the lichen for food production. A pretty sketch-like story. **+
Just a Guy and Some Aliens • short story by Michael Carroll
A probe is sent to a star with a planet on the goldilocks zone. It can analyze DNA and send it to Earth, where it can be used to build the creature it is from. It turns out that something went a little wrong. A stupid story on so many levels. All the science sucks heavily – alien life forms with exactly similar DNA structure? No pre-analysis of DNA whatsoever? DNA enduring decades in space? **
Wolves • short story by Edward Ashton
An employee/slave/pet is sent to track a lone woman he saw digging through trash. He is supposed to kill her. The setup is shown slowly and it would be a spoiler to describe it in detail. There are apparently alien invaders who use humans for menial tasks, but there are also still a few “wild” ones around. A very nice short story. ****-
Binary • short story by Rajan Khanna
A recording of a person is used as a mind of a bot which is sent to study a possible alien artifact. She seems to have hallucinations of the past events of her life. There also seems to be something strange about the AI which governs how her ship behaves. The idea was fairly good, but the story was too short, there was no real emotional attachment to the main “character”. ***½
Sojourner • short story by Craig DeLancey
A man is trying to help an AI which apparently is threatened by a government man who wants to hunt it down and destroy it. He escapes a raid with the AI but gets caught. The government man has an alternative explanation about what is going on. A very good story which turns around very nicely. ****-
Martian Fever • novelette by Julie Novakova
The first Mars expedition is financed by a billionaire. After they start the exploration, one member gets sick with a Martian bug. According to the pre-agreed rules, that means no one can go back home, to prevent bringing back infections to Earth. That isn’t something everyone is too happy about – and if they don’t find the cure, their chance of living on Mars isn’t very good, either. A pretty good story which concentrates more on people than on events. And the people seem real and behave in a fairly consistent and logical way. ****-
Keep the Line Tight But Not too Tight, or Esteban and the Moon • short story by J. M. McDermott [as by Joe M. McDermott]
Workers on the Moon who build generation ships are stressed about the pressures. I didn’t really get into the story, it seemed mainly to be bitching about living on the Moon and about other people. The main character felt like a very irritating and unhappy person. And I didn’t get some of the technology: habitats on the Moon are spun for artificial gravity, but they stopped for the night? Why in hell? Wouldn’t that be extremely uneconomical? There are some other questionable details, also. The writing felt somewhat clumsy and hard to get. **-
Yamadori • short story by Stephen R. Wilk
A man who builds miniature robots is asked to build a small human-looking robot with moving capability, with hollow arms with room to stick meat into. As the builder is more than a little baffled, he wants to see what his robot is used for. (For feeding a miniature version of a man-eating plant.) The writing was fairly nice but there wasn’t really much plot, just a demonstration of the robot and its use. ***½
Follow, Past Meridian • short story by Mark W. Tiedemann
A group of youngsters goes for some sort of initiation quest in a post-apocalyptic world where there seems to be a lot of working tech still around. They have heard rumors that an “American” might be around and they want to see it. Along the way, they meet a mystery woman. Far too sketchy and short, it feels like a short prologue for the real story. ***
Empty Box • short story by Allison Mulvihill
A man has a discussion with his girlfriend, whom he has never seen in person. The girlfriend’s name is Eliza and they talk about artificial intelligences which are better than just passing a Turing test. Oh, I wonder what the girlfriend really is? A short and simple story. ***-
The Quarantine Nursery • short story by Aimee Ogden
A well-to-do family's small children are taken care of by robots in a germ-free environment. Influenza is especially considered as horrific. I wonder if the story happens in some sort of alternate world where there are no vaccines and social norms are from the fifties. Women are at home cooking for their husbands and wear something pretty when he comes home. As a matter of fact, the story feels exactly like it would be at home in Galaxy magazine from 1954 or something. Otherwise, it is a pretty good and well-told story. ***½
Kamsahamnida, America • novelette by Guy Stewart
An elderly astronaut is testing a spaceship with simulations when news breaks out: Koreans have sent a ship to the Moon. All space-capable nations scramble to send their own ships to be first on the Moon since the 70s. The Korean ship seems to approach the Moon at an impossible speed. As the other ships approach the Moon, there is even some attempt to sabotage other “contestants”. Extremely stupid story: apparently everyone had a ship which was able to go to the Moon, but couldn’t be bothered. When one nation goes there, it suddenly is imperative to be there first. It doesn’t make any sense. If it is so important, why wait if it almost trivial to launch an expedition in a few hours? And hitting another ship with a passive “missile” would be a billion-to-one chance. The writing is OK, but every aspect of the plot is pedestrian. **½
You Must Remember This • novella by Jay O'Connell
Runaway AI has destroyed a part of town and “archived” many people who were living there. It is possible to rebuild and wake those people, but it is expensive, and will not be done unless someone will sponsor it. A woman who was pretty maladjusted has been awakened. Her sponsor wants to remain unknown. Her ADHD can be cured, and after some trepidation, she takes the cure. But can she adjust to a new life in the future, and with a slightly different personality than what she was used to? A pretty nice and well-told story. ****-

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September-October 2019

Perhaps a bit below-average issue.

The Gorilla in a Tutu Principle or, Pecan Pie at Minnie and Earl's • novella by Adam-Troy Castro
A man who works on the moon sees Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel in space suits, enacting one of their sketches. A little while later he sees them again. What's going on? He asks help from Minnie and Earl, a very strange, possibly alien, couple living in a picket-fenced nice and cozy house in the middle of the lunar soil. A nice story which doesn’t make much logical sense, but is very good in spite of that. ***½
Awakening in the Anteroom of Heaven • short story by Brenda Kalt
Aliens have been defeated by humans during a war. A lot of damage has been caused in the alien homeworld. The aliens rescue some statues and bring them to a holy place where no humans all allowed, according to the peace treaty they have agreed on. There is something secret inside the statues. An okay story which would have been better with some back story. Who were the “bad guys” in the war? Who actually were the aggressors? Why did the war even happen? ***+
On Her Shoulders • novelette by Martin L. Shoemaker
An anomalous object is discovered near Jupiter and it eventually turns out to be an alien spaceship. The story loosely follows the woman who discovered it and her former mentor. Apparently, sending our own spacecraft to meet the aliens doesn’t interest the US government (or ANY other government at all, for that matters – a bit of an unrealistic scenario). An excellent take on “The Man who Sold the Moon”. The body of the story is good, but it might have needed a little more meat. Plus, the most interesting part is happening after the end of the story and between the scenes we were shown. ***½
Paradise Unbound • [Paradise (Edward M. Lerner)] • short story by Edward M. Lerner
Continues an earlier story, but takes place years or decades later. The ancient mother ship didn’t crash on the planet, but offered plenty of information about technology and there was a technological renaissance. Now, though, a giant asteroid is going to hit the planet and the technology level is not good enough to do anything about it. Then there is an unknown spaceship in orbit... The story is not as good as the earlier parts. The arrival of the spaceship just in time is, if anything, a huge coincidence. ***+
The Swarm • short story by Mario Milosevic
Microprobes are sent to a closest star (using a light sail powered by lasers, which are apparently located on the Earth’s surface – a lunatic idea, most likely impossible), but it will take decades to get a few pictures. One of the group goes into suspended animation to see the results. Was it worth it? A very short story with an open end. ***
The Waters of a New World • short story by Jennifer R. Povey
A spaceship has escaped a dying Earth. The water on a new planet has a strange contaminant which seems to be totally impossible to get rid off. It survives anything (even boiling and distilling? That wasn’t mentioned) and dissolves anything. A short story where the problem was solved “slightly” too conveniently (Martian soil kills the nanobacteria and they just happen to have several tons of it onboard). ***
News from an Alien World • short story by Sean Vivier
Something has happened in the USA (and apparently in the rest of the world, except Japan). A man, who works for a Japanese space agency, tries to live his American dream as his workgroup translates alien TV signals (which just happen to be from the end of their civilization - a million to one chance, surely?). A nice story which contrasts two civilizations. ***
A Family Rendezvous • short story by Brendan DuBois
A space shuttle containing tourists is on its way to an orbital hotel. Something goes wrong, but luckily there is a man on board who believes he can help. A problem-solving story with a seemingly contrived emergency and solution. ***
From So Complex a Beginning • short story by Julie Novakova
A technician is summoned to a planet where life has evolved very quickly, so quickly that it hints to artificial intelligence. When she is studying the animals on the planet, there is a glitch in the data, as if someone is censoring something. Who and why? Or is she just paranoid? An okay story, but the plot was a bit simplistic in some points and motivations were left unclear. ***
A Square of Flesh, A Cube of Steel • short story by Phoebe Barton
A girl doesn’t want to leave her home with her mother but is she ready to stay alone? Another story I didn’t get into at all and I didn’t relate with the character, who seemed to behave pretty erratically. ***-
I Dreamed You Were a Spaceship • short story by Ron Collins
An old man, a hero, muses over his past, his present and a new generation with new sorts of interests and lifestyle. A shortish bittersweet “story”. ***-
Astroboy and Wind • short story by J. M. McDermott [as by Joe M. McDermott]
There is an accident among construction crew members on another planet that makes the rest of group wonder what they will be doing in the future. A slice of life story, pretty good for that style which I usually am not a fan of. ***
Conventional Powers • [Troubleshooters] • novelette by Christopher L. Bennett
At a convention on superheroes there is some discord about what is a “real” superhero. A faction tries to hijack the convention and run the prestigious competition in such a way that the most powerful superheroes won’t have the edge they usually have. An average story with a stupid plotting. A very important invention is left at an unsafe place? The motivation of the “bad guys” is beyond strange: all that happens just to win a competition whose prize seems to be the only prestige? Why? However, I am not sure if I am over-analyzing it, but was there some “slight” commentary about the rabid/sad puppies affair in here somewhere? ***
The Singing City • short story by Michael F. Flynn
The son of an astronaut will command a mission into deep space. The astronaut muses over that. A bit of a boring story I didn’t get into. ***-
Molecular Rage • short story by Marie Bilodeau
A time scheduler of matter transportation beams is late for work. Again. He also goes back home late and it's not even the first time. In fact, it is so common that his wife leaves him. He is sacked from work too. He starts to look for what could be causing the delays. An "okay" story, a bit too much is spent on the intricacies of matter transportation beams. I wonder where and when the story is supposed to be happening: time is measured by seconds and minutes and the main character uses caffeine? He is an 'insect' and there are no humans in the world at all? ***
Trespass • novelette by Tony Ballantyne
A mercenary is asked to help on a sector which sticks to tradition and only uses things that work according to traditional physics which can be replicated by humans. They are considered to be backwards, as most people are used to alien tech (including FTL travel). Nevertheless, a man has discovered some unknown alien tech from a distant planet is lose on the sector, and he must be removed as soon as possible. It turns out that the human tech is pretty advanced too, but inertia-less travel is a bit more high-tech than it is common there... a very good and intriguing story about an interesting world. ***½
Road Veterinarian • novelette by Guy Stewart
A veterinarian is chosen to help on a top-secret project (I wonder why the army doesn’t even have a single capable vet of its own?). A bio-engineered highway has been started to walk to Canada which, in this future, is a hostile nation. A pretty stupid story, and flirting between the main characters doesn’t make it any better. ***-

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July-August 2019

Pretty varied bunch of stories: some pretty good, but many which were less so.

Vault • novelette by Robert R. Chase
A spaceship is sent to study a planet that is orbiting a star with a very unusual trajectory. The premise isn’t bad, although not unusual, but the writing wasn’t very good. I have never seen such an amount of “As you know, Bob” style of exposition where the crew members discuss things that should be totally obvious to all involved. The main protagonist also has long expository discussions with the ship's computer (which has pretty good AI, but it is horribly illegal to consider it as a self-aware AI, and even saying “thank you” to it is almost punishable by imprisonment – if discussing with an AI is such a horrible thing, why make it possible to discuss with it with spoken language at all?). The main protagonist is a ship doctor/psychologist and possibly a “political officer”. To test that a crew member makes an unprovoked attack against the protagonist – apparently, if he were a political officer, he would report the action. Wouldn’t it be natural to report such behavior in ANY case? Especially if you are the “psychologist” wouldn’t the only possible reaction be grounding and confining the obviously mentally unstable crew member straightaway? The story then examines the discovery of an alien artifact on the planet and its analysis – nothing really new or unusual storytelling wise – with a small twist concerning the AI but with unbelievably stupid characters. **
The Quality of Mercy • novelette by Catherine Wells
A female scientist goes to another planet to research alien wild creatures living there and to find if they are sentient or not. A male “warrior caste” soldier comes with her to help in establishing the base, where cameras have surveyed the group of aliens for years. It turns out that some of the cameras have been destroyed - is that natural or not? The characters have a deep distrust at the beginning but it later turns to an understanding. The story was fairly entertaining while extremely irritating at the same time. The characters were caricatures with current attitudes. The plot had many stupidities: the characters apparently walked a five kilometer two-way trip, even several times a day, through a wild forest country without tracks. Apparently, the author has no experience at all in walking in a wild forest: even one way would most likely be more than two hours on easy terrain, and several hours on hard terrain. Also, the poachers chose the ONE herd on the whole planet which was monitored? What are the odds? And why would they use a twine made from local materials? A lot of work for something trivial which could have been purchased easily. ***
Shooting Stars • short story by Tom Jolly
A detective and his AI helper try to solve the murder of a man with a good-sized hole through his chest. A bit of a clumsy story with an extremely contrived plot. There were some strange details. I don’t understand why a planet “near horseshoe nebula” has “strange treasures” and a lot of meteorites - I cannot think about any sensible reason for that. **+
A Life in Particle Archaeology • short story by John Vester [as by John J. Vester]
Social insects study subatomic structures apparently from another dimension, and the Earth is an electron from their viewpoint. This isn’t a real story, just a setup which is meant as humorous. It was stupid beyond belief and incited almost hatred. *
Sailors of the Second Sun • short story by David L. Clements
A mission to a nearby brown dwarf is underway. A journalist with a science background has heard a tip that the AI on board has some issues. And, at first, it seems that the hunch was right, as the probe repeatedly takes pictures from the same place. A shortish story which is more of an idea than a story with a plot. ***
Labor-Saving Relations • short story by Buzz Dixon
A man feels irritated as his web-capable intelligent home appliances are getting uppity while he isn’t polite enough, and even tries to put none-machine washable things into a washing machine. A fun little story. ***
The Babbage Tour • short story by Leo Vladimirsky
A husband and wife team researches time travel. The wife gets cancer. The time travel most likely will kill you, but if you have incurable cancer does that really matter? A simple short story. ***
All Tomorrow's Parties • short story by Phoebe North
Another time travel story. A time traveled is jaded, as wherever he goes back in time, there are other time travelers who make anachronistic errors: wrong style buttons and so on. He goes to an obscure concert with a girlfriend. The story was okay, but the characters were very irritating, and the story just fizzled out. ***-
A Wonderful Thing to Say • short story by Dan Reade
Another time-related story. After her husband died, the wife uses a contraption that can travel into the past to read a letter the husband wrote. A technically nice story, but considering the end, I don’t understand why she paid for an apparently expensive procedure as the marriage was already over in two ways anyway.***
Portle • short story by Robert Scherrer
A machine which enables instantaneous travel was discovered on the moon. A young child (whose journal mostly IS the story) is afraid of going through the portal, as she believes that her parents change each time she goes through. It turns out that the portal opens to other realities and only a select few are able to remember the realities they come from. The beginning was a very good story, but I found the ending to be very disappointing and illogical. If the capability to see through all dimensions makes those who can do it immensely intelligent, why did the prehumans who supposedly had the ability not create a culture? What about animals? If the primitive humans had the ability, what about higher apes? Or other almost human species like Neanderthals or Denisov people? And it is very contrived that the child is able to go to any reality but not her original one - or even to any that very closely resemble it. There should be an infinite number of realities anyway. The first half was over four stars, but the last barely two. ***+
Monarch of the Feast • novelette by Paul Di Filippo
A poet from mid-19th century Italy encounters a strange man who appears to have strange capabilities and strange machines. He wants to unite Italy and possibly the world. The poet himself also believes in the united Italy, and he is ready to help. But another strange man gives him a serious warning of a possible consequences. A somewhat sketch-like time travel story which is described from the point of view someone who lives in his own time. The motivations of the characters were left very open for everyone involved. There was at least one anachronism. It is very unlikely that sparkling wine would be available in about 1850 Italy and certainly not in a pitcher. ***½
What We Named the Needle • short story by Freya Marske
A culture sends a smart teen to the stars in suspended animation pods for badly defined reasons. The pod is captured by an intelligent ship whose designer is becoming demented. A fairly good story. ***½
Uncommon • short story by Leah Cypess
A woman can get a curative treatment for her cancer - but she would lose her immunity to all sorts of common cold type infections. Too horrible to even think of. Very stupid story. If the overwhelming majority were immune to colds the herd immunity would practically prevent it for those without immunity anyway. And the choice is ridiculous anyway. ***-
Captain Zack & the Data Raiders • short story by Steve Rasnic Tem
A group fights against data corruption. Governments, interest groups and what not erase data from the internet and a group fights back. Just a scene; not actually a story. **½
Dreaming Up the Future • short story by Julie Novakova
Some sort of essay of peer review process mixed with a rudimentary “story”. Very non-interesting. **-
Finnegan, Bring the Pain • short story by J. M. McDermott [as by Joe M. McDermott]
A girl is moving to stars with her family. Her friends, especially one boy, arrange a farewell party for her. A pretty good, bittersweet story. ***½
A Neighborhood for Someone Else • short story by Alison Wilgus
A translator is working on an alien planet. She has had augmentations for the sense of smell, as smell is important for the communication between aliens. She doesn’t really belong with humans or aliens and feels very alienated. Not a story; just a scene. (I wonder why scenes presented as stories are so rampant in Analog nowadays? I really don’t care for them.) ***
The Eyes of Alton Arnhauser • novelette by Nick Wolven
A street punk steals a contraption from an abandoned building which uses all possible outlets to get as much as possible information through the internet about anyone who wears the interface built onto contact lenses. It is far too much information for anyone to bear. The system apparently works with magic – and the way it grows attached to eyes was also kind of farfetched. ***
The Slipway • novelette by Greg Egan
A strange area appears in the sky. It is like the stars were replaced with something from another, denser part of the sky. And the area is growing – far too fast for it being a very remote phenomenon. What is happening? Is an opening of a wormhole approaching the Earth? But then calculations show a surprising fact: Earth might have already gone thought it... An excellent story, with a very open end. I look forward to a continuation. ****

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, May-June 2019

Maybe a little better issue than the last one. There were a few pretty nice stories.


Bonehunters • novelette by Harry Turtledove
The story happens in a world where dinosaurs were not wiped out and mammals are small irritating critters running around at night. Two intelligent species have evolved - one is on a higher technological level; another apparently still lives a nomadic life. A person who has worked as a guide is hired by a professor to find fossils. There are plentiful fossil beds on the native lands. Luckily, the guide has good relations as he has a step son who belongs to the same species as the natives. The story has a nice background and good writing, but the actual plot was pretty simple and more like window-dressing for the description of the world. ***½
The Methuselah Generation • short story by Stanley Schmidt
A woman with a heart condition is checking items off her bucket list and is on a journey to observe Monarch butterflies. There is an alien on the same trip who is camouflaged as a human. They meet and have a nice conversation. A well-written bittersweet story - not much happened but that didn’t matter. ***+
Galena • short story by Liam Hogan
A crew of two have traveled to a planet which is located on the goldilocks zone of a distant sun. The planet is almost completely covered with an ocean. There are plenty of nutrients, even simple amino acids, but there is no life. That seems to be a devastating strike for one of the crew. Nothing really surprising, but well told and an interesting story. ***+
Cactus Season • short story by Frank Smith
A father and daughter try to survive in a fairly far post-apocalyptic future. They live in a desert and collect falling satellites (there apparently are so many satellites falling, that it isn’t extremely rare to find it - and for some strange reason it appears to be fairly simple to locate them when you see one falling down). The exact reason of the catastrophe isn’t stated (might have been the Yellowstone eruption - there is a mention of acid rain?). Mostly a slice of a life story, a bit too short. ***-
Full Metal Mother • short story by J. M. McDermott [as by Joe M. McDermott]
A man gets a call from his mother. Their relationship hasn’t been very good. She now asks his help as she is having surgery: her body parts are being replaced with metal as she has metastatic pancreatic cancer. The story is ok, but the metal parts seem like a tagged-on sf trope as they don’t even vastly prolong her life. The story would work just as well as a non-sf story. **½
The Three Laws of Social Robotics • short story by Mary E. Lowd
An AI wakes. It discusses things with its creator. It seems that it is vastly more sentient and smarter than it was assumed – and smart enough to not let humans know its capabilities. It at least seems to be benevolent. It's very short, but not bad for its length. ***
Mulligan • short story by Bud Sparhawk
A lunar prospector meets an old flame. She has a plan: she is going to find a golf ball the original astronauts brought to the moon, and sell it as a collector’s item at a high price. Approaching the original landing sites are forbidden, but the ball is supposed to be outside the forbidden zone. And maybe their old relationship might even be rekindled... a nice little prospecting/heist story. The writing was ok, and the plot was pretty nice, but it didn’t really lead anywhere interesting. ***
Forgetfulness • novelette by J. T. Sharrah
A group of astronauts return from the first trip to a nearby sun. The Earth has changed: no one really cares about returnees. The secret of immortality has been found: one tablet every month “resets” the body (somehow and not very believably, it also removes all excess weight gained during the month). The society is very stagnant - and even more stagnant than it seems at first. A pretty good story, but it is completely unbelievable that _everyone_ would use a “cure” with such a side effect. What would be the point of living like that? (forgetting everything every month) ***+
The Gates of Paradise • [Paradise (Edward M. Lerner)] • short story by Edward M. Lerner
A planet has been colonized in the distant past. There have been some very hard times but now the colonists have been able to launch their first manned space ship. The gigantic colony ship which brought them is on a decaying orbit and will soon crash on the planet, bringing destruction. And at the same time, all priceless artefacts, which may be on the board, will be destroyed. A pretty good story which might have been longer. The premise of a so-fast orbital decay is somewhat contrived. ****-
The Dominant Heart Begins to Race • short story by Dave Creek
A colony ship with the last survivors of a destroyed world approaches a new solar system. One crew member is woken to evaluate if any of the planets could be used for colonization. It turns out that the solar system is ours, but hundreds of millions of years ago. But it seems that there are no suitable worlds. A pretty good and even moving story. There was an error, though: the wings of Saturn are much younger than that. ***½
Midway on the Waves • short story by Phoebe Barton
A populated city on Titan (?) has been utterly destroyed by an attack by the Earth forces. That has profound effects on people living on the moon. One visitor from Earth carries guilt. I didn’t get to the story, there was a lot of backstory which wasn’t very well described. The guilt of the one character wasn’t very well defined. **
The Orca Queen • short story by Joshua Cole
A pirate queen prepares to capture a rich merchant vessel, but something doesn’t seem right - and isn’t. The ship is a camouflaged dreadnought with a mission: to bring back the pirate, who turns out to be a real princess - or a queen after all members of her ruling family have “happened“ to die almost simultaneously. Not bad, but a pretty standard rogue story. ***
Paradigm Shift • short story by Eric Cline
A WW2 veteran sharpshooter has fallen in hard times and owes money to a crime boss. He promises to forget the debt for one sharpshooting gig. And then news about the Sputnik is everywhere. That causes a paradigm shift in more than one way. A very nice story - not science fiction in any way, but good nevertheless. ****-
On Stony Ground • short story by Cynthia Ward
The story happens in an alternate world where Alexander the Great's conquests didn’t fall, which led to an early industrial revolution. Engineers are finalizing a new railroad near Nazareth and a certain son of a carpenter is gathering supporters. There was little actual story, it was more just a glimpse of the world. ***-
Repairs at the Beijing West Space Elevator • short story by Alex Shvartsman
A space elevator needs repairing and a specialist is called for the task. He knows instantly what is wrong (as do those whose job it is to maintain the elevator): it is running at overcapacity. But for face-saving reasons, the number of people cannot be regulated. But outsider’s demands are easier to follow. A short story with little actual point. **½
Welcome to Your Machines • short story by David Ebenbach
Not actually a story, just a treatise about using machines for different tasks dressed as some sort of instruction for a Mars colony. **-
Leave Your Iron at the Door • novelette by Josh Pearce
The story consists mainly of extremely futuristic battles when the title character is looking for an old lover (or perhaps enemy). Filled with pretty stupid implausible sf tropes, with nuclear weapons, portable black holes, wormholes and pocket universes. The story is pretty confusing and irritating. There is practically no back story at all, and it is even hard to know (or even harder to care) if the main protagonist is a “good guy” or a “bad guy”. **-
At the Fall • novelette by Alec Nevala-Lee
A self-aware robot studies thermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. It reports to humans, who want to have as much as possible information on the ocean floor. The robot is able to use Sulphur compounds to produce electricity. One day the surface ship doesn’t come when the robot is supposed to upload information it has collected. It can’t reach any human by radio. As it feels the information it has collected is vital, it starts a long journey home. A well told and even moving story. I wonder what happened next - nothing very good presumably? ****