Stanley Albert Schmidt

This month brings another good isue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact full of several good stories and a couple of merely average ones. For the most part the stories are hard science style stories with only a limited spattering of fanciful elements, which seems quite in line with the usual fare for Analog

Gunfight on Farside by Adam-Troy Castro is a quasi-Western set on the Moon. It is hard science fiction and details the difficulties of a shootout in vacuum conditions. The story is told show more from the perspective of the surviving participant who is lionized for his actions like a neo-Seth Bullock, but he expresses deep regret and self-doubts. It is a decent hard science fiction story made better by the emotional tenor of the piece.

Steak Tartare and the Cats of Gari Babakin by Mary Turzillo is a strange little story about a martian colony that appears to have "gone wrong". The colony has a large population of cats that appear to be affecting the colonists in some way to make them behavine in a more "cat-like" manner. Outside help arrives with the intent of changing this situation, and the colonists and their erstwhile saviours decidedly do not see eye to eye on the issue. The story wants to be funnier than it is, but in the end I found it merely average. Foe by Mark Rich is also a Martian colonization story, focusing on the emotional pressures that those living on an alien world, even one in which all their creature comforts were taken care of, would face, and how to possibly combat them. This story tries to be funny as well, but unlike Steak Tartare succeeds to a much greater degree, resulting in a much better story.

The Final Element by Eric James Stone is a small near future story about investigating forgery using some plausible technology, but makes clear that the limits of such technology are bounded by the human minds that use it. Another story that deals with the limits of technology is A Jug of Wine and Thou by Jerry Oltion which covers an adolescent date in the future where everything goes wrong stranding a pair of teens in the wilderness. Unlike many stories in which inhabitants of a high technology world are forced to live off the land, these teens to reasonably well, albeit for only a short period of time, rediscovering techniques of survival that their ancestors took for granted. Neither story is particularly groundbreaking, but they are both well-writtten and enjoyable.

The Invasion by H. G. Stratmann is an imaginative variant on the classic alien invasion story, although the invasion (and the invaders themselves) are not exactly what one might expect. Especially humorous is the segment in which the aliens mimic a Nigerian Scam letter and the President of the United States and his advisors are taken in by the effort. In the end, earth's humans get assistance from an entirely unexpected (although certainly ominous) sector.

The Probability Zero: Armchair Scientist contributed by David Bartell pokes fun at the amatuer scientist who tries to pontificate from his living room without experimentation or following the basic methodology of science. I suppose it could also be applied to groups such as creationists or conspiracy theorists, who engage in much the same sort of thinking as that lampooned in this piece. It is funny and sad at the same time.

The science fact article Ribbonland by Kevin Walsh explores a staple of science fiction stories streching back to the Golden Age: tidally locked planets with a thin band of habitable area between burning hot wastes on the one side, and a frozen tundra on the other. The article explores how such a world might come about and what sort of star it might orbit. The article is quite detailed and gives some very plausible ways that such a world might come into being while remaining very readable and accessible. In his regular Alternate View column, Jerry Kooistra takes on cold fusion, explaining its failures and the possibilities that a viable form of this energy source might be found. As usual, the entire article is based upon a lot of speculation, but it is moderately grounded speculation and certainly gives food for though.

As a side note, I have noticed that I seem to give consistently higher ratings to issues of Analog than I give to Asimov's Science Fiction despite their being published by the same publisher (from the same office even). Consequently those who are looking at my reviews who care about this sort of thing should keep this in mind, as I have not determined if the pattern is merely that I am not as big a fan of the Asimov's style, or if Analog truly is a slightly superior magazine. This issue, however, gets a recommendation from me due to the generally good quality of the stories and lack of any subpar ones. show less

The November 2010 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact is a strong issue with a collection of well-written space stories, including an apocalyptic tale that is probably the strongest story in the issue, plus an interconnected story and science fact article and a decent Scooby Doo style story involving an earthquake sniffing dog. Overall, this is a strong issue, filled with good to very good stories.

The best story in the issue, and the last in placement is Outbound by Brad R. Torgerson, a show more story that begins with humanity's suicide and a desperate flight from Earth. Torgerson pulls no punches in establishing a mood of despair, surrounding the protagonist with characters that in a lesser story would become his companions in his flight to presumed safety, but in this story they are stripped away until the our hero must contend with complete isolation in a quixotic quest for a refuge that may not even exist. The story is at turns terribly tragic and powerfully inspirational as one might expect of a tale in which the deeply rooted flaws of humanity manifest in frightening ways, and individuals struggle against the consequences, refusing to yield without fighting against the night. In short, it is a very good story.

A slightly unusual feature of this issue is that the science fact article is essentially a commentary on the science that forms the basis for the lead story in the issue. The storyand the science fact article are Phantom Sense Phantom Science: The Facts Behind "Phantom Sense" both by Richard A. Lovett and Mark Niemann-Ross, and deal with the idea of using insects with electronic implants to serve as scouts to gather military intelligence. The story is pretty good: in a near future world in which the military has adopted the technology with serious human consequences to those who use it a father suffering from the psychological problems associated with retiring from having the "sense" must repair the damage his service has done to his family and save his daughter. The story focuses on the very real human costs that the posited technology imposes upon those who use it, with a central character who is at turns supremely confident and pathetically debilitated and for whom the reader always feels sympathetic. The science fact article examines all the various technologies that would be necessary to equip someone with the 'sense" that is described in the story, and evaluates how close we are to actually having that technology.

Featuring an earthquake sensitive dog, Howl of the Seismologist by Carl Frederick is an almost not science fiction story involving a group of postdocs working at the Tevatron. By a happy coincidence, a physicist, a neurobiologist, and a seismologist all meet up and their individual quirky theories about reality add up to a startling discovery just in time to avert a worldwide catastrophe. The plucky heroes circumvent bureaucratic obstinance to save the day and the bad guy even gets his comeuppance. On the whole, the theory the heroes stumble across is kind of silly, and the plot is pretty basic, but it is a serviceable effort nonetheless.

Zoo Team by Allen M. Steele is a fairly standard space emergency story that takes the form of a modertaely interesting engineering puzzle layered with an examination of the effects of long term space flight on the human psyche, and a modestly interesting take on what sorts of people might be best suited to live under such conditions. There's nothing really noteworthy about the story, but it is well-written and the characters are likable and funny. Contamination by Jay Werkheiser is also a space exploration story, but set in a more distant future in which two very different ideas about how to go about human colonization on other worlds clash, with potentially deadly results. Once again, there is a minor engineering puzzle to be solved, but the pirmary theme of the story is the conflict between two very different approaches to an alien ecology.

The Deadliest Moop by Michael A. Armstrong is a story that more or less imagines that the crews featured on the reality show The Deadliest Catch, instead of fishing for Alaskan king crab in the Bering Sea, were cleaning up sattelite debris (or moop, for "material out of place') in Earth orbit. The crew of the Anna Marie (a name suspiciously similar to the actual crab boat Cornelia Marie) pull in a mysterious object that seems suspiciously unmarked, which turns out to be more trouble than the crew expects. Outside of the parallels the story draws between present day crab fisherman and the debris fishermen of the story, there's nothing particularly original here, but the story is still pretty good.

With no weak stories, and a couple of quite good ones, this is a strong issue of Analog. All of the stories fall squarely into the reasonably hard science fiction vein, which is what one should expect from this publication, so the typical reader will probably be quite pleased with this selection of stories. To sum up, this is exactly what one should expect of an issue of Analog, providing consistently high quality science fiction stories coupled with some good science fact writing.

This review has also been posted to my blog Dreaming About Other Worlds. show less

I've said several times that the double issues of Analog and Asimov's often seem to be weaker than two of the single issues. Though I have no idea why this is, for some reason, when compiling a double issue it seems that the editors let a story or two that just isn't up to the magazine's usual standards slip through. Happily, the January/February 2011 double issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact is, unlike some other double issues, full of a collection of stories that are all at least show more good,, and has many stories that are very good. As with many issues of Analog, this issue seems to have a couple of unannounced mini-themes. In this case, the mini-themes appear to be "first contact", and "colonization", with three stories that could be broadly classified as falling into each category.

The issue leads off with an editorial by Stanley Schmidt about the difference between what he considers science fiction and what he considers alternate history and where the two intersect. Schmidt opines that although he enjoys all types of alternate history stories, an alternate history story that does not also incorporate a science fiction element simply does not meet the criteria for being included in Analog. He gives a clear and cogent explanation of the difference between alternate history and science fiction, while also providing one of the best descriptions of the parameters that serve as the boundaries of the science fiction genre that I have ever seen. I agree almost entirely with Schmidt's thoughts on the matter, which is probably one of the many reasons that Analog is my favorite genre magazine.

Stay by Stephen L. Burns is one of the quirkier stories in the issue, but it is also my favorite. Set in a future in which alien invaders eliminated humanity and replaced them by essentially uplifting the world's population of dogs to sentience, the story is both funny and thoughtful. The dogs, many of whom vaguely remember what the world was like before the aliens arrived, must deal with leftover problems from humanity's time dominating the Earth, as well as problems that they have created for themselves, although some of those problems stem from their slavish imitation of vanished humanity. The story is quite well-done, as the now human-like dogs still display very recognizable dog-like personalities, which gives a fairly serious story a very humorous angle. In the end, the story is about the power that a race's gods hold over them, but it is also about figuring out a way to let go of those gods and grow into one's own. Despite what seems like a goofy premise (and a fairly silly opening), the story is possibly the most thought-provoking in the entire issue.

The first mini-theme of the issue - first alien contact - kicks off with the first story in the issue, which also happens to be the story featured on the cover: At Cross Purposes by Juliette Wade. First contact stories are one of the classic subjects of science fiction, as the idea of humanity meeting and attempting to establish communication with an alien race seems to be one that is endlessly fascinating. This also means that new first contact stories need to attack the question from an unusual angle, and At Cross Purposes attempts to do this by throwing some cultural miscommunication into the mix. This is not a new wrinkle, it has been the theme of numerous prior stories, even appearing as an element in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, but Wade's is well-written, the aliens are interesting, as is their rather alien (but ultimately comprehensible) way of viewing the world. The story is pretty good, and fun to read. The most interesting first contact story in the issue is Enigma by Sean McMullen, which isn't really a first contact story at all, but rather a first non-contact story. A crew of explorers finds a planet covered by a world-girdling city, but with no sign of habitation, which is the enigma of the title. They stumble about trying to figure out who built this globe-covering structure, and only figure out its purpose after something of a catastrophe. One interesting twist to the story is the fact that all of the humans are modified with animal DNA which is intended to make them better at their assigned jobs, but an unspoken subtext of the story is that this interferes with their understanding of the nature of the enigma city until after one of them has done something fairly rash. The third first contact story is an alien invasion story played for laughs titled The First Conquest of Earth by David W. Goldman in which aliens show up to invade the Earth but surrender in the face of human resistance. It turns out, however, that conquering the alien invaders isn't quite as much of a boon as one might think. The story is humorous, but darkly so.

The other mini-theme in the issue is colonization of other worlds, with Some of them Closer by Marissa Lingen the better of two very strong stories. In Lingen's tale, a veteran terraformer returns to Earth after years spent transforming a colony world into a place habitable for humans. Due to the combination of the long years put in on the job and relativistic travel, she returns to an Earth much changed from when she left, and struggles to fit in. She forms a friendship with the only person who she feels comfortable with, and eventually decides to forge a new path in a decision that when made, seems like it was almost inevitable. There have been many stories dealing with the sense of dislocation that time-displaced space travelers would feel upon their return to Earth, but few have done as good a job as this one. Though not exactly a colonization story, Non-Native Species by Janet Freeman explores exactly what sort of damage introducing a new species into the environment might cause. Though the story has a little bit of an alarmist bent concerning the potential negative consequences of genetic engineering, the story itself is interesting, although the resolution is a bit too pat for my tastes. The final colonization story in the issue, and also the final story in the issue is The First Day of Eternity by Domingo Santos (translated by Stanley Schmidt) that follows the crew of the aptly named generation ship Diaspora as they set about colonizing a new world. What makes this otherwise fairly standard story about new colonists struggling to cope with an alien world and alien life is the fact that the ship was originally sent out by a Jewish organization in an effort to find and settle a new Zion. Over the generations, the Jewish faith has been morphed strangely as a result of the colonists living in a confined environment under the protection of a more or less omnipotent artificial intelligence. After living aboard ship without having to make any decisions of their own, the colonists are confronted with the possibility of life in the open and on their own. This, as one might expect, causes many of the colonists some serious consternation and leads to the more or less expected conclusion, although there is a minor twist at the end that seems both hopeful and sinister at the same time. Though the story leaves many questions unanswered, it is so good that one doesn't mind so much as one hopes that Santos will return to the characters and write more about them and their lives.

Not dealing directly with colonization, but rather on the subject to exploration is the very short Norman Spinrad penned piece Out There. In just two pages Spinrad captures exactly why humans are driven to explore and coincidentally, why people write things like science fiction stories. The story, though extraordinarily brief, is simply brilliant. As with most entries in the series, Probability Zero: Multivac's Singularity by Richard A. Lovett is also quite short, and provides a fairly humorous possible explanation for why humanity has not reached the much predicted "singularity", and why it may never do so. Also dealing with exploration, but adding questions concerning genetic engineering to the mix, The Unfinished Man by Dave Creek is a decent story about a visit between two genetically enhanced humans who meet when one checks up on the other's solitary exploration of a fairly hostile planet. With this potentially deadly environment as a backdrop, the interactions of the two characters are drawn into sharp focus and makes the epiphany the protagonist undergoes seem quite believable.

The lone time travel story in the issue is A Snitch in Time by Donald Moffitt, which also happens to be a murder mystery of sorts. Moffitt explores the potential pitfalls of using time travel to try to go back and solve a cold murder case. In the story, solving the murder this way proves to be fairly easy, but everything else proves to be a little more difficult, as using evidence gained in another time (and in the version of time travel used by the story, another reality) proves to be legally problematic. Things don't go quite like the protagonist of the story expected, but justice does prevail after a fashion. The story is an interesting twist on the science fiction murder story. Also something of a mystery is the espionage story The Frog Prince by Michael F. Flynn featuring the scarred agent with a fractured personality who first appeared in the January/February 2010 issue of Analog in the story On Rickety Thistlewaite. In this story, the supposedly retired scarred man is captured by one of his enemies and is being transported to enemy territory for reasons that are only partially explained. The cat-and-mouse game between prisoner and warden takes place in the confined space of a small ship that serves as an improvised prison and paddy wagon. Though the story only has three "real" characters, since the scarred man has a half dozen personalities all swimming about inside his head, much of the action takes place internally as they debate among themselves how to escape their captor. This internal story is complemented by the external story as the scarred man deals first with his kidnapper and then with a somewhat unexpected wild card, and finally, with a deadly new element that threatens everyone on board the tiny ship. Full of intrigue and interesting characters, this is one of the best stories in this issue.

The science fact article in the issue, Other Earths in Space in Time by Kevin Walsh, deals with the ongoing issues concerning the recent discoveries of hundreds of extrasolar planets, and specifically with the possibility of discovering other Earth-like worlds out there. Walsh puts the possibility of such discoveries in perspective, pointing out that Earth has only really been "Earth-like" in the sense that most people today understand it for a very brief period of its existence, and that most of the "Earth-like" planets we might discover will probably be quite different from the benign and benevolent Earth that we are familiar with. Also included in the issue is the Richard A. Lovett penned special feature Writing Fiction . . . About Yourself in which Mr. Lovett gives advice to writers about how to make your writing more effective by inserting elements of oneself into your fiction. The article, which is a variant on "write what you know", is fairly good, and offers what seem to be pretty good writing tips.

Overall, this is a very good issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Unlike many of the double issues, which seem to sag here and there, this issue has no poor stories, or even any that I would consider below average. Despite having several stories that deal with two broad themes, the inclusion of a variety of other stories and fact that each of the theme-related stories attacks their "theme" from very different angles keeps the issue varied enough to keep it from seeming repetitive. Loaded with good story after good story, this is one of the best double issues of Analog that I have seen in a while, and well-deserving of a strong recommendation.

This review has also been posted to my blog Dreaming About Other Worlds. show less

The December 2010 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact is a strong issue that is marred by one truly disappointing story. Unlike many issues, there appear to be no overarching themes to the stories that appear in its pages, and this variety results in a mostly good collection of stories that are by and large quite enjoyable to read.

The Man from Downstream by Shane Tourtellotte is a subtle time travel story, told from the perspective of a citizen of Rome who meets and establishes a show more relationship with a mysterious stranger. It becomes pretty clear very quickly that the stranger is more than he seems, and even his origins are only thinly disguised from the reader. The story confronts one of the primary questions of time-travel more or less head on, or at least the primary actor in the story attempts to intentionally do so, but the resolution is ambiguous, giving the story a pathos that elevates it to more than the standard time traveler tale. Connected to the story is the science fact article Tips for the Budget Time-Traveler, also by Shane Tourtellotte. In this companion piece, Tourtellotte describes methods by which a frugal time-traveler could earn a profit by transporting goods back with him on his journey. The article is fairly light on the "science", being mostly an exploration of how prices for luxury goods have changed over the centuries, but it is still interesting, especially in the context of the accompanying fiction.

Home Is Where the Hub Is by Christopher L. Bennett is a sequel to The Hub of the Matter, which appeared in ther March 2010 issue of Analog. All of the characters return to study the mysterious hub, David still seeking to break the monopoly held by the alien Dosperhag, and the Dosperhag still willing to go to murderous lengths to preserve their secrets. Despite this rather dangerous background, the story is quite humorous, with strange alien motivations confounding the human characters at every turn. The story twists and turns until it reaches something of an equilibrium, a situation that the protagonists aren't particularly happy about, but which they are forced to accept. As with the previous installment in the series, the story is enjoyable, and this new tale strengthens and builds upon the previously laid foundation.

Dystopian futures are a classic feature of science fiction, and the dystopian vision of a government that regulates the behavior of its citizens for their own good has a fairly long-standing pedigree as well. Primum Non Nocere by H. G. Stratmann posits just such a world, in which the government, though not explicitly compelling people to eat healthy and excercise de jure, has constructed an interconnected web of incentives and requirements that result in just such a situation de facto. The story is set in a treatment facility intended to rehabilitate those who have managed to circumvent the rules and bring them back to healthy status. The story has a major twist at the end, but unfortunately, the twist only works because Stratmann has played dirty pool with his viewpoint character, an unfortunate flaw in an otherwise strong story.

The issue features two first contact storries, although they are markedly different. The first, titled The Hebras and the Demons and the Damned by Brenda Cooper, is set on a distant alien planet with a failing human colony struggling to survive an environment full of hostile fauna. The protagonist seeks to domesticate the one nonthreatening creature the colonists are familiar with. Things don't go exactly according to plan, and there are some surprising revelations made in the story which lightens a fairly depressing story and makes for a satisfying conclusion. The other first contact story is Happy Are the Bunyips by Carl Frederick, which takes a decidedly more comic tone than Cooper's grim tale. A zookeeper at odds with the zoo director in a failing zoo is sent a pair of unusual, and apparently unnatural animals to care for. As with The Hebras, the new arrivals turn out to be more than anyone expected. Although the "twist" in the story is not entirely unexpected, it is still fun.

Dealing with the effects that time dilation might have on future space travelers, the story Deca-Dad by Ron Collins is told from the perspective of an Earth denizen meeting his distant ancestor returning from a lifetime of interstellar voyages. Though divided by time and attitude, the two turn out to be more alike than the narrator believes, and the story ends on a note that I found to reflect my own feelings about the human spirit.

Although it is set in the future, A Placebo Effect by Brian C. Coad seems somewhat out of place in a science fiction magazine. The reason for this is the central "technology" of the story is a placebo pill that apparently works better than actual drugs. The story hints that this may be due to the homeopathic basis for the pills, which moves the story directly into the realm of fantasy as opposed to science fiction. The story more or less meanders pointlessly until it wraps itself up in a somewhat silly manner. Overall, the story seems like an attempt to do something of a dramedy-type story in written fiction, and for that reason, plus the stupid "science" it features, the story seems to be more or less a waste of pages. Continuing the long-running humor series, this month's Probability Zero: Spell Czech by William Michael McCarthy also seems set in the future but lacks any real science fiction element unless equal employment opportunity standards run wild could be construed as science fiction. The story is at least humorous and, as usual for Probability Zero segments, quite short, so it is enjoyable nonetheless.

With the exception of A Placebo Effect, which a reader should, in my opinion, simply skip, the rest of the December 2010 issue of Analog is quite good. The remaining stories are all above average to very good, and present a variety of different types of tales that the science fiction genre has to offer. Overall, this is another very good issue of what I would almost certainly classify as the consistently strongest genre magazine of which I am aware.

This review has also been posted to my blog Dreaming About Other Worlds. show less