Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2015 by Trevor Quachri

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2015 Reviews

• 
  Daniel

  A fitting celebration for the 1000th issue of this magazine, which started in 1930 as the pulp 'zine Astounding Stories. It came into its own under the editorial leadership of Campbell, who played a major role in shaping what we now know as SF, for better and for worse. Now under the relatively new editorship of Quachri this issue is a great representation of the variety that Analog can offer, and in some ways the balance.
  
  Analog is first and foremost the flagship of Hard SF - though how that's defined seems to have a lot of individual variation. But generally trump goes to believable science, correct details, and an abundance of technical details in a story. Most stories don't have this, sure, but this isn't a market for great fiction that doesn't have those elements. I feel as its a minority in the community that favors these elements above any other - or at least they aren't the overwhelming majority as in days of yore. And that's a good thing. Bova has an essay of Campbell worship in this issue, which makes sense given the history here. But also I feel it's GOOD we've moved on from Campbell. And we should keep evolving.
  
  Some of those favoring an Analogesque brand of Hard SF are reacting rather strongly and negatively against those who are the opposite end of the spectrum from their tastes. They feel under attack it seems. This is debatable, but some have escalated the attack under perceived persecution. The parallel to politics in general in face of anything 'progressive' is basically equivalent here within this SF community.
  
  This issue, which its nostalgic memories of the past, and most explicitly with Jeffrey D. Kooistra's sign-off from the alternate view column, touches on this current 'conflict' within the community, balancing tastes, politics, cultural values, the past and the future. But just as Kooistra's reactionary rancor against "social justice warriors" rankles, so too are their shimmers of positive light from my perspective - a magazine trying to stay rooted to its origins and audience, but still trying to make some needed changes and adaptations.
  
  The cover artwork is a reworking of the first ever issue's cover, but the cowering woman of the original is replaced with a more central, dominant figure of a female for 2015. Like the other recent issues under Quarchi the stories here seem far more diverse in theme and character - and authorship - than what was the norm under previous editor Schmidt. Some will likely object to this, but I am generally pleased.
  
  So as for these specific stories in this historic issue: The novelettes are both great, though Lovett's takes a bit too long in getting to the main bits of the story. Nonetheless he continues to deliver really entertaining stories with intriguing speculative science. McMullen's has a bit more emotional depth to it, and is an alien contact/communication story that I generally just eat up, and the thought of keeping Earthly origins from a discovered alien race was new and interesting to me. For the short stories I particularly enjoyed Clare's story featuring linguistic differences among humans aliens jointly exploring a planet and its surprisingly intelligent inhabitants. Dickinson's story also was a hit, exploring what would happen if a human colony were to advance to a point where it may not be quite human any longer, and perhaps could be a threat to the other 'regular' humans. Finally I enjoyed the genetic setup of Finlay's "The Empathy Vaccine".To be picky on technicalities the sentence(s) that basically referred to 'A/A and G/G nt pairs'...but in a protein... read very oddly to someone familiar with molecular biology, so the doctor character in the story explaining it came off as questionable. More problematically, the ending came off just too strong for me, almost like it had become an authorial rant/cause.
  
  Though these were my favorite/most notable stories, I didn't really find any of the others to be poor. Looking ahead I see future month's issues - which I wont' get to for awhile amid moving, feature a serialization, by Schmidt at that, so I expect this issue to be a high point with a steep drop off to come.
  
  
• 
  Timo Pietilä

  The thousandth issue of Analog/Astounding ever. A pretty nice one. The theme seems to be aliens and alien influence. There are a few essays about the history of the magazine. The most of those were very good and interesting.
  
  The Wormhole War • novelette by Richard A. Lovett
  A wormhole experiment leads to apparent war against aliens (or perhaps against the whole galaxy) where humans are sending wormholes at relativistic speeds to prevent the alien wormholes reaching the earth. Ok story, but a little overlong. And it is hard to believe that the political leaders and different countries would be so unanimously for the continuing battle when the goals of the aliens aren't known and even the war itself is somewhat open to interpretation. ***+
  Very Long Conversations • shortstory by Gwendolyn Clare
  A joint expedition of humans and aliens explore a new planet which is supposed to be uninhabited. They find strange stick figures. Are they being pranked by some other members of the expedition or what is going on? A pretty simple and short story - a pretty inventive concept of language though. ***
  The Kroc War • shortstory by Ted Reynolds and William F. Wu
  Short personal viewpoints of soldiers, who fight at war between humans and ruthless aliens. But war changes those who take part on it. Too short pieces and about too many people. **
  Strategies for Optimizing Your Mobile Advertising • shortstory by Brenta Blevins
  A short and fairly stupid story about an age where advertising rules everything, including relations. **+
  The Odds • shortstory by Ron Collins
  Not a story – just a philosophical pondering about the likelihood of life in the universe. **
  The Empathy Vaccine • shortstory by Charles Coleman Finlay [as by C. C. Finlay ]
  A ruthless businessman wants to be really ruthless and goes for an undercover scientist, who has developed a "vaccine" against empathy. Not bad, with a couple of nice twists. Short, but doesn’t necessarily need to be any longer. ***½
  Three Bodies at Mitanni • shortstory by Seth Dickinson
  A story which seems to continue an earlier one. An expedition is checking human colonies which have been separated from Earth for centuries. If the colony might present danger for humanity as large, the expedition has been to exterminate it. There has been a close call, and now the next colony seems to be very malignant and powerful at the same time. A fairly nice story, but constant references to earlier events to something, what happened at “Jotunheim” with no real explanation feels kind of irritating. But the “culture” they encountered was refreshingly interesting and there were some real interesting moral points to ponder. ***+
  Ships in the Night • shortstory by Jay Werkheiser
  A spaceman, who travel with ships at relativistic speeds between solar systems, tell tall tales to locals at a bar. A simple story, not bad, but not especially good. ***
  The Audience • novelette by Sean McMullen
  A human ship encounters some very strange but powerful aliens who live under the ice which covers a rogue planet which passing fairly close to the sun at about Kuipier belt. The aliens seem to take an interest to humans with pretty unfortunate results for most of the crew. The lone survivor takes drastic measures to protect the earth from possibly devastating alien interest. A pretty good and interesting story. ****-
• 
  John Loyd

  June 2015 Analog
  
  No really great stories in this issue. the two novelettes being the best ones. There is a nice special feature on this being the 1000th issue.
  
  10 • The Wormhole War • 18 pages by Richard A. Lovett
  Very Good. Researchers send a wormhole towards Gaia205 when it suddenly disappears. They figure out that wormholes are coming at us. Nice story of Zeke to go along with the SF.
  
  34 • Very Long Conversations • 7 pages by Clare, Gwendolyn
  Good/VG. A research party of humans and a couple of Albedans are invesigating a new planet. Becca and Shurza encounter a new stick figure.
  
  43 • The Kroc War • 5 pages by Ted Reynolds and William F. Wu
  OK/poor. Humans and Krocs are in a war. Focuses on the plight of the soldiers.
  
  56 • Strategies For Optimizing Your Mobile Advertising • 2 pages by Brenta Blevins
  OK. A guy who has a job as a walking billboard suddenly can't connect and get his next ad to display.
  
  58 • The Odds • 2 pages by Ron Collins
  Poor. What are the odds that you'll be happy this story is only two pages.
  
  60 • The Empathy Vaccine • 5 pages by C. C. Finlay
  Good/VG. A businessman wants to have his empathy removed so that he can become richer. Must feel that he's held back by emotional ties, that part is not explained, the character just assumes no empathy means an ability to become wealthy.
  
  66 • Three Bodies at Mitanni • 10 pages by Seth Dickinson
  Good. Humanity has sent out seed ships and is checking on the cultures that have grown to make sure they don't pose a threat. At Mitanni the three that are checking see that left unchecked the humans at Mitanni will expand and overrun the galaxy, essentially by having given up their humanity.
  
  87 • Ships In the Night • 5 pages by Jay Werkheiser
  Good. A space traveller comes into a bar and tells a tale of a near encounter with what may be an alien race.
  
  92 • The Audience • 13 pages by Sean McMullen
  Very good/good. An exploratory mission investigates a gas giant sized planet with three moons that is passing through the oort cloud. They find life which in turn finds them.
• 
  Neal Dench

  I subscribe to Analog, and I usually read a couple of articles from it every month, but this was the 1000th issues, so I decide to read pretty much the whole thing. Glad I did as well, the Novellas, in particular, are very good this month.
• 
  Odo

  2.5/5.0