Analog Science Fiction and Fact, October 2015

This is an average issue. There are a few ok stories, but, once again, at least one story feels just like a segment.

Stonebrood • novelette by Alec Nevala-Lee
A firefighter is trying to put out a long-lasting coal mine fire. He starts to get a strange feeling and eventually flashbacks from his childhood. He apparently had some very "interesting” experiences as a child. This is not exactly science fiction, aside from some nice bee-like semi-autonomous drones, but it is a well written and nice story nonetheless. ***+
The Daughters of John Demetrius • shortstory by Joe Pitkin
A man travels from village to village teaching elementary agricultural procedures. He encounters a strange girl and tries to help her - or something. This is very hard to get into. It feels just like a slightly condensed chapter ripped randomly from a book. Everything felt pretty cursory, and it was very hard to understand what was going on and why. **-
Butterflies on Barbed Wire • shortstory by Marie Vibbert
Romance in a tattoo shop. A new type of tattoos with unusual technology have arrived, and there is some drama between a son of the owner and a female tattoo artist. This was a bit short and not very interesting. I really hate tattoos, and I think that only people with a herd mentality take them. **½
The Philistine • shortstory by Ted White
An artist cleans up classic paintings before they are copied with a new 3D-copier, which makes perfect recordings of objects (and utterly destroys them in the process). He cleans up and restores the paintings before they are copied and destroyed. (I wonder why they had to be cleaned. If the copies are "perfect", the cleaning would be easier afterwards, when it would be safer to use a wider variety of techniques. He gets an offer which is hard to refuse: a LOT of money for copying the information of a couple of pieces of art. This is not bad, but nothing really special. ***
My Father's Crab • shortstory by Bruce McAllister
As young man protagonist's father is bitten by a strange crab, he fells sick. Sometimes something almost seems to be moving under his skin. This is a nice story, but not unusual. However, it is well written, and it could have been longer. ***+

Proofreading by eangel.me.