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. ****-