Analog, January/February 2021
“Mixed Marriage” by Dan Helms
“My Hypothetical Friend” by Harry Turtledove
“A Shot in the Dark” by Deborah L. Davitt
“Photometric Evidence of the Gravitational Lensing of SAC23820 by a Nonluminous Low-Mass Stellar Object” by Jay Werkheiser
“Conference of the Birds” by Benjamin C. Kinney
“Interstellar Pantomime” by Martin Dimkovski
“Matter and Time Conspire” by Sandy Parsons
“The Tale of Anise and Basil” by David James Peterson
“The Practitioner” by Em Liu
“What Were You Thinking” by Jerry Oltion
“The Liberator” by Nick Wolven
“The Nocturnal Preoccupations of Moths” by J. Northcutt, Jr.
“Changing Eyes” by Douglas P. Marx
“The Last Science Fiction Story” by Adam-Troy Castro
“A Working Dog” by Anne M. Gibson
“So You Want to be a Guardian Angel” by Michael Meyerhofer
“Choose One” by Marie DesJardin
“We Remembered Better” by Evan Dicken
“The Last Compact” by Brian Rappatta
“Riddlepigs and the Cryla” by Raymund Eich
“Belle Lettres and Astra” by Norman Spinrad
“By the Will of the Gods” by Charles Q. Choi
Reviewed by Kevin P Hallett
The January/February 2021 issue of Analog is like an anthology with twenty-two stories, including six novelettes and two flash stories.
“Mixed Marriage” by Dan Helms
Set in China, this SF novelette describes a time, several generations in the future, where the people are only awake one day a week. An apartment includes seven families, and each family occupies it one day of the week and hibernates the other six. No family meets another from a different day, and over the generations, each day develops its own culture.
Today, Soon Jae-won meets his future wife. He is from Friday and Soo-min is transferring from Sunday to marry him. The Friday people believe they are the best workers and the true leaders of the country. Everyone on Friday adheres to all the old cultural customs of China.
As soon as he meets Soo-min, Jae-won knows there will be problems. She is outspoken and flirtatious, even in public. How can he ever convince his family to accept her? And what’s worse, she has such radical ideas about China’s history and the Yankee war.
The author has created an intriguing future. Here he explored both the consequences of such an approach to overcrowding and the source of prejudices. It was a pleasant read that left the reader wondering about cultural divides and biases.
“My Hypothetical Friend” by Harry Turtledove
Dave is making a fortune trading with the aliens in this SF short. For thirty years, he works with Old Salty, the alien Brot who resembles a sponge on centipede legs.
Old Salty comes to inspect some goods Dave’s firm made to exacting Brot specifications. He/she/it tells Dave that this will be their last meeting as he/she/it is going home. Dave gives the alien a going-away present. A present that epitomizes their trading relationship, though Dave is unaware of just how representative it is.
The plot was interesting, but at the end, rather predictable.
“A Shot in the Dark” by Deborah L. Davitt
An extrasolar object enters the solar system near Uranus in this SF novelette. Dominic is overseeing the mining on Titania when UNSCA orders him to investigate this strange visitor passing through the solar system’s orbital plane.
Dominic hasn’t seen a human for more than a decade, and his muscles prefer fractional units of gravity. Still, he subjects himself to the gravity needed to accelerate his spacecraft and intercept the solar interloper.
What he finds is not natural. But he is two and half hours beyond the reach of radio and must make some quick decisions. Will UNSCA agree with those decisions?
The story prose was engaging, but it did not explore a new enough angle on an old plot idea in science fiction.
“Photometric Evidence of the Gravitational Lensing of SAC23820 by a Nonluminous Low-Mass Stellar Object” by Jay Werkheiser
An astrophysicist is challenging the standard science models in this scientific short science fiction story. Rob has used the standard measuring protocols on a dark stellar object and found a black dwarf star. The problem is that such a star cannot exist yet.
Rob believes his research is worthy of consideration for the Nobel prize. But faced with the choice between Rob’s findings being off or the standard model being wrong, the science community makes its decision, and Rob is not pleased.
It was not easy to bring theoretical science to an SF story and make it interesting. Kudos to Jay Werkheiser for succeeding.
“Conference of the Birds” by Benjamin C. Kinney
Surveillance uses drone birds to track and stop Krina in this SF short set in the future. Krina is trying to steal the blueprint to a much-needed vaccine from her employees.
The drones following her are ‘motivated’ by rewards from Surveillance intended to guide them. But when the drones decide to mimic human intelligence to improve their bonuses, the consequences are far from expected.
The author told this story from an unusual perspective, which helped turn it into a more intriguing tale.
“Interstellar Pantomime” by Martin Dimkovski
In this SF short, a deep-space probe is over ten light-years from its home. It encounters another spaceship that has come to take a look, and the probe’s first-contact program kicks in, giving the interceptor a gift, carefully crafted not to reveal the probe’s home planet.
But even the best minds that put the probe together may not realize how much information an alien science can glean from a single artifact.
The story was uneventful, and the prose slow.
“Matter and Time Conspire” by Sandy Parsons
A daughter creates a time machine in this flash SF. Paradoxes be damned, she goes back in time to find a better father for her mother. New half-siblings began appearing, some creating their own time machines.
When her mother discovers what she’s done, she tells her to put it all back the way it was. But is that even possible?
This was a bizarre snippet of a story that played cheekily with time.
“The Tale of Anise and Basil” by David James Peterson
Set on another planet, this SF short describes a human storyteller who tells tales to the Diamond Empress to avoid her executing him. The Empress is becoming jaded with Teller’s tales that she claims are too vague.
The next day, Teller gives her a story about Anise and Basil. A story with no mystery or purpose. And though the story is dull, the Empress has to admit it satisfies her demand for an explicit narrative. Maybe she’ll let him live another day.
The author seemed to want to demonstrate that a story with no vagueness or mystery was boring, and he succeeded.
“The Practitioner” by Em Liu
A medical student from the future is assigned to study a 1960’s unlicensed medical practitioner in this SF short. Morgan uses time travel to observe the ex-doctor who helps young women end their unwanted pregnancies.
Medicine has similar income inequalities in the future, and Morgan finds herself empathetic to the illegal doctor’s drive to help people. Her professors worry that she is losing touch with her present time. But, in truth, the past seems more honest to Morgan.
This was an interestingly crafted story that was easy to read.
“What Were You Thinking” by Jerry Oltion
Anthony programs computers to simulate creatures in this SF short set in the near future. He’s been successful when imitating cockroaches and birds but wonders about higher life forms. His girlfriend has a cat, and he studies its tendencies as he tries to mimic the same behavior through a dozen or more simple rules.
Simulating the cat’s behavior this way would imply the cat has no free-will, that the root of every action is a change in the environment. And if that is true, then what about people.
This story dived into a question that has dogged philosophers for millennia; an interesting examination. This reader learned an intriguing thing and had to ‘Google’ it, only to find it was true.
“The Liberator” by Nick Wolven
In this SF novelette, Carter is a rarity. In a future where Le Sys genetically engineers human DNA, he was born naturally, and his DNA is randomly flawed, as was common in the past. It has left him with a determination to find and stop a group of fundamentalists who seek to restore that same randomness of natural human creation.
For two years, he has been closing in on the rebellious faction led by Leanne, the same woman who had convinced his parents not to ‘fix’ his DNA. Now Carter approaches Leanne’s inner sanctuary. The womb of her faction where babies are born with accidental DNA. And now he discovers that Leanne and her fundamentalist goals are not what he expected.
The prose and plot made for a good long read to while away an hour or two.
“The Nocturnal Preoccupations of Moths” by J. Northcutt, Jr.
Earth cannot send supplies to any of the Martian colonies in this SF novelette, leaving the colonists at risk of starvation. One colony holds the seeds for thousands of Earth’s crops, similar to the Earth-side Svalbard seed vault. And like its Earthly counterpart, the botanists running the Martian seed vault are slavish in maintaining the stores.
As starvation looms, even the botanists argue over their role and the legitimacy of not using the stores to feed the colonists. But it is unlikely that even the best-intentioned colonists can stand by as they and their families starve to death.
The author has stretched a short storyline into a tortuous novelette. The story didn’t pick up any pace until the last quarter.
“Changing Eyes” by Douglas P. Marx
The Mars colony of Bayi is two centuries old in this character-driven SF short. Tenzing is a fourth-generation member returning to accelerate the Martian terraforming project. He also returns with a heavy heart after losing his daughter and wife seven years before.
His father-in-law and his friend help him come to terms with his tragic loss by calling on the old Sherpa ways. But when the terraforming project goes badly awry, he is forced to reevaluate his relationship with this, his home planet.
The author spun a character-based story around a fascinating view of colonizing Mars.
“The Last Science Fiction Story” by Adam-Troy Castro
The question ‘When will the last story be written?’ is asked in this flash SF story. As humankind expands outward, no amount of growth will stop someone from asking what’s over the next horizon.
This was a brief snippet that affirmed the endlessness of the imaginative mind.
“A Working Dog” by Anne M. Gibson
Megan has a peculiar problem in this charming SF short story. Her robotic rabbit-like lawnmowers activate a dog’s chase instincts causing injured dogs, including her own Jack Russell.
Megan is brilliant at designing and programming robotic agricultural equipment, and she rips into the problem shaking off any offered help. One could say she is terrier-like in her dogged approach. But after many months, Megan’s over-engineering hasn’t solved the problem.
This was a story that read much quicker than its word count. It was a delightful little storyline.
“So You Want to be a Guardian Angel” by Michael Meyerhofer
In this SF short, a recruiter describes what it’s like in a tankcan guarding the solar system’s edges against incoming asteroids. The job is remarkably easy and remarkably boring. The recruiter has been doing it for twenty-two years and has learned how to manage the debilitating boredom. Apparently, being a little crazy helps.
The prose read alright, but the plot had almost no storyline to pull the reader along.
“Choose One” by Marie DesJardin
Earth selects a broad mixture of people for the aliens to test in this short SF. He is a dancer the authorities ask to be a candidate. And he leaves behind his family, not knowing what the aliens want.
Inside the alien’s ship, they separate him and the other candidates. And without any direction, he begins exercising and dancing. Day after day, he and the others continue while the aliens don’t interfere. And over time, he sees other candidates removed. But are they released or terminated?
This beguiling piece of a story left the reader with many questions unanswered.
“We Remembered Better” by Evan Dicken
Siblings inherit their mother’s memory of a single day in this short SF. It isn’t much, and the brother and sister have a hard time deciding if they even want to see the memory.
Their mother’s drunken cruelty has left them emotionally scarred but closer as siblings. Could this memory reinforce their view of their mother or destroy it? How much did they want to hang onto those bad but long-held feelings? Was it worth taking the risk?
The author created a brief story that explores the age-old dilemma of comparing a child’s blinkered memories to those of their parents. It was a nice read.
“The Last Compact” by Brian Rappatta
A historical exhibition is returning to its parent company for decommissioning in this SF short. The Sanctus exhibition developer is attached to his creation and wants to save the AI that thinks it’s a god within its temple.
But every attempt to save his creation runs into system constraints, not enough memory, or processing power, or bandwidth. And when he does find a potential solution, his managers shut him down abruptly. Finally, he accepts the inevitable and goes to meet Sanctus one last time.
This was a curious short story that was an okay read that left the twisted ending shrouded in mystery.
“Riddlepigs and the Cryla” by Raymund Eich
A cryolophosaurus escapes from the dinosaur preserve to savage a riddlepig on a local farm in this short SF story. Veterinarian Portia goes to the farm to find the cryla that the farmer wounded when chasing it off. It is only Portia’s second day in the field.
The farmer is unhelpful, even after she saves his valuable riddlepig. But then the locals distrust the company that has been recreating the dinosaurs on this far-flung planet. The challenge for the rookie vet is finding the theropod before it succumbs to its wounds.
“Riddlepigs” was a story morsel that read easily. But it could have been set anywhere on Earth with the dinosaur replaced by a lion, tiger, or wolf.
“Belle Lettres and Astra” by Norman Spinrad
In this SF novelette, Ishmael must write a story for aliens that have not been met yet. Set in the next century, humankind sends spacecraft out to distant solar systems, even though there is no indication of sentient life there.
Now the Big Eye has discovered a strange civilization a thousand light-years away. A Dyson Sphere is surrounding a sun. And Ariel has agreed to take the four thousand years to reach it. And thanks to hypo, she will only age a few days.
Ishmael visits Ariel in orbit around Pluto and begins composing the story of stories. He cannot know if it will make sense to its intended audience or even if that audience still exists. It is a challenge that draws him into the project in ways he did not expect.
The plot was unusual and pulled the reader through at an acceptable pace. Overall, it was an average story, not bad, but not compelling either.
“By the Will of the Gods” by Charles Q. Choi
Harrow, one of Nightingale’s errandeers is murdered in this off-world SF novelette. Harrow works for the Church of Foresight in the city of Nightingale on a distant planet. And now his protégé, Hab, is determined to find his killer.
Hab lost his parents in a space accident, which marks him as star-crossed or cursed with bad luck. Harrow was the only person who saw any value in him and trained him to be so much more than a drudge at the church.
Initial clues take Hab to the Deltan community, the city’s star-crossed criminal element who lost their old city. Here, Hab discovers Harrow’s secret life and his obvious plans to include him. But the clues take him in a wide circle back to his own beginnings.
This charming story was a pleasure to read as the mysteries hauled the reader ever deeper. The pace was good, as was Hab’s character development.
This issue had several wonderful tales in it, with most of the rest being strong, better than average stories.