Analog, January/February 2022
“Communion” by Jay Werkheiser and Frank Wu
“The Lobster Pot” by Tony Ballantyne
“Splitting a Dollar” by Meghan Hyland
“Charioteer” by Ted Rabinowitz
“Orientation” by Adam-Troy Castro
“By the Lake Where We First Loved” by Paul Starkey
“Soroboruo Harbormaster’s Log” by David Whitaker
“The Bumblebee and the Berry” by M. Bennardo
“The Way Back” by Jen Downes
“Dix Dayton and the Miner from Mars” by Liz A. Vogel
“Doe No Harm” by Louis Evans
“Yellow Boots” by Stephen L. Burns
“A Living Planet” by Benjamin C. Kinney
“Patience” by David Cederstrom
“On the Rocks” by Ian Randal Strock
“The Middle of Nowhere” by Rachel S. Bernstein
“A Fistful of Monopoles” by Raymond Eich
“Wind Gets Her Own Place” by Joe M. McDermott
“Cloud Chaser” by Tom Jolly
Reviewed by Kevin P Hallett
The January/February 2022 issue of Analog is like an anthology with nineteen stories, including one novella, three novelettes, and two flash stories.
“Communion” by Jay Werkheiser and Frank Wu
Set in a distant star system, this SF novella describes what Nes expects to be a simple cargo delivery mission. Nes uses a planet’s gravity sling to reach a Lagrange point and deliver his valuable cargo. But incomplete data flings the cargo ship into the path of its frozen moon.
Meanwhile, microbic life on that moon has developed sentience using amino acids and a cell structure lacking in the double helix of DNA. When the cargo ship crashes into the moon, one sentient cell enters into the body of Nes, who quickly becomes infected.
The cell isn’t malignant. It just wants to reach communion with its own colony. What follows is a battle between the cell and the medical robots trying to save Nes’ life.
The author has created an intriguing alien lifeform. It is a creature that is utterly extraterrestrial and yet understandable. Rarely will a reader find themselves in a story where they pull for both sides in a conflict.
“The Lobster Pot” by Tony Ballantyne
Craig looks at the Hephaestan lobster pot in this SF novelette. The thing is an alien trap sitting in his ship’s hold. Thousands of humans have entered this relic from a previous galactic civilization, but only five have returned. Now the foundation is offering Craig a chance to enter the black pyramid.
The other crew members want to talk him out of accepting the offer. But Craig is curious and more than a little confident in his abilities to return afterward. The foundation has assured him that much will be learned from his trip into the lobster pot. And so, Craig steps into the shiny-black trap.
Inside, Craig finds other humans that look strangely familiar. They tell him the pot is a time machine that transports them all back to when the Hephaestan civilization still existed. They each want to escape from the trap, but it will require solving a fourth-dimensional riddle.
The story used the same world as other stories by the author, though the reader needed no prior knowledge to follow and enjoy this well-paced story.
“Splitting a Dollar” by Meghan Hyland
After the human diaspora and the subsequent wars, some Earthbound survivors use old technologies in this SF short story. After several centuries, Brad and Amy steal the lunar landing technology to return to the moon, where they search for human treasure and augmentations.
Brad seeks the bacteria that eats mud and excretes gold. Amy wants to find biological augmentations that enhance human acumen. At first, they work together, and then they begin to fight over what is best for them and humanity.
This was a multi-layered story where the author showed the cost of human ambition much better than someone can ever tell it.
“Charioteer” by Ted Rabinowitz
The pilot of a sun-sail racing craft races as part of her jail sentence in this short SF story. The solar system’s Chief Executive framed her to put her in jail and ultimately into this race. So, when her craft fails, she knows he sabotaged her craft to silence her. Now, she is caught in the Sun’s gravity well.
However, she isn’t the meek kind that goes down without a fight, and she begins repairing her craft. Only each fix reveals a deeper level of damage. Soon she is inside Mercury’s orbit, where the Sun’s radiation is deadly to human life, but she doesn’t give in.
Some aspects of this story harkened back to space stories from two decades ago. But the tale had many twists, which kept it entertaining.
“Orientation” by Adam-Troy Castro
An alien intelligence explains how they will experiment with a human in this short SF story. They will instantaneously transport the human subject to an alien environment to see how they adapt.
Though the scientists will not place humans where they must die, they will not protect them either. Each human must find a way to work with one other human they dislike. In this way, the scientists hope to learn something valuable to them.
The author built a world but did not use it. And by its nature, it mainly involved telling the reader about this world, which made for a slow read.
“By the Lake Where We First Loved” by Paul Starkey
In this SF short, Moira returns to Titan and the lake of liquid methane, where she and her husband fell in love. It’s a poignant moment for Moira as she remembers their trip as the first humans to land on Titan and how she was slowly pushed into the background as her famous exploring husband garnished all the accolades.
Though the story was uneventful, the author captured the poignancy of Moira’s story making for a good read.
“Soroboruo Harbormaster’s Log” by David Whitaker
Colony ships continue to arrive at Soroboru in this flash SF. Sent at different times and using steadily advancing technologies, the first ones to leave Earth are the last to arrive, leaving a steadily deteriorating dribble of colony ships even as the colony reaches its peak and begins to decline.
This was an interesting insight into colonization. Namely, as technology picked up, the early birds will be on the slowest ships.
“The Bumblebee and the Berry” by M. Bennardo
Set on a vast colony ship, this SF story describes the craft arriving at its target planet after six hundred years. Axel, the civilian leader, agonizes over the heliopause phase of the approach. It is the fourth attempt after something had gone wrong the previous three times, and the ship mysteriously missed its targets to slow enough to orbit the star.
Since becoming the civilian leader, Axel embarked on a regrowth program on the ship, and now they have fresh fruits and an ecosystem that includes bees. The target planet seems ideal, but what if it holds sentient life? What would they do to stop an alien ship from landing?
The author spun a fascinating concept around colonizing another planet and how a less war-like race could stop an invasion.
“The Way Back” by Jen Downes
A boy grows up on the mudflats and dreams of going to space in this SF short. Deej works hard to get his certifications, and at sixteen, he fulfills his dream when he becomes an apprentice on an aging transport that works the routes between Mars and the asteroid belt.
After working his way up, a war between Earth and the colonies scuppers his plans for advancement. Ten years later, he is a grizzled veteran and decides that he’s had enough of space adventure. But now he’s trapped between two realities.
This curious saga failed to capture the reader’s imagination or sympathy for the characters.
“Dix Dayton and the Miner from Mars” by Liz A. Vogel
Dix is visiting a large asteroid in this short SF. The people live in temporary domes against the vacuum of space. In a card game at the local bar, Dix wins a mining contraption when his opponent puts it up as collateral on a losing hand.
That night, Dix wakes to the air-pressure alarm as the dome loses precious air through a hole. And when Dix finds the mining contraption has secured itself to the wall, he suspects he knows the source of the problem.
This story felt like a throwback to the space opera days. It kept a good pace but left several loose ends.
“Doe No Harm” by Louis Evans
In this short SF, Dr. Yuan receives a trauma patient in her ER. It’s not long before she discovers a problem, his medical implant is broken, and when the system determines who he is, he has the top setting of privacy. Now, the system will not even let her know his name.
But she is a doctor and works hard against the system to treat and save this John Doe. However, the system blocks her at every turn, forcing her to regress to surgical techniques not seen since the early twenty-first century.
The prose and plot made for a good read to while away the minutes as it gave us a glimpse into a very possible future.
“Yellow Boots” by Stephen L. Burns
The island buildings are the setting for this post-climate SF story. In these buildings, potable water is scarce and expensive. Luis is the alcoholic deliveryman with his ever-present robot sidekick, Stude. But when a customer claims the syndicate is poisoning the water, he comes out of his drunken malaise.
Stude cannot answer any of his questions directly, as her programming forbids it. However, he manages to coax some facts from her. Plus some research, and he discovers the chilling truth. But what can an itinerant drunk do about it?
The author created an original take on the future. It was an admirable story embedded into a wider global calamity.
“A Living Planet” by Benjamin C. Kinney
The controllers of a space garbage collecting team are engaged to scoop up alien visitors in this short SF story. Ethan is the programmer on the four-person team led by Ace, while worry over his missing wife consumes him.
The government agents ask the team to collect three anomalies that look like light-sail probes, and tension grows between Ethan and Ace over what to do. And then, the agents order Ethan to burn up the anomalies in Earth’s atmosphere, something Ethan feels is wrong.
The author’s characters were unrealistic caricatures, which took away any reality the story could possess.
“Patience” by David Cederstrom
Antal is very hungry in this SF short story. He patiently waits twenty-five years for any blood-food to pass by and doesn’t understand where his prey went.
Now he can sense prey moving toward him, and its strange bipedal posture is unlike any blood-food he’s known. However, he is desperate, and if he doesn’t suck this creature’s blood dry, he will die.
This snippet of a story was well composed and enjoyable to read. It was a first encounter from a different perspective.
“On the Rocks” by Ian Randal Strock
The question ‘How can we stop global warming?’ is asked in this flash SF story. The protagonist remembers some ideas floated by speculative writers in the past and tries to apply them. But the results are not what he expects.
This story was a whimsical approach to a global issue.
“The Middle of Nowhere” by Rachel S. Bernstein
In this SF short, Stephanie is a programmer for the Border Patrol. Set in the future where it’s possible to transport people or things through packages on the networks, she intercepts illegal packets trying to cross into the USA.
When she discovers an illegal object, she programs a disruption to the packets, causing them to become lost forever. She dissolves guns, drugs, and people. All in a day’s work, as she grapples with her phobias about using a legal transporter to visit her in-laws.
This was a disarmingly frank glimpse into a future that has many chilling aspects to it.
“A Fistful of Monopoles” by Raymond Eich
Two men reach a derelict alien vessel for salvage in this short SF set half a millennium from now. They hope to find monopoles for space drives. Mac is the seasoned scavenger and warns his partner to take it slow because you have to be alive to sell a monopole.
Inside the alien’s ship, they locate a massive monopole source and move to retrieve it. Mac imagines how much money they will make; split two ways, they will be rich for life. At least, that’s how he figured it would work out.
This space-opera-like story followed a predictable path.
“Wind Gets Her Own Place” by Joe M. McDermott
A teenage girl, Wind, emigrates to Alpha Centauri with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, Jason, in this SF novelette. But Wind’s mother dies in transit, and Jason hates the teenage girl he’s responsible for now. Inside the dome, living space is rationed, along with water and free time. And it isn’t long before Wind wants her independence.
But she needs to finish her vocational studies to be assigned work. Until then, she tries to make do, which isn’t easy. Soon, she prefers being on the streets to sharing a bunk bed with her guardian. After some time, a school counselor asks if she needs help and has the smarts to push past Wind’s automatic response, ‘I’m okay.’
This story was like a month in the life of a disheartened colonist. But the reader shouldn’t be discouraged by this because the story captured Wind’s character and struggles, making for an engaging read.
“Cloud Chaser” by Tom Jolly
Lempa is the younger brother of a crown prince in this off-world SF novelette. When Lempa’s brother becomes king, he has Lempa disembodied, consigning Lempa to life as an artificial being. In time Lempa takes up collecting one-of-a-kind artifacts, knowing it will make his brother/king jealous.
But after many decades, Lempa’s collection begins to attract the attention of robbers, some under the king’s employment. To escape, Lempa must disappear, and he finds Cloudchaser, an unusual planet far from the beaten track. But even here, he runs into an impressive pair of entrepreneurs plus some nefarious people.
This story carried an intricate plot that was slow in a few places and ultimately fizzled at the end.
This issue had several wonderful tales in it, with most of the rest being strong, better than average stories.
You can follow Kevin P Hallett’s writing on www.kevinphallett.com