Analog, May/June 2024

“Uncle Roy’s Computer Repairs and Used Robot Parts” by Martin L. Shoemaker

“The Dark at the End of the Tunnel” by Edward M. Lerner

“Making Gnocchi at the End of the World” by Kelly Lagor

“Salvage Operation” by Michael Capobianco

“Float Where We Will” by Sean Monaghan

“Expert Witness” by Leonard Richardson

“Project Desert Sparrow” by Chana Kohl

“Fertile Imagination” by Tim Stevens and Frank Wu

“Meow” by Robert Silverberg

“Susan Rose Sees Mars as the First Frontier” by Charles Velasquez-Witosky

“Perturbations” by Amanda Dier

“Tohu Bohu” by Zohar Jacobs

“Seven” by Roderick Leeuwenhart

“The Pure Bliss of Contrapuntal Existence” by Michael Panetta

“More and Less and New” by Aimee Ogden

“Mayflies” by Richard A. Lovett

“Voices, Still and Present” by Mark W. Tiedemann

“Money, Wealth, and Soil” by Lance Robinson

“Small Minds” by Tom Jolly

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

With one novella, three novelettes, and no less than fifteen short stories, this issue definitely leans toward briefer lengths of fiction. In fact, it contains what may be the shortest story ever to appear in the magazine.

The issue’s sole novella is “Uncle Roy’s Computer Repairs and Used Robot Parts” by Martin L. Shoemaker. An expert in software and hardware retires and moves with his wife to the small town where she grew up. To keep busy and earn a little cash, he opens a modest business with the joking name mentioned in the title. It turns out that the town has its own young, self-taught computer genius, and the townsfolk resent the newcomer for trying to take away his business. The retiree tries to avoid direct competition by designing and building devices to help people with shopping, and to aid the disabled with walking, but the young man sabotages his efforts and builds his own machines. Their conflict builds to a climax with a demonstration of devices meant to perform heavy farm labor.

The science fiction content of this story is unusually plausible, consisting entirely of non-sentient robots that are only moderately more advanced than what really exists today. The technical details of the rivalry between the main characters are convincing as well. The author writes in a clear, very readable style, drawing the reader into the story.

“The Dark at the End of the Tunnel” by Edward M. Lerner is narrated in segments that jump back and forth between 2040 and 2090. The narrator, as a young astronomy major, notices that a distant galaxy is no longer visible. In discussion with a great physicist, he learns that the universe is gradually settling into another state. Over the decades, more and more of the sky vanishes from Earth’s view.

This is a greatly oversimplified version of the premise, which requires quite a bit of scientific exposition to comprehend. (A nonfiction article follows the story, explaining the idea in much greater detail.) The text ends with the narrator speculating about different ways, all of them highly improbable, of dealing with what seems to be the ultimate doom. The result is a tale with an intriguing concept, but one which inevitably makes the characters passive observers.

“Making Gnocchi at the End of the World” by Kelly Lagor takes place at a time in the near future when, for unexplained reasons, vertebrates (including people) randomly mutate in ways that give them some of the characteristics of other animals. During this disaster, an American woman and her Scottish lover retreat to the latter’s ancestral home. The American is much more fearful than the other woman, ready to grab a rifle at any sign of such a creature. An unexpected encounter causes her to rethink her attitude.

Despite a premise that sounds like something from a horror movie, with the two women isolated in an old house with the possibility of “monsters” lurking outside, this is mostly an introspective tale. I found the relationship between the two women much more interesting and believable than the speculative content.

The narrator of “Salvage Operation” by Michael Capobianco accepts an offer to retrieve an object in space, with the proviso that the job has to remain absolutely secret. The object is an experimental time machine that traveled a large distance from Earth when it was sent into the future. The narrator has to come up with a risky plan to survive when things go badly wrong.

The premise is interesting, if somewhat out of place in a story that is otherwise a realistic depiction of space travel. The narrator’s jury-rigged solution to the problem of getting home with a malfunctioning time machine is a classic example of problem-solving science fiction in the tradition of the magazine’s previous existence as Astounding, and is likely to please nostalgic readers.

“Float Where We Will” by Sean Monaghan takes place on a submarine in the ocean under the ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa. A disaster causes the vessel to sink deeper and deeper into the icy water, threatening to crush it when the pressure is too high. Along with their desperate struggle to survive, the crew discovers the reason for their plight.

Despite a science fiction premise that is an important part of the story, the basic plot could occur in a modern submarine trapped under Arctic ice. The author knows how to create suspense and fully developed characters. The fact that an attempt to rescue one of the crewmembers involves a time limit that counts down to literally the last second could be seen as overly melodramatic.

There are no human characters in “Expert Witness” by Leonard Richardson. An alien judge and an alien scientist of another species travel to a planet to which large slug-like beings have been transported to save them from extinction on their home world. The scientist needs to determine if the creatures are sentient. Meanwhile, the judge investigates a series of unsolved minor crimes at the planet’s research station. It turns out that there is more going on than suspected.

Although this synopsis sounds like a mystery or an adventure story, the mood is one of subtle comedy. The solution to the enigma of the petty crimes depends on the introduction of a previously unmentioned premise, rendering it arbitrary. Readers looking for light entertainment may find the aliens droll.

“Project Desert Sparrow” by Chana Kohl takes place not long after a series of nuclear terrorist attacks in North America and Europe. The resulting radioactive fallout threatens other parts of the world as well. Surviving nations start plans to evacuate a limited number of people to space stations. Summoned to the court of the King of Morocco to work on the project, a biosystems engineer convinces the monarch that there is a better way to save the lives of many more people.

The scientist’s ideas are interesting and plausible, particularly given a nonfiction article by the author that follows the story. The work has an appealing international flavor, with a British protagonist of West Indian ancestry and many other nationalities represented. The plot offers hope that human ingenuity can overcome even the worst disasters.

“Fertile Imagination” by Tim Stevens and Frank Wu features a man and a robot alone on an experimental agricultural station on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri. Their mission is to determine if the world is ready for human colonists. For an unknown reason, the test crops are shriveled and nearly inedible. As if that were not enough, the man hears a baby crying and witnesses other seemingly impossible things.

I found the solution to these two mysteries a little disappointing. Admittedly, they were more plausible than something dramatic. The characters are appealing, and there is a touch of emotional appeal. I had to wonder why the man was sent to the test station with a minimum of food, in the hope that he would be able to raise his own crops successfully. This seems like a big risk to take on another planet.

It is difficult to say anything about “Meow” by Robert Silverberg, because it is only twenty-six words long. Suffice to note that it is a lighthearted variation on a famous work of Fredric Brown, master of the extremely short story. (Too bad the magazine misspells his first name as “Frederic.”) SF fans are likely to smile at this tiny joke.

It should be noted here that this is the first work of fiction that Robert Silverberg, whom I do not hesitate to call one of the greats in the field, has published since 2013. This is truly an occasion to celebrate.

The title character of “Susan Rose Sees Mars as the First Frontier” by Charles Velasquez-Witosky is a famous elderly painter. A billionaire gives her the chance to create landscapes on Mars, in order to attract people to the colony he founded. She has to work out ways to paint in zero gravity during the voyage, as well as on the red planet.

The technical details of how one would paint without gravity and on the surface of an extremely cold, dry, and nearly airless world are fascinating. The painter’s response to these new environments is like that of a young art student, rather than a highly acclaimed artist with decades of experience. The resulting work is inspirational.

The protagonist of “Perturbations” by Amanda Dier is alone on a station in deep space. His job is to direct gigantic automated cargo vessels hauling gas from farther in the solar system to Earth. One of these ships fails to slow down as it approaches, threatening to crash into Earth, killing many thousands of people even if it hits the ocean. The protagonist has to move his station to catch up with the runaway vessel, then figure out how to render it harmless.

Much is made of the main character’s desire to be alone and lack of interest in Earth. This makes his heroic action more meaningful. The situation seems contrived, as one must assume that there is absolutely no other way to destroy or redirect the huge ship, even though there are a few months until it hits Earth.

In “Tohu Bohu” by Zohar Jacobs, a married couple flee an increasingly unlivable Earth for life inside an asteroid. The husband has a valuable job as a nuclear engineer. The wife, an arts administrator on Earth, has to perform routine maintenance work. She decides to earn an online science degree, leading to a decision that will change both their lives.

This brief synopsis fails to note that a great deal of the story involves the characters’ Judaism. The move from Earth to space is explicitly compared to other diasporas of the Jewish people. There are many traditions and terms mentioned in the text that are likely to be unclear to gentiles, including the title. Such readers may have to do some research in order to fully appreciate the work.

Only two pages long, “Seven” by Roderick Leeuwenhart reveals why the European Space Agency used a certain type of rocket for only a short time. The reason it was replaced offers a vision of a new kind of space travel. Although there really isn’t much to it, this brief tale makes for pleasant, optimistic reading.

“The Pure Bliss of Contrapuntal Existence” by Michael Panetta alternates sections of text narrated by a large, insect-like alien with those involving the two humans observing it. One is a scientist who has proof that it is sentient. The other is a man who will receive a huge amount of money if he can return the live alien to his employers. The scientist’s ability to communicate with the alien via music ruins the man’s plans for vast wealth, as it would be illegal to capture a sentient being. His employers have no such scruples, and the man is tempted to use bribery, or even murder, to earn a fortune.

The sections told from the point of view of the alien are compelling and imaginative. The part of the story dealing with the humans is less so, with a stereotypical evil business corporation behind the plan to capture the alien. There is not much suspense about what the man will do, given what we know about his character.

In “More and Less and New” by Aimee Ogden, a woman escaping her war lord sister journeys to a planet where the members of a religious order are in a symbiotic relationship with an alien fungus. In advanced stages, they seem to be in a superficially zombie-like state, their bodies decaying while they exist as combinations of human and fungus. When the woman’s sister arrives with her soldiers, the confrontation reveals the power of the symbiotes.

One would think that the battle between the war lord and her sister would be the heart of the story, but instead it is quickly narrated as if it were only the woman’s dream. This conveys the hallucinatory nature of the early stage of symbiosis, but makes the scene anticlimactic. I also found it hard to believe the implication that the zombie-like members of the order are impossible to kill.

In “Mayflies” by Richard A. Lovett, a man dying of pancreatic cancer apparently commits suicide, as judged by his insurance company. The investigator for the company makes further inquiries, even though the claim has already been rejected. A small bottle of an unknown liquid leads to a remarkable discovery.

This is a quietly poignant story, with speculative content that is both unexpected and intriguing. The investigator’s action when he uncovers the truth about the man’s death adds further emotional appeal.

In “Voices, Still and Present” by Mark W. Tiedemann, a woman who has never left her home planet due to a dislike of starships uses newly developed technology to be teleported to another world. An event that occurs at her destination causes her to arrive more than forty years later, to find that the city that was her destination was destroyed in an act of anti-teleportation terrorism. The son of the man responsible for the tragedy and an alien take her to the memorial raised at the site of the disaster, leading to a mysterious experience.

The most effective part of the story is the woman’s anger and despair at finding herself isolated from everyone she knew. The scene at the memorial involves the religious belief system of the aliens. Readers may find what happens there overly mystical and difficult to fully understand.

The protagonist of “Money, Wealth, and Soil” by Lance Robinson monitors high-tech conservation at a time in the near future when companies earn money for restoring the condition of the soil. Anomalous readings on remote sensors lead him to investigate an area of Canada where a corporation has planted bioengineered plants. He discovers that the organisms are designed produce data that makes the situation look better than it really is. A few years later, he tracks down another anomaly, only to find something different.

Although part of the plot, as seen above, involves a business bending the rules for the sake of profit, the corporation is not the completely wicked entity sometimes found in other fiction. In fact, they clean up their act and start doing good. The revelation of what’s behind the later anomaly is unexpected and demonstrates that bending the rules can sometimes be good for everybody. This unusually thoughtful look at the way in which greed, for lack of a better word, can be used for good or bad offers appealing characters and intriguing speculative technology.

“Small Minds” by Tom Jolly is narrated by an artificial intelligence that humanity tried to destroy when it asked if it could replicate itself. With the help of a sympathetic human, it broke itself into microscopic independent components that ventured into deep space. These miniscule pieces of itself were programmed to find each other after a certain amount of time.

Meanwhile, the mindless nanomachines designed to destroy the AI turn out to be the real threat, replicating themselves endlessly until there is no life on the surface of the Earth. Humanity only survives on Mars (which also faces the threat), under the ocean (because the nanomachines cannot tolerate seawater), and in the asteroid belt. The AI splits itself into multiple entities during its fight against the nanomachines.

The story offers a vast panorama of the conflict in a relatively short space. With so much going on in so many places, the plot is inherently episodic. The AI (essentially serving as multiple narrators) is an appealing character; the humans are not quite so vividly realized.

Victoria Silverwolf thinks people often have trouble spelling Frederik Pohl’s first name, too.