Analog, September/October 2025
“Suspended Animation” by Jay Werkheiser and Julian Michael Carver
“Not in My Valley” by M. L. Clark
“Rust” by David D. Levine
“Ontario Lacus” by Pauline Barmby
“You Are Hereby Notified that You Are the Future of Art” by Anya Markov
“Scarecrow” by Timothy Quinn
“Boys and Girls Together” by Larry Niven
“Genius, Borrowed and Brief” by Julia Darcey
“Analog Equivalent Foodstuffs” by Kate MacLeod
“In a Desolate Garden” by Auston Habershaw
“A Shot in the Dark” by Avery Parks
“Temple in the Night” by Louis Evans
“Seedlings” by Al Onia
“Carried on the Wind” by Steven Mohan, Jr.
“Donacon” by Paul E. Franz
“The New People” by David McGillveray
“A Simple Martian Burial” by Tom Jolly
“Girl with the Tattooed Soul” by Mark W. Tiedemann
“Elector” by Stephen Case
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
“Suspended Animation” by Jay Werkheiser and Julian Michael Carver is this issue’s sole novella. After part of an asteroid lands in Alaska, an expert in cinematic imaging and special effects is assigned to aid scientists and the military with studying the microscopic lifeform that arrived with it. The organism’s peculiar biology threatens Earth’s ecosystem.
In the tradition of biological thrillers such as Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain, this story features a race against the clock to find a way to neutralize the menace. The climax manages to be dramatic while not fully satisfying the reader’s expectations. The text is full of highly technical speculation about advanced methods of imaging, much of which is likely to go over the heads of those who are not experts in this field.
In “Not in My Valley” by M. L. Clark, the main character races across the surface of the moon of a distant planet in order to rescue his wife from a possible abuser. Another vehicle pursues him in a deadly game of cat and mouse.
This novelette reminds me of Richard Matheson’s 1971 story “Duel” and the famous made-for-television movie of the same name adapted from it. Like that well-known thriller, the antagonist remains a mystery. The protagonist speculates that it may be a human driver or an automated vehicle gone haywire. In either case, the initial premise of the threat to the main character’s wife is little more than an excuse for an extended chase scene with an explosive climax.
The narrator of “Rust” by David D. Levine is one of a group of chimpanzees with increased intelligence who have managed to survive in an underwater laboratory for several years. Two people in a small submarine arrive to decommission the facility, unaware of its living inhabitants. Their disagreement about what should be done leads to a crisis.
One major plot development is likely to strike some readers as overly melodramatic. The story is mostly notable for the author’s ability to write from the point of view of an animal in a convincing way.
“Ontario Lacus” by Pauline Barmby features a media star who participates in dangerous extreme sports on various moons and planets in the solar system. Her latest stunt brings her together with a former lover, who has to act as her safety officer.
The outcome of the event, an attempt to swim across a lake of hydrocarbons on Enceladus, adds a touch of irony. Otherwise, this is a fairly simple, pleasant story with few surprises.
“You Are Hereby Notified that You Are the Future of Art” by Anya Markov is a brief tale addressed directly to the reader. It describes a form of art in which humans and artificial intelligences work together to create minds, which can then be downloaded into the bodies of those experiencing brain death.
Without giving too much away, it can be said that this is a postmodern, self-referential work, which acknowledges the fact that it is being published in a science fiction magazine. One can admire its cleverness while noting that it has little emotional impact.
“Scarecrow” by Timothy Quinn alternates sections of text describing the main character’s past life as a security guard in a flooded future United States with those set years later on the Moon, where he works a similar job. The latter sections involve a mystery concerning the discovery of a dead woman in a lunar vehicle and a shipping container illegally transported to the Moon.
The flashback sequences provide depth of character, but are not strictly relevant to the main plot. There may be an analogy between what happens on the Moon and current issues of illegal immigration; if so, it is subtle and not intrusive.
“Boys and Girls Together” by veteran author Larry Niven takes place at a time when people can undergo treatments that give them greatly extended lifetimes, but only if they remain prepubescent. The story deals with those who remain children for many centuries and those who choose to become adults and have offspring.
The author carefully extrapolates the implications of the premise, resulting in a highly believable story. The plot raises multiple themes of mortality, sexuality, and parenthood, without offering simple answers. Both those who avoid adulthood and those who opt for it are treated sympathetically.
In “Genius, Borrowed and Brief” by Julia Darcey, a student of digital art discovers strange images appearing on his computer each night. He claims the works as his own, leading to great success. The mysterious images exert a powerful effect on human emotions, leading to a dramatic climax.
The source of the images is never fully explained, although the implication is that they are the products of an inhuman intelligence. The result is a story that reads like cosmic horror. Fans of Lovecraftian fiction with a modern touch will best appreciate it.
“Analog Equivalent Foodstuffs” by Kate MacLeod takes place in an overcrowded spaceship with a broken food manufacturing device. The crew has to learn the lost art of cooking in order to use the emergency supplies named in the title.
Although not overtly comic, this is a very light story. (Whether the title is a sly reference to the magazine itself is open to debate.) If nothing else, it is likely to make the reader appreciate a simple meal of rice, beans, and assorted vegetables.
The main characters in “In a Desolate Garden” by Auston Haberhsaw are fully sentient copies of the minds of an extremely rich man and his wife. They are sent on a probe to a planet that can be terraformed into a private paradise for the couple. When this is completed, the real people will travel to the world in suspended animation. Complications ensue when another consciousness contacts them.
The plot involves multiple hallucinatory images in the consciousness of the woman’s duplicated mind. These, added to the enigmatic nature of the entity that contacts her, result in a complex story. The author manages to handle these difficult concepts in a way that makes them clear, while also providing strong emotional appeal. This novelette is quite ambitious, and it succeeds at its goals.
In “A Shot in the Dark” by Avery Parks, a physician has to deliver medicine to a colony on an asteroid suffering from a pandemic. The only way to do this in time is for him to ride in a small lifeboat from one spaceship to another that is closer to the colony. After the risky and claustrophobic journey, he has to undergo another ordeal.
The author effectively conveys the physician’s heroism and the suffering he endures during his desperate voyage. Unfortunately, a major aspect of the plot makes the story unavoidably repetitious.
The title of “Temple in the Night” by Louis Evans refers to a gigantic alien object that cannot be detected in any normal way, but which appears in the minds of starship pilots during the trances that allow them to travel interstellar distances. A commander dismisses the thing as a myth, but a rebellious pilot sets out for it.
There are no surprises in the plot; it is obvious that the pilot will locate the object. The author uses typographic tricks to convey the alien nature of the thing, but these seem gimmicky.
In “Seedlings” by Al Onia, a man lands on an uninhabited planet in a lifeboat after his spaceship is destroyed. The world, like many others, has been seeded with organisms for future human colonization. The man has to find a way to survive while dealing with the peculiar nature of the lifeforms he encounters.
The planet’s ecosystem and a final revelation about its origin are the most interesting aspects of this story. In other ways, it is a familiar tale of a castaway.
“Carried on the Wind” by Steven Mohan, Jr. is narrated by a Marine officer in charge of protecting an alien ambassador during the extraterrestrial’s visit to a Neanderthal burial site. Complicating matters is the presence of an overwhelming force of hostile Russians intent on capturing the alien for themselves. The fact that the extraterrestrial is hermaphroditic, with an unusual method of reproduction, leads to an unexpected conclusion.
The story’s two major plotlines depend on the alien being both very human in appearance and yet having exotic biology. The author tries hard to make this believable, but it still strains credibility. Similarly, the ending is genuinely surprising, but implausible.
The novelette “Donacon” by Paul E. Franz features a trio of researchers who have created biotechnology that will treat many cardiovascular disorders without surgery. One of them has also secretly come up with a method of giving himself a muscular body without diet or exercise. When the other two discover what he has done, they realize that this technique would be much more profitable than the other. This leads to conflict within the group, and a drastic change in society.
The speculative biotechnology is plausible, and the author describes its effect on the world in a believable fashion. The plot takes a while to get going; in particular, the reader is well aware than the muscular researcher has given himself the appearance of a professional bodybuilder through biotechnology long before his partners figure it out. Patient readers will be rewarded with an interesting story with a provocative ending.
“The New People” by David McGillveray takes place on a colony world where the earliest arriving inhabitants survive only through hard labor. Later colonists have better technology. Many of the children of the former leave home to join the new arrivals. The plot deals with a man who stubbornly resents the newcomers and his adult son, who returns home after time spent with them.
The theme of conflict between traditions and new ways of doing things is one that could appear in mainstream fiction as well as SF. A similar story could be told about a farmer’s son leaving the country for the city. The author captures the psychology of the characters effectively and sympathetically, but some readers may find the father’s attitude downright foolish.
“A Simple Martian Burial” by Tom Jolly features a team of older workers on Mars. When one of them dies the others have to figure out what to do with her body.
The story faces death in a frank, unsentimental manner. The details of dealing with a corpse on Mars, where either digging a grave or burning the body would be difficult, are dealt with in a realistic fashion. Sensitive readers may find parts of the story, such as the need to clean out a spacesuit after the person inside it has suffered the effects of decompression, overly grim.
“Girl with the Tattooed Soul” by Mark W. Tiedemann takes place aboard a space station. The main characters are a woman with gaps in her memory and a man who wears an exoskeleton. They know they have a shared past, and together they struggle to recover it.
This synopsis is vague, as I found parts of the story difficult to follow. The most striking scene is one in which the woman uses a knife to carve an image on the floor of the man’s room that serves as a clue to her lost memories. The author also offers a convincing portrait of life inside a space colony of the O’Neill type. With a little more clarity, the story would be easier to appreciate.
The novelette “Elector” by Stephen Case takes place in the extreme far future, with a large number of planets settled by human beings. Each one contains an artificial intelligence the size of a mountain, with which the planetary authority consults.
The plot deals with one such authority, who is to take part in electing the person who will join with the central ruling AI in a form of symbiosis. For reasons not yet known, the election is being held years earlier than expected. The authority must also deal with the fact that the AI that controls interstellar travel sends him to the wrong planet, possibly stranding him there, where he makes an extraordinary discovery.
There is much more to this story than I have indicated in this lengthy synopsis. The work is complex enough for a novella or even a novel. Numerous speculative concepts give the background an exotic flavor without sacrificing clarity. The author creates a true sense of wonder while offering richly developed characters.
Victoria Silverwolf is currently reading Pebble in the Sky (1950), Isaac Asimov’s first novel.