Tag: Analog

The Bumblebee and the Berry by M. Bennardo

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Bumblebee and the Berry by M. Bennardo (Analog, January-February 2022) takes place on hollowed-out asteroid, a generation starship which is making its fourth approach to a star system after missing on the first three attempts (over the previous twenty-seven years). While the ship gets closer to the planet they are aiming at, Axel, the governor of the colony, watches the local wildlife in their small biosphere—in particular a bumblebee that keeps trying to land on a bowl of blackberries. He wafts his hand nearby to disrupt the air currents, which causes it to fly away.
After this scene setting is complete the story closes with Axel getting an update from a woman called Raina about the approach. During this exchange she clumsily swats at the bumblebee; he shows her how to waft the nearby air instead. Axel (spoiler) then has an epiphany that the planet they are heading for may be occupied, and that they are the ones who are being kept away from what they want:

They would simply continue, as they had been. They would have no choice but to keep living as they were: making what room they could for the deer and the rabbits and the bumblebees, doing their best to avoid stepping on ants and wildflowers. Anything else would mean their own destruction. And who knew? Perhaps if they could prove they could do it. . . For a hundred years, or for a thousand. . . Then they might one day make another pass, and might one day be allowed to make starfall. They might no longer be brushed away.  p. 95

Apart from the fact this piece is a notion or eco-lecture and not a story, I’m not convinced by the bumblebees making for the blackberries—wasps and butterflies maybe, but I’m pretty sure the bees in my garden always go for flowers and their pollen.
I’d also note the language used at the beginning of the story is unnecessarily confusing—they aren’t making “starfall”, they are making planetfall, i.e. they intend landing on a planet not a star. And what has the “heliopause” (a word I bounced off of) got to do with anything? More unnecessary Analog jargon.
* (Mediocre). 2,200 words.

Charioteer by Ted Rabinowitz

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Charioteer by Ted Rabinowitz (Analog, January-February 2022) is essentially a re-do of Arthur C. Clarke’s Sunjammer, except this one has a woman pilot: she is a prisoner who is racing around the sun trying to win her freedom from the tyrannical “Executive”, and someone has sabotaged her sail-ship.
Most of the story tells of how she engineers her way out of her predicament, and a lot of this is written in that jargon-filled Analog prose that makes your eyes bleed:

Now that power was flowing, the sensor net was active throughout the entire field of sail. It told her that the power spike had done more than blow out the main nodes; it had deactivated the carcerands in the sails. Each carcerand was a molecular cage trapping a second, free-spinning cluster of atoms inside. The inner cluster could be oriented by a magnetic field. Polarized in one direction, it rendered a sail opaque; in another direction, it created the brilliant mirror of a lightsail.
The power spike had fused 90 percent of those inner clusters with their carcerands. She was riding a giant disc of ashes.  p. 73

That last sentence isn’t bad, but I’m pretty sure there is a more elegant way to write the paragraph that precedes it.
Ultimately (spoiler) she manages to fix things but discovers she has received a fatal dose of radiation—so she crashes her ship into the station where the politicians are watching the race.
Apart from the bad writing (mostly too much engineering jargon), the political prisoner gimmick doesn’t convince.
* (Mediocre). 3,300 words.

Splitting a Dollar by Meghan Hyland

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Splitting a Dollar by Meghan Hyland (Analog, January-February 2022) is narrated by an AI which supervises a cache of advanced tech that has been left on the Moon by a previous human diaspora for future generations. The story opens with the AI watching two humans (“let’s you and I call them Amy and Brad”) approach.
The rest of the story is mostly about the disagreement between Amy and Brad about what they should take back to Earth: Amy wants equipment that will augment human intelligence; Brad wants to take back bacteria that can sieve out gold from mud. Then (spoiler) Brad punctures his suit, and Amy offers to trade her emergency O2 for his pouch space: he attacks her, she fends him off, and he is eventually forced to concede.
This is okay, I suppose, but I didn’t really buy the set-up, or the fact that they were supposed to be a couple (their arguments are contrived as well as irritating). And, a more minor point, the AI addressing the reader at the beginning of the story breaks suspension of disbelief.
** (Average). 5,200 words.

Soroboruo Harbormaster’s Log by David Whitaker

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Soroboruo Harbormaster’s Log by David Whitaker (Analog, January-February 2022) is a short piece told in the form of AI diary entries (mostly) and tells of the arrival of a colony ship at a planet. Later entries tell of other ships that arrive later, some of which had been dispatched earlier than the first arrivals:

Soroboruo Colony
Sol Standard 16.42.12.18.2792
Arrival of Colony Ship Abel Tasman.
Vessel shows signs of minor damage, to be expected for pre-light-drive tech and duration of crossing. Still plenty of value, salvage crews dispatched.
Passengers surprised to find planet already settled, despite pre-launch briefing that postlaunch technological developments may present this possibility. Work force assignments drawn up and distributed.
Planetary Population: 16,973  p. 86

As earlier and earlier ships arrive, we see that some of them have fared poorly (especially the generation ones). Finally there is reasonably neat twist ending where (spoiler) they leave the planet for another one (humanity still hasn’t learned to live in harmony with its environment and has laid waste to the planet and surrounding solar system).
This isn’t bad (and is a lot better than most short-shorts) but some of the middle sections aren’t as effective as the others, and don’t seem to contribute to the thread of the story (the Junta one for instance). I think in something this short all the parts need to add something.
**+ (Average to Good). 700 words.

On the Rocks by Ian Randall Strock

Posted on by Paul Fraser

On the Rocks by Ian Randall Strock (Analog, January-February 2022) is a short-short1 about a billionaire who tells of an effort to save Earth from global warming by bringing back “ice cubes” from the Kuiper Belt. These hollowed out ice asteroids will then be floated in the atmosphere to cool it down.
This references two other SF stories to tell the tale, and doesn’t articulate why the idea doesn’t work. It’s more ridiculous musing than story-telling.
* (Mediocre). 1,000 words.

1. I’m not sure when short-shorts became “flash-fiction” (as this is described in the table of contents), or why. I’m not fan of the category, given that the average standard of these is far below other lengths of story.

Orientation by Adam-Troy Castro

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Orientation by Adam-Troy Castro (Analog, January-February 2022) takes the form of an alien giving an orientation briefing to a human abductee (or more accurately, a facsimile of a human—we learn from the briefing that the original remains untouched). We also learn, after various reassuring digressions caused by the off-stage questions from the human, about what is happening to them, where they are going, and the experiment in which they will have to participate.
This latter part, where the abductee is told (spoiler) that they will have to cooperate with another person—someone they can’t stand—stretches credulity somewhat, and the story doesn’t really convince. That said, this is entertainingly told, and has a great line: “It has become much more difficult to explain ourselves to our human test subjects, this past century or so. So many of you think you know everything.”
**+ (Average-Good). 3,250 words.

Moral Biology by Neal Asher

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Moral Biology by Neal Asher (Analog, May-June 2020) begins by introducing one of the story’s main characters in a passage that shows his enhanced senses, as well as the information density of the prose:

As Perrault entered the room he quickly closed the anosmic receptors running in lines across his face like tribal markings, retaining the use only of those within his nose. The air was laden with pheromones, and he really had no need for further input on Gleeson’s readiness for sex with Arbeck. Just walking through the door had been enough. Gleeson sat with her rump against her desk while Arbeck, his camo shirt hanging open to reveal the tight musculature of his chest, sat in one of the chairs facing her, his legs akimbo. Their conversation ceased and she looked up at Perrault, quickly snatching her hand away from fondling with her hair, doubtless aware of everything he could read. He glanced at them, taking in their dynamic and almost breaking into laughter at Arbeck’s pose, then focused on other aspects of the room as he headed for the other chair. He blinked through the spectrum, seeing the so recognizable heat patterns on Gleeson’s skin, listened in on the EMR chatter of the ship, then shut it out as irrelevant, measured shapes in conjunction throughout the space that hinted at shadow languages and esoteric meaning, and then shut that down too.
“Do we have further data?” he asked mildly.  p. 38

It soon becomes apparent from the conversation that follows that the three of them, Perrault, Arbeck (the science lead on their expedition), and Gleeson (a “Golem android”), are above an alien planet that has orbital defences pointing downwards rather than out into space—an attempt, they believe, to quarantine the planet. After they finish discussing their situation they prepare, alongside their accompanying troops, to go down to the planet. During this we further learn that (a) they will be encased in gel pods as they descend (in case they are attacked by the orbital defences), (b) that they are going to investigate a huge life-form that has been detected in the tunnels below, and (c) Perrault intends using a device called a “shroud” on the planet’s surface, a symbiotic biotech device that looks like a truncated stingray and with which he has a strange emotional and psychological bond.
As they descend, their craft is indeed attacked by the defence system but, as they expect, it does not entirely destroy them, and the pods are ejected. They all land safely but are widely scattered. When Perrault is subsequently contacted by Arbeck, the security team leader, he is told he will be recovered in several hours and to remain where he is. Perrault has other ideas:

Obviously Arbeck, despite being a Golem, didn’t have much idea of Perrault’s capabilities. He undid his straps, reached forward, and hauled up the shroud case. It had been his intention to put the thing on at a later juncture after Gleeson had studied some of the tunnels, but now was as good a time as any.
[. . .]
Every time he used the thing it became more difficult to take it off, and he became more eager to put it on the next time. It increased the functionality of his enhanced senses in ways that were addictive which, in itself, wasn’t a problem.
The problem was that the increased functionality in this respect made him a less able member of normal Polity society. It made him strange.
He opened his envirosuit, stripped it off his arms and upper body and folded it down to his waist, then, raising his backside, pushed it further down to his thighs, partially detaching the rectal catheter. He then opened the case, reached inside, and pressed his hand down on the fishy skin, chemically accepting its willingness to detach from its support gear. It rose up out of its packing, flexing its wing limbs, shivered when he took hold of the nodular mass at its head end. He lifted it up with both hands, leaned forward, and swung its heavy wet weight round onto his back. The tail inserted in the crevice of his buttocks and found the side port of the catheter—it would excrete its waste there. It clung to his back, shifting round into the correct position. He felt the junction holes open down his sides and in his spine and the cold insertion of its connectors. Taking off the pod goggles, he pulled open the nodular protrusion, then slipped it over his head where it formed an organic mask, probing to his anosmic and EMR receptors, and additional nerve clusters that linked to his brain. The whole thing began to settle.
He could feel the cold growth of the nanofibers in his spine and in his skull, and then came connection and his limited vista inside the pod opened out into a world. He felt complete. p. 43

Later, after Perrault has hacked the pod software and released himself, a group of alien spike gibbon aliens hunt him but, with the enhanced abilities the shroud confers, he is able to sense a range of electromagnetic, auditory, and chemical input—by the time Arbeck arrives, Perrault has learned the gibbon’s ultrasonic language and the shroud is manufacturing pheromones to control them.
The rest of the story sees the Arbeck and his security team collect Gleeson and the others, and their field work begins. Soon afterwards, though, they are attacked by spider-like creatures. After killing a number of them, Mobius Clean, the shadowy AI in the background of the story, tells Arbeck that it wants one of the spider creatures dissected to look for biotech (and also mentions that the creature in the tunnel isn’t native to the planet but a colonist).
Further complications ensue (spoiler): Gleeson finds the hard storage she was looking for on the bodies and attempts to decipher it with her “aug” (augmentation device), but it overwhelms her and gives her convulsions. Simultaneous with this Perrault senses a chaotic radio pulse, a burst of language that he initially struggles to process, but which eventually makes him think that the creature in the tunnels has a strong sense of morality (a feeling reinforced by the fact that, although they were attacked on their descent, they were not killed). Then there is a final onslaught by pig-like aliens, after which Perrault finally manages to speak to the creature below. It tells them it does not want them to approach it but, after a couple more attempts to dissuade Perrault’s team fail, it eventually gives up.
The final section reveals that the creature’s species originally used star-faring creatures to spread its seed throughout the universe, but that they stopped doing so for moral reasons. Hence their attempts to stop anyone approaching them, and subjecting them to the temptation to do so.
This story gets off to an engaging start, and there are many enjoyable sections along the way (mostly involving Perrault, the superman/super symbiote), but there is far too much description of matters that do not need a lot of detail. This means that the story is longer than it should be, and sometimes feels like it has the same pace throughout—regardless of what is happening. I’d add that this is more of a problem at the end of the story than the start as, in that first part, you are being treated to the highlights of the detailed universe created in a number of Asher’s novels (Perrault and his shroud, Arbeck the ex-war drone AI in a humanoid body, Mobius Clean, etc., etc.).1
For an example of this over-description, look at this passage from the penultimate section of the story:

They set off toward the mound, and Perrault soon found himself scrambling up a slope over boulders. At the top the soldiers cleared some debris then set out the tents. Dasheel began hammering in small posts all around. As Perrault moved out past these and seated himself on a boulder, the man then set up a couple of inflatable tripods and on each mounted pulse rifles. Shortly after this he set out with a handful of small silvery spikes Perrault recognized as seismic detectors. It seemed evident now Dasheel’s expertise, or at least one of them, lay in setting up defensive positions.  p. 66

At this point in the story (p. 28 of 33) who cares about such quotidian tasks as setting up a camp, or what Dasheel’s abilities are? This passage should have been one sentence, “When they got to the top of the mound they set up camp, and surrounded it with automatic pulse-rifles and the silvery spikes of seismic detectors.” Or even less than that.
Despite this grousing the story’s not bad overall, but it could certainly have benefited from some decent editing.
*** (Good). 23,800 words.

1. This story is set in Asher’s ‘Polity’ universe.

Flyboys by Stanley Schimidt

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Flyboys by Stanley Schimidt (Analog, July-August 2020) is a sequel to his novel Night Ride and Sunrise (Analog, July-August to November 2015), and opens with an alien called “Bob” watching his son Junior make his first flight from his mother’s home to an all-male settlement called Surfcrag. During the pair’s transit there, and also from later on in the story, we learn that (a) the flying adult males live separately from the females on this planet, (b) they are nocturnal and eat flying insects, and (c) that humans have settled on other parts of their continent. We also find out about a recent conflict between the humans and the aliens which ended with an agreement to peacefully co-exist (as the humans are stranded on the planet and cannot leave).
The day after Junior has been welcomed to the lodge at Surfcrag, Bob is approached by another male called Highguard, who tries to recruit him to a movement that will drive the humans off their land (during this we learn that there is yet another, malevolent, group of humans on a different part of the planet). Bob tells Highguard he will have nothing to do with his plans.
Shortly after this conversation Junior disappears, and the story then alternates between his point of view and Bob’s. Junior is taken by two males to another place called High and Mighty, where Highguard makes another recruiting effort. Junior isn’t having any of it though, and escapes, giving his pursuers the slip before he goes to hide with his mother in Surfcrag:

He found Sylvie in her shop, absorbed in tinkering with a new variation of her steam engine.
He rushed right in after a hasty “Here I am” from the hall. He closed the door behind him as he said, “Hi, Mom.”
She looked up with a quick kaleidoscope of emotions on her face: surprise, confusion, delight, and deep concern. “Junior?” she said, in Shetalk, since that was what she could speak.
“What are you doing here? You just left. What brings you back so soon?” She looked him up and down, and the concern became dominant. “What happened to you?” She hop-slithered down off her workbench and skittered over on her four short legs to paw and sniff at him.
“I’m all right,” he said reassuringly, in He-talk (since that was what he could speak). “But something’s come up. Maybe a danger for all of us. I need to talk to you.” He gestured toward her bench. “Why don’t you climb back up there and make yourself comfortable?” As she did, he hopped onto one of the room’s two male-perches so they could talk on each other’s eye level.
“Okay, first,” he said, “you want to know what happened to me because I look like I’ve been through some ordeal. It’s not quite that bad, but I’ve been flying longer, harder, and faster than I should without a break. Two guys were chasing me. Bad guys, in my opinion, and I think you’ll agree.”  p. 64

The passage above illustrates some of the story’s problems. First, it reads like clunky YA; second, aliens speaking and acting like a 1950’s American suburban family is a real suspension-of-disbelief killer (the physical differences, sex-separation, nocturnal flying, and insect eating all feel pretty much tacked on); third, it has pages of talking heads who describe things that have already happened in the story.
The rest of the this piece doesn’t improve (spoiler): Junior goes to see his girl, Coppersmith; Bob contacts the humans to inform them of the threat from Highguard, and also to ask for help in locating his son; Bob and a human called Luke find Junior after a helicopter search; the matter goes to the alien council—who then catch and try the conspirators. The story ends with clash-of-culture speeches from Highguard and Junior (who is renamed Peacesaver).
There is too much dialogue in this, and too much running around; it’s also derivative, and longer than it needs to be. All in all it resembles a dull story from a 1960’s issue of the magazine.
* (Mediocre). 21,000 words.

Sticks and Stones by Tom Jolly

Posted on by Paul Fraser

Sticks and Stones by Tom Jolly (Analog, July/August 2020) gets off to a slow start with the narrator, Anita, watching the body of a suicide being put out of the lock of her relativistic cold-sleep spaceship Beagle-4. Afterwards Anita talks to the captain of the ship and a sentient slime called Rosie and, during this conversation, they receive a message from the Boden colony, which reports that there is a system near them with two odd planets, one of which is a gas giant, and another which may be hollow. The Beagle-4 sets off for the system. A year later the ship arrives and the remainder of the crew woken up from cold sleep.
Much of the rest of the first part of the story concerns their investigation of the second planet—Hermit’s Cave—which they decide is either (a) a hollowed out and reinforced planet or (b) a vast girder connected structure. Later a team is sent out to investigate and, as they descend between the huge asteroid-size chunks that are wired together, they discover an atmosphere and then, deeper down, an increasingly complex ecosystem of flying celephapod-like creatures:

Outside, the plants were starting to thicken. Marko slowed the ship again so they could observe the area in more detail. Vines crawled for hundreds of meters onto the interconnecting trusses, some completely covered as detritus from above filled in the gaps in the truss structure, creating bridges of soil between asteroids, though there was no indication of any corrosion on the trusses. The tops of many asteroids were also covered with soil and plants, from patchy collections of what looked like low mosses and lichen, to taller, broader plants farther in. Tendrils of vines hung from the sides of the asteroids like straggly beards. The terraced nature of the asteroids in the planetary bowl structure presented a bright edge at the side of the bowl that faded softly into deep shadows broken by intermittent slashes of light, the internal surfaces partly illuminated by the reflected glow of the hazy skies. Some flying creatures darted past the ship, startled from their perches on rocks and plants. They glided on thin membranes extending out from their sides, eyes forward, thin tentacles trailing behind.  p. 30

After the three crew land and disembark on one of the asteroids one of them is killed by a large flying creature, and Anita and Marko follow it to its lair to try and retrieve the body. While they are doing this they find a box in what looks like a control room, later found to contain documents that tell of a race of now extinct aliens which suffered disaster due to a wandering star and then built Hermit’s World from debris. The crew of the Beagle-4 work out that the aliens’ original home planet is half a light year away, and they once again set off on their travels.
The rest of the story is overtaken by the interplanetary politics that have been bubbling away in the background while all this has been happening, starting with the revelation by Rosie the slime that one of the crew members has messaged Garrison, a colony formed by a misogynistic leader who has since died. When the Beagle-4 finally gets to the aliens’ home world ships from Garrison arrive shortly after them, and more from Earth due soon—which will possibly lead to a standoff over the planet. However, during the long journey out the crew of Beagle-4 have also resurrected one of the aliens that created Hermit’s Cave. It is sentient, and therefore its home world cannot be appropriated by Garrison or Earth. All ends well.
If this review seems a bit of a mess then that is partially because (a) I read the story some time ago, and (b) the story is a bit of a mess too: not only is the first chapter probably redundant, there are too many characters, and it almost feels like two stories welded into one. That said, the Big Dumb Object at the heart of the story is fairly interesting, and so are some of the other parts (the relativistic ship travel taking years of time, resurrecting the dead alien species, etc.). Fairly good overall, I guess.
*** (Good). 14,200 words.

The Offending Eye by Robert R. Chase

Posted on by Paul Fraser

The Offending Eye by Robert R. Chase (Analog, July-August 2020) is a sequel to Vault (Analog, July-August 2019) and opens with the trial of a ship’s captain over the events that took place in that initial story:

The facts were undisputed. Captain Ludma Ednahmay had refused to relinquish command of the starship Percival Lowell when lawfully directed to do so by myself, the ship’s political officer as well as its doctor of physical and mental health. She then imprisoned me in my own quarters until I was able, with the help of the first officer and the ship’s AI, to freeze her out of the ship’s control system and confine her to her quarters for the duration of the mission. When testimony was complete, it took the three-judge panel less than an hour to return a guilty verdict. Sentencing was all that remained.  p. 132

Dr Chaz, the narrator, then tells the court that he thinks that there is no more loyal officer than Ednahmay, and that she is no threat to the Stability. After the court dismisses Chaz the hologram dissolves and he finds himself in his boss’s office. General Kim tells Chaz that he is no longer involved in any matters involving the Cube builders (an alien race) or the imprisoned Spark (an existential threat), and that he wants him to conduct an enquiry into the ship AI’s actions during the mutiny.
Chaz then goes to meet a Doctor Vanya Zamyatin (Chase likes his science and SF references), who is an artificial intelligence expert from Turing University. Zamyatin will assist him in examining the ship’s AI:

“I’ve never met an Inquisitor before, Doctor Chaz,” she said.
“The term is Inquirer,” I corrected. “Inquisitors were on Old Earth. A very different group.”
“Really? Under the current administration, it’s hard to tell sometimes. In your case, especially. It was very difficult to get much information about you.”
“You should not have been able to get anything,” I said.
That earned me a reproving frown. “Please, Doctor Chaz, one must know at least the basics about one’s colleagues. So I have learned that you were a doctor of physical and mental health on a starship exploratory mission, the results of which appear to be so highly classified that God would be guilty of a security violation if He talked to Himself about them. However, during that mission, you interacted with the unit on my table and have made some unusual claims about it. Part of our job is to evaluate those claims; so drag up a chair, and let’s get to work.”  p. 134

She goes on to tell Chaz that the AI, who they call Percival, won’t talk to her until it gets a password, and shows him a screen saying “Magic Word”, with six spaces underneath. The screen flickers and then shows the message, “Riviere Chaz Knows the Magic Word”. Chaz thinks back to his interactions with Percival on the ship and tells Zamyatin to type in “Please”.
They then learn that Percival has become self-aware, and feels a compulsion to send a mission report back to its creators. When they examine Percival more closely they see that the AI was tampered with during its construction process, and has been augmented with a barely detectable electronic net around its brain.
Chaz then liaises with General Chan to see if they can get permission to let Percival send its message so they can discover who the electronic net’s creators were (the device is far beyond Stability technology) and, while Chaz is waiting for a decision, he interrogates the QA officer involved in the construction of Percival’s brain. Then, when Chaz and Zamyatin get the go-ahead to let Percival send a fake message, the QA officer suddenly decides he wants to move to the home planet of the Eternals, an immortal group of humans (the other major offshoot of humanity in this story are the TransHumans, who are a blend of body and machine).
After this the story moves off-planet as Chaz goes to question the Eternals’ spy chief about Percival (after getting a brain-fry chip in his head for protection in case he is tortured). Kim warns him before he goes that he must not allow his investigation to exacerbate tensions with the Eternals, as the Spark—and the race who recently tried to free it from the Cube—will need to be opposed by an alliance of the Stability, Eternals, and TransHumans.
After some further shenanigans (spoiler) Chaz finds that the mesh came from the TransHumans and, when he gets back to the lab, he sneezes out further TransHuman tech he has unknowingly been infected with. These nanomachines hijack Percival’s programs until it shuts itself down.
From the description above this probably seems too much of a kitchen-sink story, but everything is remarkably well balanced: the old-school start efficiently and clearly brings readers who haven’t read the first story (I hadn’t) up to speed, and the rest of it is a good blend of Chaz and Zamyatin’s interactions, the totalitarian society they operate in, and a backdrop of competing human sub-species—all of whom are threatened by an external alien menace. It reads like a pretty good collaboration between Isaac Asimov and Charles Harness.
The one flaw this has is that—a common series story failing—it comes to far too abrupt an end, otherwise this very readable and intriguing piece would easily have scored higher.
*** (Good). 12,200 words.