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Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Volume 133, Issue 1 & 2, January-February 2013
Novellas
"The Woman Who Cried Corpse", Rajnar Vajra
"Time Out", Edward M. Lerner
Novelettes
"The Exchange Officers", Brad R.Torgersen
"Descartes's Stepchildren", Robert Scherrer
"Buddha Nature", Amy Thomson
"True to Form". Kyle Kirkland
Short Stories
"In the Moment”, Jerry Oltion
"The War of the Worlds, Book One Chapter 18: The Sergeant-Major”, John G. Hemry
"Neighborhood Watch", H. G. Stratmann
Science Fact
“The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown”, Michael F. Flynn
Special Feature
"Time, Place, and Wonder: The Use of Setting in Short Fiction", Richard A. Lovett
"The Woman Who Cried Corpse", Rajnar Vajra
"Time Out", Edward M. Lerner
Novelettes
"The Exchange Officers", Brad R.Torgersen
"Descartes's Stepchildren", Robert Scherrer
"Buddha Nature", Amy Thomson
"True to Form". Kyle Kirkland
Short Stories
"In the Moment”, Jerry Oltion
"The War of the Worlds, Book One Chapter 18: The Sergeant-Major”, John G. Hemry
"Neighborhood Watch", H. G. Stratmann
Science Fact
“The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown”, Michael F. Flynn
Special Feature
"Time, Place, and Wonder: The Use of Setting in Short Fiction", Richard A. Lovett
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First published November 1, 2012
2 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
About the author
Stanley Schmidt
502 books6 followersStanley Schmidt is an American science fiction author. Between 1978 and 2012 he served as editor of
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 28, 2023
Very high average quality of stories in this double issue.
Buddha Nature by Amy Thomson
This novelette has a bit of an unusual setting. The story takes place entirely in a Buddhist monastery and follows a robot that seeks to achieve enlightenment as a monk.
The robot called Raz is a cataloging robot specially built to absorb and catalogue books. Its previous function turned obsolete, so it sought out the monastery by itself. After some debate between the monks, the robot is accepted in the community as an equal. Not without issues though. Especially one other monk is very adamant that spiritual enlightenment is only for humans and a soul-less unconscious machine should not be allowed.
This simple but effective setup creates a story with lots of philosophical debate about sentience, free will and spiritual topics. A theme that has been explored in countless science fiction stories, and while I haven’t seen one that took place in a religious setting like here, there isn’t much new to add.
While the story is easy to follow and reasonably engaging, I was thinking of the classic Star Trek TNG episode “The Measure Of A Man” which deals with lots of the same questions and uses the same type of conflict to setup the arguments for and against – and ultimately does it better.
Time Out by Edward M. Lerner
One of the great things about going back to older issues of a magazine is when you read a great story that you would otherwise have missed, because it hasn’t been reprinted much. This time travel novella is one such story.
The setup of this story could almost have come out of the same magazine in the 1930s. Jonas is the typical mad scientist. He is working alone because his fellow researchers at the university have turned their back on him and his unorthodox interests. He is claiming to be very close to discovering time travel. He needs an assistant at his lab and along comes Peter, an ex-convict willing to accept the low paying job but with full accommodation at the scientists’ lab.
The version of time travel that Jonas invents is the one where it is possible to send objects back in time. But only if there is a compatible receiver running in that time. Neatly explaining why no time travelers from the future have been seen yet. In all this, Peter is doing his job as a general handyman while being equally intrigued and perplexed by what is going on. He becomes somewhat friends with Jonas and they go through the usual motions of discussing all the well known paradoxes of time travel.
As the story moves forward and Jonas successfully manages to get messages from his future self – with some good stock tips among other things – Peter becomes increasingly worried about the consequences of trying to change the course of history. Butterfly effect and all that.
While the story starts kinda light, the tone gets progressively darker. The stakes are ramped up and the cascading effects of messing with time lines become harder to ignore. While this story doesn’t do much new with how it deals with time travel paradoxes, it handles them well and understandable. The author is aware that the typical Analog reader likely knows the genre well enough, and he uses that to take what might seem at first to be the usual route for time travel stories, but the ending was something different – and quite moving I might add. Very much recommended.
Neighborhood Watch by H.G. Stratmann
A delightfully silly story with the amusing premise that all the planets in the solar system are inhabited with intelligent life, only humans don’t know it.
All the different species in the Solar System have some sort of union where they discuss things and what to do with the increasingly curious humans. It was easy enough to fool the scientists of Earth when they invented telescopes, but with spaceships surveying planets and landrovers on Mars, the need for complex holographic illusions has increased. The story evovles around the martian Twee’ll (a clear reference to Tweeel from Stanley G. Weinbaums “A Martian Odyssey”) and its dealings with the other solar species about how to proceed with the Earth situation.
This is the type of story I always love to see in Analog. There should be room for these less than serious stories – as long as they are as entertaining as this one.
Descartes’s Stepchildren by Robert Scherrer
This was a very Analog-esque story. Scientists discover something incredible but the consequences are more messy and complicated. Here we delve into a test for human consciousness.
John and his research partner have developed a special MRI scan that can detect where the consciousness lies in the brain. The twist is that their tests show that about 20% of human test subjects are not really conscious. This discovery hits Johns partner hard, because according to the test his wife’s brain shows no activity in the consciousness-center. She is a what is named a Blank in the story. John wants to publish their results anyway and the world changes drastically when their findings become public knowledge.
A test becomes widely available and many people start to test themselves, their kids, future employees and so on. The Blanks quickly become second-rate citizens unable to get a job or stay in a relationship. Many kids ends up as orphanages because their parents don’t want them. John gets rich for his patents on the tests, but he has increasingly moral qualms about the whole thing.
This story has a lot to unpack. There are plenty of philosophical and existential questions to ponder with the concept of human consciousness. I like the general premise of this story, but the consequences to the greater society are only dealt with in broad headlines since the primary focus is on John. Also, I found that their test was a little too easily accepted as scientific fact. Of course these simplifications are needed for the story to work, but I wasn’t totally convinced of what happened. My reading experience might have been hampered a bit by reading “The Algorithms for Love” the same day. It has a completely different approach to dealing with humans free will, but managed to create a more personal depth to it, whereas this story had a broader and distanced perspective.
Find more reviews at https://shortsfreviews.com/
Buddha Nature by Amy Thomson
This novelette has a bit of an unusual setting. The story takes place entirely in a Buddhist monastery and follows a robot that seeks to achieve enlightenment as a monk.
The robot called Raz is a cataloging robot specially built to absorb and catalogue books. Its previous function turned obsolete, so it sought out the monastery by itself. After some debate between the monks, the robot is accepted in the community as an equal. Not without issues though. Especially one other monk is very adamant that spiritual enlightenment is only for humans and a soul-less unconscious machine should not be allowed.
This simple but effective setup creates a story with lots of philosophical debate about sentience, free will and spiritual topics. A theme that has been explored in countless science fiction stories, and while I haven’t seen one that took place in a religious setting like here, there isn’t much new to add.
While the story is easy to follow and reasonably engaging, I was thinking of the classic Star Trek TNG episode “The Measure Of A Man” which deals with lots of the same questions and uses the same type of conflict to setup the arguments for and against – and ultimately does it better.
Time Out by Edward M. Lerner
One of the great things about going back to older issues of a magazine is when you read a great story that you would otherwise have missed, because it hasn’t been reprinted much. This time travel novella is one such story.
The setup of this story could almost have come out of the same magazine in the 1930s. Jonas is the typical mad scientist. He is working alone because his fellow researchers at the university have turned their back on him and his unorthodox interests. He is claiming to be very close to discovering time travel. He needs an assistant at his lab and along comes Peter, an ex-convict willing to accept the low paying job but with full accommodation at the scientists’ lab.
The version of time travel that Jonas invents is the one where it is possible to send objects back in time. But only if there is a compatible receiver running in that time. Neatly explaining why no time travelers from the future have been seen yet. In all this, Peter is doing his job as a general handyman while being equally intrigued and perplexed by what is going on. He becomes somewhat friends with Jonas and they go through the usual motions of discussing all the well known paradoxes of time travel.
As the story moves forward and Jonas successfully manages to get messages from his future self – with some good stock tips among other things – Peter becomes increasingly worried about the consequences of trying to change the course of history. Butterfly effect and all that.
While the story starts kinda light, the tone gets progressively darker. The stakes are ramped up and the cascading effects of messing with time lines become harder to ignore. While this story doesn’t do much new with how it deals with time travel paradoxes, it handles them well and understandable. The author is aware that the typical Analog reader likely knows the genre well enough, and he uses that to take what might seem at first to be the usual route for time travel stories, but the ending was something different – and quite moving I might add. Very much recommended.
Neighborhood Watch by H.G. Stratmann
A delightfully silly story with the amusing premise that all the planets in the solar system are inhabited with intelligent life, only humans don’t know it.
All the different species in the Solar System have some sort of union where they discuss things and what to do with the increasingly curious humans. It was easy enough to fool the scientists of Earth when they invented telescopes, but with spaceships surveying planets and landrovers on Mars, the need for complex holographic illusions has increased. The story evovles around the martian Twee’ll (a clear reference to Tweeel from Stanley G. Weinbaums “A Martian Odyssey”) and its dealings with the other solar species about how to proceed with the Earth situation.
This is the type of story I always love to see in Analog. There should be room for these less than serious stories – as long as they are as entertaining as this one.
Descartes’s Stepchildren by Robert Scherrer
This was a very Analog-esque story. Scientists discover something incredible but the consequences are more messy and complicated. Here we delve into a test for human consciousness.
John and his research partner have developed a special MRI scan that can detect where the consciousness lies in the brain. The twist is that their tests show that about 20% of human test subjects are not really conscious. This discovery hits Johns partner hard, because according to the test his wife’s brain shows no activity in the consciousness-center. She is a what is named a Blank in the story. John wants to publish their results anyway and the world changes drastically when their findings become public knowledge.
A test becomes widely available and many people start to test themselves, their kids, future employees and so on. The Blanks quickly become second-rate citizens unable to get a job or stay in a relationship. Many kids ends up as orphanages because their parents don’t want them. John gets rich for his patents on the tests, but he has increasingly moral qualms about the whole thing.
This story has a lot to unpack. There are plenty of philosophical and existential questions to ponder with the concept of human consciousness. I like the general premise of this story, but the consequences to the greater society are only dealt with in broad headlines since the primary focus is on John. Also, I found that their test was a little too easily accepted as scientific fact. Of course these simplifications are needed for the story to work, but I wasn’t totally convinced of what happened. My reading experience might have been hampered a bit by reading “The Algorithms for Love” the same day. It has a completely different approach to dealing with humans free will, but managed to create a more personal depth to it, whereas this story had a broader and distanced perspective.
Find more reviews at https://shortsfreviews.com/
June 8, 2014
Brad R. Torgersen's Hugo-nominated novelette, "The Exchange Officers", has some of the most hilariously poor exposition-heavy dialogue you're ever likely to read. Other than that, a perfectly adequate story about a near-future space-fight.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
March 1, 2015
25 stars of 10 attempted or read stories => 2.5 stars. Rounded to 3 because the two good stories in here were really good.
5 stars: "The Woman Who Cried Corpse" by Rajnar Vajna
Read it. So good. Inventive time travel, and some abstract ideas that made me want to go back and read all of my old Sagan and Hawking books. And I adored the characters. Flawed, believable, lovely.
4 stars: "Buddha Nature" by Amy Thomson
Forgive the continuity issues. In all other respects, awesome. I really want this to expand into something more than just a short story. I'm - perhaps ironically, given the nature of the story - attached to the outcome of a few characters whose stories wanted more resolution.
5 stars: "The Woman Who Cried Corpse" by Rajnar Vajna
Read it. So good. Inventive time travel, and some abstract ideas that made me want to go back and read all of my old Sagan and Hawking books. And I adored the characters. Flawed, believable, lovely.
4 stars: "Buddha Nature" by Amy Thomson
Forgive the continuity issues. In all other respects, awesome. I really want this to expand into something more than just a short story. I'm - perhaps ironically, given the nature of the story - attached to the outcome of a few characters whose stories wanted more resolution.
March 21, 2015
Novellas
The Woman Who Cried Corpse by Rajnar Vajra **
Time Out by Edward M. Lerner ****
Novelettes
The Exchange Officers by Brad R.Torgersen **
Descartes's Stepchildren by Robert Scherrer ***
Buddha Nature by Amy Thomson ****
True to Form by Kyle Kirkland ***
Short Stories
In the Moment by Jerry Oltion ****
The War of the Worlds, Book One Chapter 18: The Sergeant-Major by John G. Hemry ****
Neighborhood Watch by H. G. Stratmann ***
The Woman Who Cried Corpse by Rajnar Vajra **
Time Out by Edward M. Lerner ****
Novelettes
The Exchange Officers by Brad R.Torgersen **
Descartes's Stepchildren by Robert Scherrer ***
Buddha Nature by Amy Thomson ****
True to Form by Kyle Kirkland ***
Short Stories
In the Moment by Jerry Oltion ****
The War of the Worlds, Book One Chapter 18: The Sergeant-Major by John G. Hemry ****
Neighborhood Watch by H. G. Stratmann ***
June 26, 2013
Another issue, another set of mixed bag short stories and novellas. Nothing classic.
May 4, 2014
The Exchange Officers by Brad Torgersen
July 2, 2014
Only read "The Exchange Officers".
September 1, 2016
Backreading some recent issues. Need to figure out where I put the mid-80s and early 90s issues, particularly the one with Funnelhawk, but this one was the usual decent fare.
Want to read
April 28, 2014"The Exchange Officers" by Nrad Torgersen - Best Novelette nominee
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews