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Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Volume 132, Issue 6, June 2012
June, 2012. Cover art by Tomislav Tikulin.
STORIES: Crooks by Paul Carlson; Titanium Soul by Catherine Shaffer; A Murmuration of Starlings by Joe Pitkin; An Ounce of Prevention by Jerry Oltion; The Fine Print by Michael Alexander; Darwin's Gambit by Emily Mah; A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy by N. M. Cedeño; Food Chained by Carl Frederick. FEATURES: The City "Solution" (editorial) by Stanley Schmidt; Is the Moon a Babel Fish? (science essay) by John Gribbin; Odds and Ends #5 [The Alternate View] by Jeffery D. Kooistra; The Reference Library (reviews) by Don Sakers; Brass Tacks (letters); Upcoming Events by Anthony Lewis. Interior art by Tomislav Tikulin.
STORIES: Crooks by Paul Carlson; Titanium Soul by Catherine Shaffer; A Murmuration of Starlings by Joe Pitkin; An Ounce of Prevention by Jerry Oltion; The Fine Print by Michael Alexander; Darwin's Gambit by Emily Mah; A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy by N. M. Cedeño; Food Chained by Carl Frederick. FEATURES: The City "Solution" (editorial) by Stanley Schmidt; Is the Moon a Babel Fish? (science essay) by John Gribbin; Odds and Ends #5 [The Alternate View] by Jeffery D. Kooistra; The Reference Library (reviews) by Don Sakers; Brass Tacks (letters); Upcoming Events by Anthony Lewis. Interior art by Tomislav Tikulin.
110 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2012
6 people want to read
About the author
Stanley Schmidt
503 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 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 31, 2016
3.75 stars
"Murmuration of Starlings" by Joe Pitkin - 5 stars
"Darwin's Gabmit" by Emily Mah - 5 stars
"Titanium Soul" by Catherine Shaffer - 4 stars
"An Ounce of Prevention" by Jerry Oltion - 4 stars
"The Fine Print" by Michael Alexander - 4 stars
"A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" by N. M. Cedeño - 3 stars
"Food Chained" by Carl Frederick - 3 stars
"Crooks" by Paul Carlson - 2 stars
"Murmuration of Starlings" by Joe Pitkin - 5 stars
Gorgeous short story about collective intelligence, and ideas around alien intelligence among us now, on Earth, among native species. There was something musical and beautiful of the narrative, kind of like reading a Yoon Ha Lee.
"Darwin's Gambit" by Emily Mah - 5 stars
Insubordinate LDS teenager in space. I like these kinds of pedestrian concepts in sci fi contexts to see how problems do and don't change. It's an exceptionally well-written piece; I didn't like any of the characters and yet I was so invested in the plot that I missed my bus stop by two bus stops without even realizing it.
"Titanium Soul" by Catherine Shaffer - 4 stars
What a story! Some great speculative technology on artificial conscience for humans suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder. Really poignant meta-level to the narrative.
"An Ounce of Prevention" by Jerry Oltion - 4 stars
Very compelling narrative, and an interesting vision of extraterrestrial human space port communities.
"The Fine Print" by Michael Alexander - 4 stars
Contact redux, mass spectrometry style. Loved the lab nerding. The two protagonists, one female, one male, had enough detail to feel familiar and real, without losing sight of the plot.
"A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" by N. M. Cedeño - 3 stars
Privacy-free dystopian future explored in the context of a not-quite film noir detective investigating a homicide. Good read, lot of exposition on privacy, some of it worth quoting.
"Food Chained" by Carl Frederick - 3 stars
First contact novelette. I was motivated as a vegetarian to stay involved in the plot and find out what was happening to the "meat" on the planet. Some thoroughly benign center-of-the-road sci fi: predictable, comfortable, forgettable. Nicely written.
"Crooks" by Paul Carlson - 2 stars
Whoo boy, "Crooks" sure has me riled up. On the one hand, I love robot stories. Asimov, Cherry 2000, I don't care, I'm in. His writing voice and style also reminds me very much of Warren Eyster whose prose I found compelling at the beginning of Goblins of Eros.
On the other hand, something subtle and insidious happened at every corner in the story. A subtle body shaming: "Sir Parsifal started in on a chocolate milkshake, which he really did not need." Calling out the races of a Chinese wife and WASP husband, but avoiding a race description for the "gangbanger" who drives a "low rider." Colloquially referring to lesbians as "their lifestyle."
Subtle, ostensibly defensible -isms seem really dangerous to me. They're harder to call out and challenge than their in-your-face louder siblings. I don't get an actively malicious hater vibe from any of this, and yet it's perpetuating a subtle bigotry that informs negative prejudices and stereotypes. And it completely distracted me from enjoying ROBOTS!
There was a kitten. I'm not sure why. There was a pregnancy. I'm also not sure why. I liked all the nerding about the truck tech and mechanics, and learning about Mek and Doll Box.
---
Digging into my Analog backlog after a few years of reading Clarkesworld is a surreal experience. There was a time when I believed sci fi was mostly written by white dudes, as evidenced by the majority white guy presence on the covers of my Analog magazines. I believed that the rest of us were genuine minorities in the genre. There are tons of great white guys writing sci fi, some of my favourites. But Clarkesworld is so unabashedly inclusive, it's forever changed how I perceive ... everything, really.
I used to feel guilty that I always noticed the whiteness of most of the authors published in Analog; was I being racist? But you have to see race to address racism. A lot of those same authors idealized color-blindness and - to borrow a phrase from a WisCon panel - the "faux diversity" of an inclusive cast of characters. But "faux" because there's no depth. Just because the lieutenant is a Ramirez doesn't mean Hispanics are now represented. Bless Analog, but as I read through the early 2010s, it felt more and more like the answer to increasing diversity in sci fi was having white guys write about diversity. Great, but diversity isn't best served by a homogeneous perspective.
And then there was Clarkesworld and it's forever changed my beliefs around who can and wants to write sci fi. Everyone with a good imagination and an intellectual curiousity, ya'll, and Clarkesworld opened the flood gate. This is why you're my hero Neil Clarke.
"Murmuration of Starlings" by Joe Pitkin - 5 stars
"Darwin's Gabmit" by Emily Mah - 5 stars
"Titanium Soul" by Catherine Shaffer - 4 stars
"An Ounce of Prevention" by Jerry Oltion - 4 stars
"The Fine Print" by Michael Alexander - 4 stars
"A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" by N. M. Cedeño - 3 stars
"Food Chained" by Carl Frederick - 3 stars
"Crooks" by Paul Carlson - 2 stars
"Murmuration of Starlings" by Joe Pitkin - 5 stars
Gorgeous short story about collective intelligence, and ideas around alien intelligence among us now, on Earth, among native species. There was something musical and beautiful of the narrative, kind of like reading a Yoon Ha Lee.
"Darwin's Gambit" by Emily Mah - 5 stars
Insubordinate LDS teenager in space. I like these kinds of pedestrian concepts in sci fi contexts to see how problems do and don't change. It's an exceptionally well-written piece; I didn't like any of the characters and yet I was so invested in the plot that I missed my bus stop by two bus stops without even realizing it.
"Titanium Soul" by Catherine Shaffer - 4 stars
What a story! Some great speculative technology on artificial conscience for humans suffering from Antisocial Personality Disorder. Really poignant meta-level to the narrative.
"An Ounce of Prevention" by Jerry Oltion - 4 stars
Very compelling narrative, and an interesting vision of extraterrestrial human space port communities.
"The Fine Print" by Michael Alexander - 4 stars
Contact redux, mass spectrometry style. Loved the lab nerding. The two protagonists, one female, one male, had enough detail to feel familiar and real, without losing sight of the plot.
"A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy" by N. M. Cedeño - 3 stars
Privacy-free dystopian future explored in the context of a not-quite film noir detective investigating a homicide. Good read, lot of exposition on privacy, some of it worth quoting.
"Food Chained" by Carl Frederick - 3 stars
First contact novelette. I was motivated as a vegetarian to stay involved in the plot and find out what was happening to the "meat" on the planet. Some thoroughly benign center-of-the-road sci fi: predictable, comfortable, forgettable. Nicely written.
"Crooks" by Paul Carlson - 2 stars
Whoo boy, "Crooks" sure has me riled up. On the one hand, I love robot stories. Asimov, Cherry 2000, I don't care, I'm in. His writing voice and style also reminds me very much of Warren Eyster whose prose I found compelling at the beginning of Goblins of Eros.
On the other hand, something subtle and insidious happened at every corner in the story. A subtle body shaming: "Sir Parsifal started in on a chocolate milkshake, which he really did not need." Calling out the races of a Chinese wife and WASP husband, but avoiding a race description for the "gangbanger" who drives a "low rider." Colloquially referring to lesbians as "their lifestyle."
Subtle, ostensibly defensible -isms seem really dangerous to me. They're harder to call out and challenge than their in-your-face louder siblings. I don't get an actively malicious hater vibe from any of this, and yet it's perpetuating a subtle bigotry that informs negative prejudices and stereotypes. And it completely distracted me from enjoying ROBOTS!
There was a kitten. I'm not sure why. There was a pregnancy. I'm also not sure why. I liked all the nerding about the truck tech and mechanics, and learning about Mek and Doll Box.
---
Digging into my Analog backlog after a few years of reading Clarkesworld is a surreal experience. There was a time when I believed sci fi was mostly written by white dudes, as evidenced by the majority white guy presence on the covers of my Analog magazines. I believed that the rest of us were genuine minorities in the genre. There are tons of great white guys writing sci fi, some of my favourites. But Clarkesworld is so unabashedly inclusive, it's forever changed how I perceive ... everything, really.
I used to feel guilty that I always noticed the whiteness of most of the authors published in Analog; was I being racist? But you have to see race to address racism. A lot of those same authors idealized color-blindness and - to borrow a phrase from a WisCon panel - the "faux diversity" of an inclusive cast of characters. But "faux" because there's no depth. Just because the lieutenant is a Ramirez doesn't mean Hispanics are now represented. Bless Analog, but as I read through the early 2010s, it felt more and more like the answer to increasing diversity in sci fi was having white guys write about diversity. Great, but diversity isn't best served by a homogeneous perspective.
And then there was Clarkesworld and it's forever changed my beliefs around who can and wants to write sci fi. Everyone with a good imagination and an intellectual curiousity, ya'll, and Clarkesworld opened the flood gate. This is why you're my hero Neil Clarke.
February 20, 2013
This issue have 2 novelettes and 6 short stories:
Noveletts:
Crooks by Paul Carlson ***
Food Chained by Carl Frederick ****
Short stories:
Titanium Soul by Catherine Shaffer ***
A Murmuration of Starlings by Joe Pitkin ****
An ounce of Prevention by Jerry Oltion NYR
The Fine Print by Michael Alexander ***
Darwin’s Gambit by Emily Mah ****
A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy by N. M. Cedeño ***1/2
Noveletts:
Crooks by Paul Carlson ***
Food Chained by Carl Frederick ****
Short stories:
Titanium Soul by Catherine Shaffer ***
A Murmuration of Starlings by Joe Pitkin ****
An ounce of Prevention by Jerry Oltion NYR
The Fine Print by Michael Alexander ***
Darwin’s Gambit by Emily Mah ****
A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy by N. M. Cedeño ***1/2
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews