Analog Science Fiction & Fact, November/December 2025

Astounding/Analog

by Trevor Quachri (Editor), A.C. Koch, Alec Nevala-Lee

Vol. XCV No. 11 & 12

Novella:
• ALEYARA’S FLIGHT, Christopher L. Bennett

Novelettes:
• THE DANCING BEAR, Joyce & Stanley Schmidt
• FAITH, Kate Maruyama
• ONE STEP AWAY, Lance Robinson
• PIRATES OF PAN, James Dick

Short stories:
• THE STARWORTHY SLIP, A.C. Koch
• WITH LANTERNS BORNE ALOFT, Mark W. Tiedemann
• TERMINA, Subodhana Wijeyeratne
• ONE PEEK, Lilian Garratt-Smithson
• THE WI-FI WOMB, Avi Burton
• AND EVERY GALATEA SHAPED ANEW, Marissa Lingen
• PEOPLE OF THE CONSORTIUM WORLDS V. RAX, GOD OF MISERY, Leonard Richardson
• MAMMOTH, C.L. Schacht
• THE RICHES WE TAKE, Sam W. Pisciotta
• EARTH’S LAST LIBRARY, James Van Pelt
• COBALT PLATE SPECIAL, Jon Hansen
• THE UNDERAPPRECIATION OF DANNY WHITE, David Ebenbach
• CHALICE, James L. Cambias

Flash fiction:
• THE MOUNTAIN AT THE HEART OF THE LABYRINTH, Deborah L. Davitt

Science fact:
• OUT OF “SOME WARM LITTLE POND,” PART II: BIOS AND THE LAST UNIVERSAL COMMON ANCESTOR, Kelly Lagor

Poetry:
• CONSTRUCTS, Thomas Belton
• IRRATIONAL FAITH, Richard Schiffman

Reader's departments:
• GUEST EDITORIAL: A Matrix and (At Least Three) Curves, Howard V. Hendrix
• UNKNOWNS: Noble Guesses, Alec Nevala-Lee
• THE ALTERNATE VIEW, John G. Cramer
• IN TIMES TO COME
• THE REFERENCE LIBRARY, Rosemary Claire Smith
• BRASS TACKS

Cover art by Eldar Zakirov for Bennett's novella.

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208 pages, digest magazine

Published October 8, 2025

About the author

Trevor Quachri (b. 1976) has been the sixth editor of Analog Science Fiction & Fact magazine since September 2012.

Previously, he was “a Broadway stagehand, collected data for museums, and executive produced a science fiction pilot for a basic cable channel.”

Quachri started as an editorial assistant in 1999 at Asimov's Science Fiction and Analog. Former editor of Analog, Ben Bova, was an early influence.

Reviews

[John Loyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

8 • Aleyara's Flight • 28 pages by Christopher L. Bennett
OK/Good. Aleyara and the other descenders are returning. King Gorlai is the one person who would sponsor their investigations. About twenty pages in we learn Gorlai’s ulterior motive, that he wants to use the knowledge for conquest. All the names, tribes and relationships from “Aleyara’s Descent” had slipped from my mind. Refreshing that took awhile.

42 • The Starworthy Slip • 12 pages by A. C. Koch
Good. Juvi is up to something, probably some part of a criminal scheme, for which he needs a new identity. His girlfriend says she can help with that, for his ship. I am a little surprised at the premise that this guy who has a ship that must be worth a lot is giving it up to make some other score.

54 • The Dancing Bear • 18 pages by Stanley Schmidt, Joyce Schmidt
Good/Very Good. Climate change has caused havoc for the polar bear population around Churchill. There have been more human bear encounters, including a death. Jake is a patrolman trying to keep the humans safe. Leyla now is a tour organizer. At a town meeting after an incident Charlie proposes TMS, a mind stimulater delivered by drone.

72 • With Lanterns Borne Aloft • 8 pages by Mark W. Tiedemann
OK+. Strangers are in Springville. The strangers are accompanied by Morgan who left, and has been reviled for that, a few years ago. They’ve tested the water and it’s dangerously contaminated. They suggest water treatment. It’ll be hard for Kestry to get the xenophobic town on board with anything but isolation.

80 • Termina • 8 pages by Subodhana Wijeyeratne
Very Good/Good. Usually I don’t care for stories that are dismal or no future regardless if the hero “wins.” A colony ship crash landed and there are no human survivors, just the ship loaded into a mobile unit. There is one human fetus in the incubation chamber, the ship robot delivers and cares for this baby in hopes that one human will help it remember.

88 • One Peek • 6 pages by Lilian Garratt-Smithson
Good+. Abigail wakes from six thousand years of sleep. The ship is now just two years out from New Colony. She gets her first email, it’s the package she signed up for before she left. Weekly updates from her family. Wow, they’re millennia dead, but she can’t grieve.

94 • The Wi-Fi Womb • 6 pages by Avi Burton
Good/OK. At five months pregnant Paisley gets a chip to monitor the health of her baby.

101 • The Mountain at the Heart of the Labyrinth • 2 pages by Deborah L. Davitt
Good+. Sabrina and Mike are seated next to each other on a flight to spread their loved one’s ashes. Having in common that it was their partner who loved Pluto.

106 • And Every Galatea Shaped Anew • 4 pages by Marissa Lingen
Very Good/Good. Laura was talked into using the Truelove device by Margaret. After three years she broke free. Margaret wants her to come back, but it is over. Laura doesn’t want to change her via some device. Whatever happened to just asking?

110 • People of the Consortium Worlds V. Rax, God of Misery • 6 pages by Leonard Richardson
Good/VG. Ravy came to the worst planet in the galaxy to put Rax under arrest. The actual god of misery. There was not much she could do to force the got away. The one who fed on human misery.

116 • Mammoth • 10 pages by C. L. Schacht
Good. Haoyu from the Committee on Crime wanted to take down the Triad which was smuggling a shipment of mammoth meat. When they got there it was just fish. A lot of world building here, with ubiquitous cameras, stealth drones, satellite imagery and public opinion where everything has to be aboveboard. For the police as well as the average citizen.

126 • Faith • 10 pages by Kate Maruyama
Good. Mila’s mom made the bacteria that create enough oxygen. Every year she’d go into her tent/lab and save them until the next time. The problem was her assistant didn’t get close enough to document it and now she has dementia. Mila has been assigned back to taking care of her and to somehow see what she’s been doing.

136 • One Step Away • 12 pages by Lance Robinson
Fair/OK. Climate change has wreaked havoc over and over. The UN is having a meeting in Atlanta, but the same old problems are arising. Everyone wants some sort of incentive, whether it be more power, compensation for not exploiting their natural resources, etc.

148 • The Riches We Take • 6 pages by Sam W. Pisciotta
OK. Clementine is an independent miner. She’s in town, but will have to come back sooner because the supply store is out of what she needs. For now it’s back to her claim.

154 • Earth's Last Library • 6 pages by James Van Pelt
OK/Fair. There are no humans left on Earth. Cetus and Lyra are bringing a shipment of Earth’s priceless books to the new world. Half in each ship, but one failed while in hyperspace. They were able to connect the ships, but there is not enough fuel to slow down the mass of both of them. Cetus says cut it loose there were two ships on purpose, Lyra says there is enough fuel to slow them down enough so the colonists will be able to chase them down, albeit after their oxygen has run out. Cetus isn’t willing to die for the books, Lyra won’t lose them.

160 • Cobalt Plate Special • 4 pages by Jon Hansen
Good. A cyber comes into the specialty analog (non-digital, not a reference to this magazine) restaurant, doesn’t respond to the Pru and then walks away. The restaurant gets a review that they are biased against cybers. All because the Pru doesn’t have a ubiquitous implant. Now she’s demoted from hostess to waitress.

164 • The Underappreciation of Danny White • 8 pages by David Ebenbach
Good/OK. Humans have been separated by the Overdominators. Today is Thanksgiving, the narrator and his wife are allowed to join her family this year. They try to keep the experience the same even replaying football games (there are, of course, no new games being played) on the TV and preparing food that has the appearance of food.

172 • Chalice • 10 pages by James L. Cambias
Good/VG. Devica and a robot are hired by Ispati to get into Calyx and get scans of its data. Millennia ago a war left an unexploded nano-bomb there. It later degraded and the nanobots created something. The discoverer is one of the richest people in the solar system. And a couple more twists and turns, what does Ispati really hope to gain? And what about that guy who introduced them to each other?

182 • Pirates of Pan • 19 pages by James Dick
Good/VG. On the way back to Siarnaq the ship is attacked by pirates, demanding not just food, but engines and laser core, too. Not their usual MO. After losing engines they make it back to their moon. The crew determines the pirate are who they said they were. Guillaume’s wife discovers the pirates are inside the rings near Pan. With Siarnaq being gouged by the admin of the inner moons Guillaume comes up with the idea to make an alliance with the pirates.

[Brendan Powell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars for this issue ... the Novella was a fantasy, not a sci-fi story ... no thanks.

Other short stories were good.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aleyara has developed The Method, a way of examining and questioning assertions and testing them using evidence, which has enabled her clan to increase its technological knowledge on her planet. Two-thirds covered by a massive tree complex, they live in the canopy, but Aleyara has discovered that below is not an afterlife but merely a surface of decaying organisms. Naively assuming the sponsorship of her king Gorlai the Golden is for theoretical knowledge, she is shocked to find more warlike plans in “Aleyara’s Flight” by Christopher L. Bennett. A. C. Koch gives us a heist tale, where the getaway pilot Juvi, keen to escape Europa with the purloined item his partner has procured, finds his life complicated by Naïma, who he desires very much in “The Starworthy Slip”. Polar bears have become a problem for humans thanks to climate change in Alaska, but a researcher has developed a neural chip that might make them more docile in “The Dancing Bear” by Joyce & Stanley Schmidt. When a toddler goes missing in a blizzard the tech gets a surprising workout. Abigail is woken from cryosleep two years out from her ship’s destination and thousands of years after she left Earth. Her weekly messages from home have been archived but she finds that watching them becomes a form of cruelty. Her “One Peek” at the end gives a surprise though in this example of a well-examined trope by Lilian Garratt-Smithson. TruLove was marketed as the ultimate relationship smoother, subtly altering behaviours of both parties to ensure compatibility. But what if that wasn’t exactly what it was doing? Marissa Lingen examines this dark possibility in “And Every Galatea Shaped Anew”. Haoyu works for the Commission on Crime and is investigating the possible smuggling of “Mammoth” meat by Triads. But the sting operation goes badly wrong, humiliating Haoyu, who instead finds himself offered an opportunity to change careers in C. L. Schact’s tale. Kate Maruyama gives us the poignant tale of a crucial atmospheric engineer on Mars who has descended into Alzheimers, and the frustrated and devastated daughter who must cajole her memories back into the light in “Faith”. Lance Robinson finds a last-ditch UN climate action meeting “One Step Away” from failure. But it could also be that close to success. “The Underappreciation Of Danny White" by David Ebenbach gives off a terrifying It’s A GOOD Life! vibe, with the Overdominators subjugating humans in laser cages and thoughts and actions strictly limited. Pick tale. “Chalice” by James L. Cambias takes us to Calyx, a world quarantined due to nanobot infestations. But a desperate partner puts together a mission with the lure of great wealth. The rest is readable enough. Good issue.