Analog Science Fiction & Fact, January/February 2026

Astounding/Analog

by Trevor Quachri (Editor)

Vol. XCVI, No. 1 & 2

Novelettes:
• SIN EATERS, Mark W. Tiedemann
• THE ORIGAMI MAN, Doug Franklin
• MONKEY TRAP, Geoffrey Hart

Short stories:
• SALARY MAN, Matt McHugh
• YOU WHO SOUGHT THE STARS’ DISTANT LIGHT, Stewart C. Baker
• ARTIFICIAL CUPIDITY, Hayden Trenholm
• STILL COLD, STILL LOSING AIR, Sean Monaghan
• A GOODBYE AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE, Ian Baaske
• SILVER HANDS, E.L. Mellor
• UNSUNG, Derrick Boden
• A FUTURE FULL OF GLACIERS, Peter Medeiros
• FLAG LAMP, Jonathan Olfert
• RECOGNITION, MEMORY, Benjamin C. Kinney
• JACK CADE’S REBELLION, Philip Brian Hall
• A CHATBOT’S GUIDE TO SELF-RESPECT, Jo Miles
• LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON, Theodora Sutcliffe
• AND SHE IS CONTENT, Frank Ward
• LINKA’S OUT, Rich Larson
• IRON STAR SWING, Kate Orman

Probability Zero:
• JIGGITY JOG, Don Mark Baldridge

Science fact:
• NOR ANY DROP TO DRINK, Kevin Walsh

Special features:
• THE WAR, ASTOUNDING, AND CAMPBELL, Edward M. Wysocki
• ME-N-YOU-GENICS, Howard V. Hendrix

Poetry:
• ESCAPE POD, S.L. Johnson
• THE BONES THEY LEFT, Shanley Poole

Reader's departments:
• EDITORIAL: The State of the Union, Trevor Quachri
• IN TIMES TO COME
• THE ALTERNATE VIEW, John G. Cramer
• IN MEMORIAN: J.T. SHARRAH, Emily Hockaday
• IN MEMORIAN: BRUCE BOSTON, Emily Hockaday
• UNKNOWNS: TIME LAPSE, Todd McClary, edited by Alec Nevala-Lee
• THE REFERENCE LIBRARY, Sean CW Korsgaard
• BRASS TACKS
• 2025 INDEX
• ANALYTICAL LABORATORY BALLOT

【 PREVIOUS ISSUE ← January/February 2026 → NEXT ISSUE 】

208 pages, digest magazine

Published December 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 • Sin Eaters • 19 pages by Mark W. Tiedemann
Good/VG. Pollard has led the investigation leading to the raid to recover the Cassine children. His part is over now it’s up to the courts. Until the state department asks him to go talk with the Cassine again. They don’t want to press charges, for them the matter is closed. What’s up with the Cassine? They’ve done their best to follow Earth customs up until now.

34 • The Origami Man • 16 pages by Doug Franklin
Very Good. Jerry is out fishing with Nevin and JR when they discover a dead body floating in the middle of the ocean. Soon it is no longer dead, they speculate on what type of supernatural being this is, kushtaki or alien, and bring it in and drop it off at the hospital. With no proof of its shapeshifting they don’t want to sound crazy and say nothing. Jerry is still wary.

50 • Salary Man • 7 pages by Matt McHugh
Good. Koji working for an insurance company becomes interested in helping one of their clients succeed. It’s a lunar colony with lofty, but probably overly optimistic, goals.

57 • You Who Sought the Stars' Distant Light • 5 pages by Stewart C. Baker
Good. The inventor of a human consciousness to ship brain is aghast when his employers aren’t planning to use the process on volunteers.

68 • Jiggity Jog • 3 pages by Don Mark Baldridge
OK. Time traveler arrives home after making changes in the past.

72 • Artificial Cupidity • 6 pages by Hayden Trenholm
Good/OK. The president, an AI, is having an existential crisis. Robichaud has moved up to Chief of Staff and has his first meeting with [pronoun is now] her. The premise includes many AI leaders. Executor Prime suddenly wanting to have more friends, it’s not working and Robichaud has to be a counselor. A few digs at current society just for kicks.

78 • Still Cold, Still Losing Air • 7 pages by Sean Monaghan
Fair/OK. Dylan’s suit is giving him warnings. He’s coming back to the rover. When he gets to the airlock it won’t open, no response from Clementine inside the vehicle and he’s feeling the cold.

89 • A Goodbye at the End of the Universe • 3 pages by Ian Baaske
OK/Fair. A ship gets caught in a black hole. There’s a Final Communique on board. It allows the admiral to see snippets of the lives of his children and descendants as millennia pass outside.

92 • Silver Hands • 4 pages by E. L. Mellor
OK+. Musicians with damaged hands have been able to get prosthetics that allow them to play as well as before, now there are advancements and it’s even better. Esme is a student at a music academy, where she has a scholarship and the very best instrument. But to go on, she’ll have to give up her human hand. Fine dilemma for Esme, but I’m not invested or connected.

96 • Unsung • 8 pages by Derrick Boden
Fair/OK. Banner is going to be a hero for the State in its war against Ruin. He’s bred to be an amalgam, human integrated with machine. Time and again he is deployed, but Ruin is seemingly waiting for him. I kind of visualized this as humans vs. machines, though I have no idea whether that was the intent or not.

104 • A Future Full of Glaciers • 11 pages by Peter Medeiros
Good. Three friends summer vacation by a lake where a few years later first contact with the Heen will be made. One of the friends almost drowns in the lake, Palila becomes a researcher. She is the one heading the project to map the depth of the lake and inadvertently found the Heen.

115 • Flag Lamp • 9 pages by Jonathan Olfert
Gave up/poor. I couldn’t follow this story. Eden Gorsk was some sort of pilot (a counter) in the Saturn system. Not sure of the mission. I think Gorsk jumped the gun on launch because it was just taking too long. I couldn’t even tell you if Gorsk was human, or an android or what. Some talk of Eden having been a child, and mentions of human anatomy, breathing, cold, ribs, but the psyche seemed focused on the job. It was a muddle, maybe I was too tired.

130 • Recognition Memory • 8 pages by Benjamin C. Kinney
Good. Billionaire Peter Vanler is resurrected after dying of cancer. Brain scan downloaded into a (his?) cancer-free body. He’s back, sort of. When he thinks of his name, it’s Peter, but he doesn’t feel like Peter.

138 • Jack Cade's Rebellion • 3 pages by Philip Brian Hall
Good. The council sends a bot to chastise Jack for not registering his smartphone. Which he doesn’t have.

141 • A Chatbot's Guide to Self Respect • 3 pages by Jo Miles
OK. Gimmicky. A personal assistant bot is sent to a psychiatrist one because it is tasked with doing things that it can’t do.

144 • Like Father, like Son • 4 pages by Theodora Sutcliffe
OK/Fair. Ethan and Annie go to visit his parents. Ethan the miracle baby, enhanced, after Violet had several miscarriages. They struggle to slow down their thinking to be at the level of his parents.

148 • And She Is Content • 6 pages by Frank Ward
Fair. Another hundred years have passed, Heloise readies a city so the ark passengers can awake and [both metaphorically and literally] stretch their legs before going back into hibernation.

158 • Linka's Out • 6 pages by Rich Larson
OK. Nocti is excited that Linka is being released from company prison, she was a striker, and can barely contain his anticipation.

164 • Iron Star Swing • 12 pages by Kate Orman
Fair+. Coiner’s eddy (habitat/nation) is under attack by the enemy. Ladyclock is injured needing assistance. They create a hospital space for her. Firetruck, the trainee, is sort of taken by Ladyclock. Elsewhere spies for the enemy are trying to find out what Coiner is working on. Gimmicky in that this is set trillions of years in the future on the remnants of stars now black dwarfs. Too much effort to try to visualize the setting only to have to change it when the next femtovehicle is mentioned.

176 • Monkey Trap • 20 pages by Geoffrey Hart
Very Good/Good. Six people go back to Cueball to mine valuable minerals they discovered before they retired from Navy Survey. It’s cold, minus forty at the equator. Unfortunately the navy keeps tabs on veterans and they’ve followed them to the planet. They come up with a plausible excuse for being there and the navy goes away, for now. Meanwhile they find Cueball has more than just veins of minerals.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

The alien Cassine have tasked the human police, under the command of Pollard, to find some missing youngsters. The kidnapper has tortured and scarred them and insists the Cassine asked him to do it. Pollard, recently widowed, finds that the concepts of retribution and atonement are complicated in “Sin Eater” by Mark W. Tiedemann. An alien shapeshifting organism is pulled from the ocean off Alaska, seemingly dead until it reforms itself into a human-like body. Fisherman Jerry starts thinking zombie, or a kushtaka, and it can sample DNA through its tongue. Jerry’s son has a fatal genetic disease and when the organism, known as TOM, offers to repair him by ‘refolding’ him, Jerry must make a choice in “The Origami Man” by Doug Franklin. Hayden Trenholm gives us (what I hope) is some satire with “Artificial Cupidity”, where an AI American President is so desperate for friends that they risk nuclear armageddon, while Sean Monaghan shows us just how dangerous an alien environment like Mars can be in “Still Cold, Still Losing Air”. An interesting shorter piece is “A Goodbye At The End Of The Universe” by Ian Baaske, where a spaceship has crossed the event horizon of a black hole with devastating results, while billionnaire Peter Vanler finds himself waking up after dying, recipient of the first ever brain scan upload in “Recognition, Memory” by Benjamin C. Kinney. But Peter is not himself and that is dangerous for his psyche, his corporation and whoever the hell he is now. Heloise has overseen the safety and comfort of all those in suspension on the ark ship for centuries, and once a century they are revived for a few days to celebrate their continued existence before going back into hibernation. But this time is different. The cradles are empty and coated with dust and her captain tells her an unpalatable truth from an unbridgeable distance in “And She Is Content” by Frank Ward. Philip Brian Hall finds an obvious and unsolvable loophole in his AI future in “Jack Cade’s Rebellion “. Ironically amusing. Nocti is ecstatic because today “Linka’s Out” of prison after serving her time for a worker rebellion. But Nocti is totally unprepared (as is the reader) for just how it has changed her. Rich Larson’s horrific, affecting and shocking tale will be one you will long remember. After filing a nothing-to-see-here report on the ice planet Cueball, some ex-members of the Survey Service return to surreptitiously mine the rare minerals they actually found there. However their quest for wealth gets sidetracked by a discovery so awesome it cannot be kept secret in “Monkey Trap” by Geoffrey Hart. A mixed issue but the good stories are very good.

[Brendan Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection of stories in this issue. Sometimes I come across an issue with stories that are more fantasy than sci-fi, but not this time.

Each story was great, well written, and had the right mix of hard vs. soft sci-fi.

These are worth the subscription for sure.