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Analog #0
Prologue to Analog
Ralph Williams. Business as Usual, During AlterationsJoseph P. Martino. Pushbutton WarChristopher Anvil. Pandora's PlanetRick Raphael. A Filbert is a NutH. Beam Piper. Omnilingual. 1957J.F Bone. TriggermanRandall Garrett, Robert Silverberg. Sound DecisionRoger Kuykendall. We Didn't Do Anything Wrong, HardlyEric Frank Russell. Minor IngredientIsaac Asimov. Belief. 1953
236 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
29 people want to read
About the author
John W. Campbell Jr.
784 books284 followersJohn Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later called Analog Science Fiction and Fact), from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in science fiction ever, and for the first ten years of his editorship he dominated the field completely."
As a writer, Campbell published super-science space opera under his own name and moody, less pulpish stories as Don A. Stuart. He stopped writing fiction after he became editor of Astounding.
Known Pseudonyms/Alternate Names:
Don A. Stuart
Karl van Campen
John Campbell
J. W. C., Jr.
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell
Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in science fiction ever, and for the first ten years of his editorship he dominated the field completely."
As a writer, Campbell published super-science space opera under his own name and moody, less pulpish stories as Don A. Stuart. He stopped writing fiction after he became editor of Astounding.
Known Pseudonyms/Alternate Names:
Don A. Stuart
Karl van Campen
John Campbell
J. W. C., Jr.
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 29, 2021
This is a good anthology of stories from Campbell's Astounding SF magazine that first appeared from 1953-1960, before the name was changed to Analog. There are good stories by Isaac Asimov, Eric Frank Russell, Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg, and Christopher Anvil's funny Pandora's Planet. (There's also a story by Joseph P. Martino, Pushbutton War, which was his first story. Martino wrote a dozen or so stories for Analog over the years; he was a brilliant military historian, and a swell guy... I met him several times.) My favorite story in the book was Omnilingual, a terrific novella by H. Beam Piper.
January 22, 2026
*Will be coming back to this*
July 3, 2020
John W. Campbell Jr. selected these short stories from those he edited in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION in the 1950s. A Science Fiction Book Club selection.
June 11, 2009
A collection of decent early science fiction stories from Analog magazine.
March 7, 2013
There are some truly great stories contained in this anthology, from a golden period for the magazine.
May 10, 2014
A nice collection of classic Science Fiction stories from the 1950s.
October 4, 2015
Short stories
April 20, 2017
I must confess that it was only after reading the introduction to this collection of stories from the last decade of Astounding Stories that I really understood the new name for the magazine: Analog. It had never occurred to me that it was Analog in the sense of analogous, but I'd always read it as continuous/opposite of digital. I must say that this makes much more sense!
Turning to the stories themselves, we have a number of excellent ones. The anthology kicks of with an Isaac Asimov warning tale about what happens when scientists get too fixed in their thinking, which a fun wee story. Next up is Pandora's Planet, about an alien invasion that goes horribly wrong, and the hope for forging a new future. There's a lot of humour in this one, as the aliens are baffled by the fact that they're having so many problems with their new world. Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg then deliver Sound Decision, a grim story about a space rocket that malfunctions on a return from Mars to Earth (somewhat reminiscent of Tom Godwin's The Cold Equations) and J. F. Bone shows us a military man with the courage to stand up to the entire chain of command to do the right thing.
The last few stories are perhaps less interesting, although Ralph Williams gives us an interesting spin on the old question of what would happen if humanity was just gifted a matter duplicator (his intriguing answer: not an awful lot) in Business as Usual, During Alterations.
However, for me, the stand out story of this collection has to be H. Beam Piper's Omnilingual. I really enjoyed this story of the first archaeological team on Mars, excavating the remains of the dead Marian civilisation, not just for the story but for Piper's treatment of women. Not only is his protagonist a woman (of some intelligence and determination), but his space force has female officers as well, all of which are introduced matter of factly, without making a fuss about it. Nowadays, of course, we wouldn't expect anything less, but this was written in 1957, a period when, especially male writers, routinely ignored women in their stories, or, if they were present, were just wives of (or prizes for) the hero. I also like the story as its focus isn't on the military or obvious heroics, but the hero is an archaeologist puzzling over the Martian language.
So a good read for any fan of SF's Golden Age, with (to my mind) at least one stand out contribution.
Turning to the stories themselves, we have a number of excellent ones. The anthology kicks of with an Isaac Asimov warning tale about what happens when scientists get too fixed in their thinking, which a fun wee story. Next up is Pandora's Planet, about an alien invasion that goes horribly wrong, and the hope for forging a new future. There's a lot of humour in this one, as the aliens are baffled by the fact that they're having so many problems with their new world. Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg then deliver Sound Decision, a grim story about a space rocket that malfunctions on a return from Mars to Earth (somewhat reminiscent of Tom Godwin's The Cold Equations) and J. F. Bone shows us a military man with the courage to stand up to the entire chain of command to do the right thing.
The last few stories are perhaps less interesting, although Ralph Williams gives us an interesting spin on the old question of what would happen if humanity was just gifted a matter duplicator (his intriguing answer: not an awful lot) in Business as Usual, During Alterations.
However, for me, the stand out story of this collection has to be H. Beam Piper's Omnilingual. I really enjoyed this story of the first archaeological team on Mars, excavating the remains of the dead Marian civilisation, not just for the story but for Piper's treatment of women. Not only is his protagonist a woman (of some intelligence and determination), but his space force has female officers as well, all of which are introduced matter of factly, without making a fuss about it. Nowadays, of course, we wouldn't expect anything less, but this was written in 1957, a period when, especially male writers, routinely ignored women in their stories, or, if they were present, were just wives of (or prizes for) the hero. I also like the story as its focus isn't on the military or obvious heroics, but the hero is an archaeologist puzzling over the Martian language.
So a good read for any fan of SF's Golden Age, with (to my mind) at least one stand out contribution.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews