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Astounding/Analog
Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, Vol. 86, No. 3, November 1970
Contents:
4 • The Now Generation • [Editorial (Analog)] • essay by John W. Campbell, Jr. [as by John W. Campbell]
8 • The Plague • novelette by Keith Laumer
28 • Bomb Scare • short story by Vernor Vinge
37 • The Analytical Laboratory: June 1970 (Analog, November 1970) • [The Analytical Laboratory] • essay by uncredited
39 • Life as We Don't Know It • [Science Fact (Analog)] • essay by Rick Cook
60 • In the Wabe • novelette by Rob Chilson [as by Robert Chilson]
89 • Department of Diverse Data (Analog, November 1970) • [Department of Diverse Data (Analog)] • essay by uncredited
92 • The Busted Troubadour • short story by Jackson Burrows
107 • In Times to Come (Analog, November 1970) • [In Times to Come (Analog)] • essay by The Editor
108 • The Tactics of Mistake (Part 2 of 4) • [Childe Cycle] • serial by Gordon R. Dickson (book publication as Tactics of Mistake 1971)
166 • The Reference Library: Under the Moons of Munsey (Analog, November 1970) • [The Reference Library] • essay by P. Schuyler Miller
171 • Brass Tacks (Analog, November 1970) • [Brass Tacks] • essay by uncredited
172 • Letter (Analog, November 1970) • [Letters: Michael Moorcock] • essay by Michael Moorcock
4 • The Now Generation • [Editorial (Analog)] • essay by John W. Campbell, Jr. [as by John W. Campbell]
8 • The Plague • novelette by Keith Laumer
28 • Bomb Scare • short story by Vernor Vinge
37 • The Analytical Laboratory: June 1970 (Analog, November 1970) • [The Analytical Laboratory] • essay by uncredited
39 • Life as We Don't Know It • [Science Fact (Analog)] • essay by Rick Cook
60 • In the Wabe • novelette by Rob Chilson [as by Robert Chilson]
89 • Department of Diverse Data (Analog, November 1970) • [Department of Diverse Data (Analog)] • essay by uncredited
92 • The Busted Troubadour • short story by Jackson Burrows
107 • In Times to Come (Analog, November 1970) • [In Times to Come (Analog)] • essay by The Editor
108 • The Tactics of Mistake (Part 2 of 4) • [Childe Cycle] • serial by Gordon R. Dickson (book publication as Tactics of Mistake 1971)
166 • The Reference Library: Under the Moons of Munsey (Analog, November 1970) • [The Reference Library] • essay by P. Schuyler Miller
171 • Brass Tacks (Analog, November 1970) • [Brass Tacks] • essay by uncredited
172 • Letter (Analog, November 1970) • [Letters: Michael Moorcock] • essay by Michael Moorcock
- GenresScience Fiction
180 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1970
18 people want to read
About the author
John W. Campbell Jr.
778 books283 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
Ratings & Reviews
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 2, 2024
This is the sixth magazine issue of my personal project to read the Analogs that my dad gave me before he passed away (I collect all my reviews for it here). My parents were still newlyweds and they finally had their first Thanksgiving together as a married couple. My dad's mother, grandmother (Granny), and sister flew down for the weekend, and my mom remembers Granny helping her with her first turkey. :) My mom also remembers really not liking her job, and they ran the numbers and decided she could quit her job and take a couple classes at the university in the next semester. So all in all, a pretty nice month for Dad to be reading this issue.
The November 1970 issue has yet another cover from Kelly Freas (he's done 5 of the 6 covers for the issues I've read so far), and it's a fun action scene of a giant alien warthog or boar running after a figure in the foreground, illustrating the Keith Laumer story.
The editorial "The Now Generation" from John W. Campbell, Jr. is of course, his usual nonsense, focusing on boomers (the young generation of the time) and criticizing their anti-establishment tendencies and focusing on their protests of the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia (a military action Campbell heartily supports). It's an incredibly boring piece, but also hilarious in that I've heard some of the exact same rhetoric applied by the boomers to millennials and Generation Z.
Keith Laumer's "The Plague" is a fairly fun story--a homestead farmer on a colony world sees his hard work usurped by an organization planning on settling unemployed workers on his land. Without direct violence, the farmer is able to (eventually) drive them from his property in a very clever way (the cover art shows one element of his strategy!). I can see the 22-year-old version of my dad having fun with this, but I'm left rather icked out by how cartoonish Laumer's villains are, and the description of the poor (never seen on page) as lazy.
"Bomb Scare" by Vernor Vinge basically doesn't have any humans in it, but while it's creative and the scope of it reminds me of some of Vinge's later work, I was left a little confused by some of the plot (like how did the aliens immediately figure out that the third group of aliens was going to blow up the star?). I was surprised to realize that Vinge had been publishing this early--ISFDB shows he had one novel and 4 short stories published before this, so I'm literally at the beginning of his career here. I'm very familiar with Vinge due to A Fire Upon the Deep and its sequels, and that book is actually how I first got exposed to Vinge--and it was Dad's copy I read! It's really cool to realize he probably first came across Vinge in this same issue.
"The Analytical Laboratory" is a little feature that has been showing up in most issues so far, but I've yet to see an explanation anywhere about how exactly the numbers are determined. It lists all the stories for some previous month's stories (in this case, June 1970) and ranks them by number of points, presumably by readers, but again, I have no idea how one submits their rankings, I've seen no postcards or instructions. Anyway, the biggest surprised to me is how highly "Star Light (Part 1 of 4)" did among readers (1st place by a mile!) considering how boring it was. I continue to suspect that Clement is riding the high of fans of his earlier work. I mostly agreed with the rankings otherwise.
Rick Cook's Science Fact article "Life as We Don't Know It" is very interesting and explores the wide variety of life (mostly bacteria) in the context of extraterrestrial life, since we really don't know what such life will look like on other worlds.
"In the Wabe" by Robert Chilson followed a Penetration Service team, which is the second team after the Exploration Service to land on a world. Here, the Penet Team focuses on understanding each world's ecology and how they can manipulate it for future colonists. There's a lot of ecological science talk in this story, which I think my dad would've liked a lot--he got his undergrad degree in biology. There's also a mystery here where some of the Scouts have died mysteriously. I won't spoil the ending, I guess, but it's one of those stories where I wish that the ecological talk and the plot and the characters had had just a slightly better integration because it did feel a bit disjointed and I end up feeling, "Oh... that's it?"
Jackson Burrows's "The Busted Troubadour" reminded both of his earlier story "Ark IV" in the July issue and Stanley Schmidt's "Lost Newton" in the September issue, though I think it succeeds a little bit better than both due to the tight focus on the character and plot, even down to the final reveal of what the MCC are, haha.
"The Tactics of Mistake (Part 2 of 4)" by Gordon R. Dickson continues the novel and man, it really is fun. Colonel Grahame is doing a good job of anticipating the Neulanders and their Coalition allies (puppetmasters) and just showing up to stop them each time. The climax of this month's part was really clever, though I wonder how the hell he's going to avoid the General's wrath. I also know I still have two more parts left, so I'm really curious to see how Dickson continues this. My dad always liked competent heroes too, and this book so far is no exception.
P. Schuyler Miller's book review column "The Reference Library" unintentionally really cracked me up, because Miller discusses a recent Sam Moskowitz history about early 20th century SF, and I felt like I just had that similar journey this past year, though Miller is old enough to actually remember this stuff at the time. It's a light column with just two reviews: one from Campbell about a NASA lunar photo book and the other from Miller about Frank Herbert's Whipping Star which just sounds over the top.
"Brass Tacks" is the usual mix of pedantic nitpicking from nerds and insane letters from weirdos, as well as a letter from someone working on developing a SF literature course for McGill University and wanting some suggestions. My favorite letter though was from Michael Moorcock complaining about a review from P. Schuyler Miller implying that Moorcock and his New Wave SF buddies using LSD or something, and Moorcock denying it (there's a funny bit at the beginning of the letter with Moorcock pretending he can't understand Analog's stories just like New Wave haters don't understand New Wave stories).
It's funny to realize I finally have an issue I can truly say I liked the stories, even with some of my misgivings.
The November 1970 issue has yet another cover from Kelly Freas (he's done 5 of the 6 covers for the issues I've read so far), and it's a fun action scene of a giant alien warthog or boar running after a figure in the foreground, illustrating the Keith Laumer story.
The editorial "The Now Generation" from John W. Campbell, Jr. is of course, his usual nonsense, focusing on boomers (the young generation of the time) and criticizing their anti-establishment tendencies and focusing on their protests of the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia (a military action Campbell heartily supports). It's an incredibly boring piece, but also hilarious in that I've heard some of the exact same rhetoric applied by the boomers to millennials and Generation Z.
Keith Laumer's "The Plague" is a fairly fun story--a homestead farmer on a colony world sees his hard work usurped by an organization planning on settling unemployed workers on his land. Without direct violence, the farmer is able to (eventually) drive them from his property in a very clever way (the cover art shows one element of his strategy!). I can see the 22-year-old version of my dad having fun with this, but I'm left rather icked out by how cartoonish Laumer's villains are, and the description of the poor (never seen on page) as lazy.
"Bomb Scare" by Vernor Vinge basically doesn't have any humans in it, but while it's creative and the scope of it reminds me of some of Vinge's later work, I was left a little confused by some of the plot (like how did the aliens immediately figure out that the third group of aliens was going to blow up the star?). I was surprised to realize that Vinge had been publishing this early--ISFDB shows he had one novel and 4 short stories published before this, so I'm literally at the beginning of his career here. I'm very familiar with Vinge due to A Fire Upon the Deep and its sequels, and that book is actually how I first got exposed to Vinge--and it was Dad's copy I read! It's really cool to realize he probably first came across Vinge in this same issue.
"The Analytical Laboratory" is a little feature that has been showing up in most issues so far, but I've yet to see an explanation anywhere about how exactly the numbers are determined. It lists all the stories for some previous month's stories (in this case, June 1970) and ranks them by number of points, presumably by readers, but again, I have no idea how one submits their rankings, I've seen no postcards or instructions. Anyway, the biggest surprised to me is how highly "Star Light (Part 1 of 4)" did among readers (1st place by a mile!) considering how boring it was. I continue to suspect that Clement is riding the high of fans of his earlier work. I mostly agreed with the rankings otherwise.
Rick Cook's Science Fact article "Life as We Don't Know It" is very interesting and explores the wide variety of life (mostly bacteria) in the context of extraterrestrial life, since we really don't know what such life will look like on other worlds.
"In the Wabe" by Robert Chilson followed a Penetration Service team, which is the second team after the Exploration Service to land on a world. Here, the Penet Team focuses on understanding each world's ecology and how they can manipulate it for future colonists. There's a lot of ecological science talk in this story, which I think my dad would've liked a lot--he got his undergrad degree in biology. There's also a mystery here where some of the Scouts have died mysteriously. I won't spoil the ending, I guess, but it's one of those stories where I wish that the ecological talk and the plot and the characters had had just a slightly better integration because it did feel a bit disjointed and I end up feeling, "Oh... that's it?"
Jackson Burrows's "The Busted Troubadour" reminded both of his earlier story "Ark IV" in the July issue and Stanley Schmidt's "Lost Newton" in the September issue, though I think it succeeds a little bit better than both due to the tight focus on the character and plot, even down to the final reveal of what the MCC are, haha.
"The Tactics of Mistake (Part 2 of 4)" by Gordon R. Dickson continues the novel and man, it really is fun. Colonel Grahame is doing a good job of anticipating the Neulanders and their Coalition allies (puppetmasters) and just showing up to stop them each time. The climax of this month's part was really clever, though I wonder how the hell he's going to avoid the General's wrath. I also know I still have two more parts left, so I'm really curious to see how Dickson continues this. My dad always liked competent heroes too, and this book so far is no exception.
P. Schuyler Miller's book review column "The Reference Library" unintentionally really cracked me up, because Miller discusses a recent Sam Moskowitz history about early 20th century SF, and I felt like I just had that similar journey this past year, though Miller is old enough to actually remember this stuff at the time. It's a light column with just two reviews: one from Campbell about a NASA lunar photo book and the other from Miller about Frank Herbert's Whipping Star which just sounds over the top.
"Brass Tacks" is the usual mix of pedantic nitpicking from nerds and insane letters from weirdos, as well as a letter from someone working on developing a SF literature course for McGill University and wanting some suggestions. My favorite letter though was from Michael Moorcock complaining about a review from P. Schuyler Miller implying that Moorcock and his New Wave SF buddies using LSD or something, and Moorcock denying it (there's a funny bit at the beginning of the letter with Moorcock pretending he can't understand Analog's stories just like New Wave haters don't understand New Wave stories).
It's funny to realize I finally have an issue I can truly say I liked the stories, even with some of my misgivings.
May 29, 2024
“The Plague” in Keith Laumer’s story is not your usual pest, but a group of do-gooders intent on resettling hundreds of impoverished flotsam and jetsam who have failed to be induced to earn a living. Trouble is the land they want is already settled and farmer Dr. Reed Nolan won’t go without a fight. An alien race is about to sterilize an entire solar system when they discover something even more monstrous is planning to destroy the galaxy in “Bomb Scare” by Vernor Vinge. A number of unexplained deaths have occurred on a recently discovered planet and the ecology is suspected of harbouring a fast-acting nerve agent, but the culprit is much more familiar “In The Wabe” by Robert Chilson. MCC infiltrate rediscovered human planets and try to bring them out of feudalism in the hopes of one day rejoining the Federation. To this end the agents are disguised as travelling musicians in “The Busted Troubadour” by Jackson Burrows. The issue concludes with part two of “The Tactics Of Mistake”, where Cletus Grahame, now in charge of a Dorsai force, uses subterfuge and errors from the enemy to win the Battle Of Two Rivers. I have reviewed Gordon R. Dickson’s novel in detail elsewhere.
May 6, 2013
A short story which probably helped inspire a Futurama episode (asuming the story is older).
June 4, 2015
It was far too confusing
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews