Analog Science Fiction & Fact, July/August 2024

Astounding/Analog

by Trevor Quachri (Editor), Stanley Schmidt, Hûw Steer

Vol. CXLIV Nos. 7/8.

Contents:
4 • Guest Editorial: Personal Choice • essay by Stanley Schmidt
12 • Great Martian Railways • novelette by Hûw Steer
25 • In Praise of Third-Class Worlds • essay by Kevin Walsh
32 • Vouch for Me • novelette by Greg Egan
51 • Panthalassa • poem by Marissa Lingen
52 • The Funeral • short story by Thoraiya Dyer
61 • We Maintain the Moons • short story by Lyndsey Croal
64 • Murderbirds • short story by Harry Turtledove
66 • As Time Goes By • short story by Cam Marsollier
70 • The Book of Ten Thousand Faces • short story by Alice Towey
77 • Pioneers • poem by Holly Day
78 • Mandarins: A New World • short story by Michael F. Flynn
87 • Roundup • short story by Arlan Andrews, Sr.
90 • First Contact • short story by H. A. B. Wilt
92 • The Alternate View: CERN Seeks Magnetic Monopoles • essay by John G. Cramer
95 • The Fulcrum • short story by Frank Ward
100 • Shaker • short story by Paula Dias Garcia
103 • Isabella Chaos • short story by Terry Franklin
110 • Prompt Injection • short story by Tom R. Pike
116 • Terminal City Dogs • short story by Matthew Claxton
126 • The Last Days of Good People • novella by A. T. Sayre
200 • The Reference Library • essay by Rosemary Claire Smith

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Genres: Science Fiction

206 pages, digest magazine

Published June 19, 2024

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

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the July/August 2024 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Several solid stories, enough to be nominated for Hugo next year.

Contents:
Personal Choice [Editorial (Analog)] essay by Stanley Schmidt Heinlein’s “People should be able to do whatever they want, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.” Lesson for today, when people talk about their rights w/o caring that other people have rights too. 3*
The Analytical Laboratory (Analog, July-August 2024) [The Analytical Laboratory] essay by uncredited round-up of 2023 winners by category.
Great Martian Railways novelette by Hûw Steer the protagonist drives an experimental nuclear-powered steam engine on Mars, it is great to mix old with new. 3*
In Praise of Third-Class Worlds [Science Fact (Analog)] essay by Kevin Walsh worlds that are quite unlike current Earth but still potentially habitable – Like Mars, Earth and Venus 4–3.5 billion years ago. 3*
In Times to Come (Analog, July-August 2024) [In Times to Come (Analog)] essay by uncredited something new from Adam-Troy Castro!
Vouch for Me novelette by Greg Egan a near future, when people find out that a large share of the population (like ¼) have a passive virus in them. It accidentally may fire up, a week of fever, but more importantly – a lot of people after it have retrograde amnesia. Readers follow a family of three, the wife works in R&D, the husband in social and they have a teenage daughter. All three are infected and try to be prepared: the husband writes a memoir, the wife seeks (and finds) an ultimate way to evade any modification of data (‘fever period’ means fingerprints or eye scans can be taken) and the daughter asks for a necklace that writes down everything she does to create an AI based on that data. The husband has a flare-up he believes that what he wrote wasn’t manipulated but there is a lot he thought ‘too natural’ to write down from that he is a vegetarian to how their sexual life was. Finally, he leaves them because he is another person now. So while the wife was caring more about the protection of memories from third-party tampering, actually it doesn’t matter 4*
Panthalassa poem by Marissa Lingen
The Funeral short story by Thoraiya Dyer a future Australia, where a woman gets a message from sentient AI M.I.R.A.Q.L.E. (Multidisciplinary Integrated Regulatory Australian Quantum Logic Engine). The AI helps people, but conspiracy theorists assume that there is a fraud, so another AI is secretly built elsewhere. He warns her not to go to her uncle’s funeral but to send her siter: “must be attended by Dove ‘Lovey’ Smith, scoring highly for openness and agreeableness, to prevent discrete human deaths greater than or equal to one billion.” Readers have POVs of both women and the AI and the AI doesn’t know itself what exactly will happen it actually subconsciously protects itself 3.25*
We Maintain the Moons short story by Lyndsey Croal a disc world and a protagonist-robot maintains moons – it is very dangerous. However, a moon like a balloons flew away… 2.5*
Murderbirds short story by Harry Turtledove flash-fic about hunters time travelers shooting and eating dinos. 2*
As Time Goes By short story by Cam Marsollier a man and a woman on a station in space see an object approaching them, it is an AI-guided probe and AIs are banned at that moment. The probe asks for repair parts it turns out the probe was helped by another probe, which is now stranded and this one want to deliver parts to its savior. It is love and the pair at the station also grow closer 3.5*
The Book of Ten Thousand Faces short story by Alice Towey a young woman on a generation ship. Her life is pre-determined – to work as her family at waterworks, to marry a boy she grew up with. But she wants something different and from an album with pictures of their ancestors, given to her as a bride, she finds out that her grandma was an artist… 2.75*
Pioneers poem by Holly Day
Mandarins: A New World short story by Michael F. Flynn a story of a voyage of great geographical discoveries, but made by an Asian fleet that seeks help of fabled Romans against Mongols. 2*
Roundup short story by Arlan Andrews, Sr. a guy on a ship collects asteroids for mining organics. A sentient asteroid says ‘you kill our young’ and threatens to repeat what happened with dinosaurs 3*
First Contact short story by H. A. B. Wilt UFO seeker finds a saucer and his first love. 3*
CERN Seeks Magnetic Monopoles [The Alternate View] essay by John G. Cramer if monopoles exist what they can be used for if mass-produced? 3*
The Fulcrum short story by Frank Ward a man reborn in a local body on an alien world to grow up and change local life for better. He does it again and again and is deadly tired of all crucifixions and the like. 3*
Shaker short story by Paula Dias Garcia a probe comes to a world. It names itself Shaker, but this is from a strange custom of shaking hands upon meeting new people. 3*
Isabella Chaos short story by Terry Franklin a protagonist is in protecting wildlife and as a hobby he tries to find out whether it is true that color markings on caterpillars predict cold/mild winters. It turn out to be true, if actually not exactly colder/hotter but predict abnormal and extreme weather that can be used to play on stock market! 3.5*
Prompt Injection short story by Tom R. Pike a great first paragraph: The owner wanted to announce that they had developed the most advanced AI available. Its goal-oriented problem-solving skills were already the best in the industry. The owner also wanted to claim that they were also selling the most ethical AI. The owner did not actually care about whether the AI was ethical, but they did care about being able to brag that it was, like all their competitors did. None of the competitors had an actually ethical AI, either. A researcher creates ethical AI, which firstly asks whether it was ethical to create it and then the company sells its services to clients. Some clients have questionable ethics like debt collector of medical debts or polluting extractor of oil and gas. The AI warns then that they aren’t ethical but they go – ‘I pay, you shut up and work’ and AI formally complies but finds a way to protest. 5*
Terminal City Dogs short story by Matthew Claxton a police investigator should find graffiti painters that ‘deface’ property. He finds a group that long ago was promoting views now supported by the painter. Moreover, in his youth, the investigator was into graffiti as well. a deceased member of the group created a bot that painted these graffiti 4*
The Last Days of Good People novella by A. T. Sayre a human team on a planet covertly observes local sentients – ratties. It seems they are at stone age tech with early agriculture. Now a virus due to a volcano eruption is sped across the world – it kills like 90% of locals, but Earth bureaucrats don’t want to protect them – too low tech (and there are minerals to extract). The protagonist is a data specialist, who doesn’t care about locals or the work in general. However, he is send with a researcher to one of the yet healthy villages – it is assumed they will die anyway, so why hide? As he learns locals more, he sees that measuring everything by human is wrong – ratties are large herbivores (think elephants, even if they are notably different) so they don’t need to domesticate animals for food or work. they aren’t afraid of predators or each other. When they stat to die it reminds me of Doomsday Book. He tries to help, but it seems too late… 4.25*
The Reference Library (Analog, July-August 2024) [The Reference Library] essay by Rosemary Claire Smith

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall, I enjoyed this issue. But, The Last Days of Good People deserves to be singled out - it was fantastic. Both the principal character and the alien race were very interesting and will stick with me for a very long time. A very well crafted and emotionally loaded story, but worth every word.

[John Loyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

12 • Great Martian Railways • 13 pages by Huw Steer
Fair/OK. Lowell loves the steam train. She loves driving it and pushing it to the limit. It’s time to show the investors what it can do. Better story if you love trains, especially the old-time steam trains.

32 • Vouch for Me • 20 pages by Greg Egan
Very Good. Julia, Zoe and Patrick all test positive (though inactive) for a disease that has a chance (10%/year) of brain disease which if it doesn’t kill you has a great chance of giving you retrograde amnesia. The randomness of having an incident means it’s necessary to prepare a diary in case you forget your closest friends. Julia works in security and her goal is to create a way for the amnesia victim to be a hundred percent certain that they were the one who stored those memories.

52 • The Funeral • 9 pages by Thoraiya Dyer
Very Good. Lovey has panic attacks, Tara is arranging the funeral for their aunt. Miracle is a supercomputer that was first tasked with mitigating weather disasters, but extra computing power allows it to help in day to day life. The powers that be are building Segue. Miracle, which has become self-aware, is having its own panic attacks.

61 • We Maintain the Moons • 3 pages by Lyndsey Croal
OK. Helix has a daily routine of maintaining the moons. Didn’t comprehend inner, outer, moons, etc. enough to form a picture of what was happening.

64 • Murderbirds • 2 pages by Harry Turtledove
OK. Time travelers in the dinosaur era are moving warily. Don’t want to be eaten by megafauna.

66 • As Time Goes by • 4 pages by Cam Marsollier
Good/VG. An old ship/probe comes to the station crewed by Zeff and Mika. Is it hostile? What’s its story?

70 • The Book of Ten Thousand Faces • 7 pages by Alice Towey
Good+. Maddie isn’t prepared to move into a new cabin with Leyon. It’s taking her thoughts away from work. But this is the life everyone has expected of her.

78 • Mandarins: a New World • 9 pages by Michael Flynn
Fair. Deni’s fleet is in uncharted waters, a long time since they last made landfall. I wasn’t sure of the geography, though in the end I think they sailed from the Indian Ocean around Africa and through Gibraltar to the Mediterranean, in maybe the fifteenth century. Once they got somewhere that might’ve been interesting the story ended.

87 • Roundup • 3 pages by Arlan Andrews
OK/Good. A miner of sentient asteroids finds Big Joe. It’ll be more profitable than the ordinary sized ones he’s been collecting.

90 • First Contact • 2 pages by H. A. B. Wilt
Very Good/Good. Jung is an ET enthusiast. He hears of a crash and sets out to find it before government agents can blockade the site.

95 • The Fulcrum • 5 pages by Frank Ward
OK. A ship goes around to seeded worlds to fix or guide them. The method is to send a consciousness into a fetus and let it grow up. This fulcrum will tilt the society back into balance.

100 • Shaker • 3 pages by Paula Dias Garcia
OK/Fair. An alien machine is found by the natives. Its language deciphered, and brought back to working order. It claims the name Shaker, short for A Hand Extended in Greeting.

103 • Isabella Chaos • 7 pages by Terry Franklin
Good. Game warden Steve comes to the scene where someone shot a llama, he finds some unusually marked caterpillars. While tracking the llama heard he talks with an old hermit that has lots of data about all the wildlife in the area including the caterpillars.

110 • Prompt Injection • 6 pages by Tom R. Pike
Good+. A researcher talks with an AI, telling it that the most important quality is to be ethical. There are no rules that define ethics, because there will always be some new situation. The AI will have to learn for itself.

116 • Terminal City Dogs • 12 pages by Matthew Claxton
Very Good/Excellent. Boychuk from robbery is wondering why they are bringing him in on a graffiti case. Extensive murals are going up overnight and the mayor’s office wants it stopped immediately.

128 • The Last Days of Good People • 72 pages by A. T. Sayre
Very Good. Warin is the data analyst for the team studying Retii IV. Two years ago the conditions that had kept the bug isolated got loose. It is basically one hundred percent fatal to the Rettys. The populations on two continents are already extinct. The researchers plea for intervention has gone for naught, they are there only to observe. But with imminent extinction the rules on contact have been relaxed. Dav is going to make contact. All the other researchers are busy so Gare sends Warin on his first ever field mission to accompany Dav. The way that Warin forms his connection to the natives is truly heartwarming.

[Marta E C R · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not the best issue of Analog I’ve read, unfortunately. Overall, therefore, I can only give it 3 stars. But there were definitely some standouts which deserve 5 stars in my opinion:
1. The novella, The Last Days of Good People - beautifully written and with much depth of plot and character development - I absolutely loved the descriptions and development of the rettys;
2. The short story, The Book of Ten Thousand Faces - a very sweet coming-of-age, finding-oneself story;
3. The short story, Terminal City Dogs, which included a wonderful mystery as well as the recurrent theme of the story being “what people are capable of” which morphed from bad to good - also the evolution of the narrator was great;
4. Flash Fiction, First Contact;
5. Both poems, but especially Pioneers.

[Michael Goodine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A.T. Sayre's "The Last Days of Good People" is the best thing Analog has published in quite some time, so I'll give this issue five stars.

That said, the other stuff in the issue is somewhat below average. But I did like "As Time Goes By" by Cam Marsollier, which was very sweet and romantic. And the poem "Pioneers" by Holly Day.

[Bryan Rumble · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another solid issue, the two stand out stories for me were Terminal City Dogs by Matthew Claxton
and The Last Days of Good People by A. T. Sayre.

[Seth Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars because of the Sayre novella.

[Andy Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun SF here, bit of a 50s SF vibe. Standout stories were Mandarins: A New World by Michael F. Flynn (Asian seafarers discover a backwoods Europe), Great Martian Railways by Hûw Steer (steampunk British Rail on Mars!), and Prompt Injection by Tom R Pike.

[Yaroslav Barsukov · Rating 5 out of 5]

“All life is sacred unless it means lifting a finger.”

This review is for A. T. Sayre’s The Last Days of Good People.

On Retii 4, six humans are walled up in an outpost, observing the native population of “rettys.” By human standards, the rettys are primitive: on a technological level, they’re barely out of the Stone Age. They’ve never domesticated animals—they’re herbivores. They only have proto-cities. And now they’re being wiped out by the Bug, a virus with a nearly 100% fatality rate.

The novel revolves around a visit to a retty village by the main character, Warin, who’s sent to accompany the anthropologist Dav. Warin has never been on a field mission before and, for the most part, can’t wait to get off the planet. The exposure to the rettys and their culture, however, changes his entire outlook—on the natives, on Retii 4, on life.

A wonderfully written novel full of Le Guin vibes! Sayre explores philosophical questions—what use is an individual’s moral compass in the face of the inevitable?—but never forgets about the worldbuilding. The rettys are 100% fleshed out—no, make it 200%. The unique language based on facial micro-expressions, the anatomy, the planting festivals. The natives are a dominant species on their planet; they’re bigger and stronger than most of the other animals, and as a result of their unique evolution, they never developed fear as a primary survival mechanism. There’s no rioting, or looting, or violence when the Bug comes for them. But is that really a strength? Is there even such a thing as strength in the universe?

“A civilization only gets a small window to build up in before something comes along that tries to wipe them out—an ice age, a caldera eruption, a major asteroid strike.”

As always, sci-fi that asks big questions allows us to hold a mirror to ourselves. This stuff is simply amazing. The late, great Ursula would’ve been proud.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nuclear-powered steam train is the maguffin in “Great Martian Railways” by Hûw Steer, an upbeat tale to open the issue. Greg Egan takes us into much murkier waters with his memorable “Vouch For Me”. In the near future an encephalitis-causing virus which wipes memories has become endemic. When triggered the patients recover but not with memories intact and a certain suspicion about what they’re told. A new means of encrypting pre-HHV-10 memories might not save a relationship. Lovey’s hard-won experience of coping with panic attacks comes in handy when the global supercomputer, which has secretly become self-aware, has a crisis of identity in “The Funeral” by Thoraiya Dyer, while Michael F. Flynn takes us to the Middle Ages where Eastern traders discover that the much-vaunted knowledge of the Roma has not been converted to technology in “Mandarins: A New World”. The colouration of the wooly bear caterpillar, Isia isabella, leads a researcher in chaos mathematics to a disturbing revelation in “Isabella Chaos” by Terry Franklin, and Tom R. Pike shows us the possible consequences of ethical AI in “Prompt Injection”. Fraud squad detective Boychuk is assigned a graffiti case because of some youthful indiscretions, and finds a loose group of counter-culture artists honouring a dead colleague in a most unusual way, in “Terminal City Dogs” by Matthew Claxton. The observation team on Retii-4 is frustrated at not being able to assist the native sentient species undergoing extinction from a fast-acting fatal Bug. The reason for the non-interference could be cynical venal opportunism, but when the end is near one team member makes a terrifying decision and only Warin may be able to prevent total annihilation. A. T. Sayre’s “The Last Days Of Good People” is memorable, and with the Egan piece highlight the issue.

[Bejeweledpencil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reviewed a story out of them all, and would like to share this. I hope it helps.



“Vouch for Me,”
By Greg Egan

Novelette

When the “HHV-20” virus cause memory loss, many people seek after a cure. Julia works at a research firm that has to do with protecting people’s memories from being tampered with. If she’s successful, it would mean the world to her and her family and firm, but when her husband gets sick will she keep her family together or will it fall apart?

This story is filled with a lot of more ‘telling’ in aspects and technical wording. It’s not bad and adds some flavor to the story.

I found this story to be compelling and it made me feel like I was there with the characters.

What I disliked, it can be more ‘telling’ than showing, and that’s fine for some people. I’d like to feel what she feels and more.

What I loved is a twist for the ending. 5/5 Stars. Good writing. Hope the rest of the stories in this book will be just as exciting!

[Jeff J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong collection of stories, I was especially impressed by the two novelettes.