Analog: Short Fiction Reviews by A.C. Wise

Analog 5-6/24

The May/June 2024 issue of Analog opens with “Uncle Roy’s Computer Repairs and Used Robot Parts” by Martin L. Shoemaker, a charming novella about a man who retires with his wife to her hometown and starts his own computer repair business only to find himself accidentally in a bitter rivalry with the town’s resident “whiz kid.” It’s a fun story that does a good job of capturing the feel of a small town with very distinct ideas about who does and does not belong. “The Dark at the End of the Tunnel” by Edward M. Lerner is told from the point of view of a professor who discovered 40 years ago that the universe is essentially ending, and that there is nothing for humanity to do save leave a “message in a bottle” in an effort to be remembered. It’s a nice look at what hope might mean in a hopeless situation. “Making Gnocchi at the End of the World” by Kelly Lagor pairs nicely with Lerner’s story, explor­ing different approaches to hope in response to an end-of-the-world scenario. Cora and her girlfriend Eloise have moved into Eloise’s family home in Scotland amidst a strange apocalypse that transforms animals and humans into chimera-like creatures. Cora becomes obsessed with self-defense, where Eloise believes there is still good in the world, making for a nice contrasting character study.

“Salvage Operation” by Michael Capobi­anco follows a man recruited to find a lost time machine who ends up accused of tampering with the timeline in his efforts to bring it home. “Float Where We Will” by Sean Monaghan is a tense piece about a submersible crew on Europa encountering an unknown lifeform intent on dragging them into the depths. “Expert Wit­ness” by Leonard Richardson is a cute story about a researcher working with an endangered population of alien creatures, trying to prove their sentience, who gets caught up in a criminal investigation.

“Project Desert Sparrow” by Chana Kohl is another story, like Lerner and Lagor’s, that looks at an end-of-the-world scenario. Henri Toussaint is invited to join a group of scientists consulting on the imminent problem of nuclear fallout and radiation poisoning facing large swaths of humanity. The popular plan is colony ships, which will only save a few thousand wealthy people, but Henri proposes an alternate solution even though it will take more work. The story does a nice job of exploring who is consid­ered “worth” saving, who has access to hope for the future, and who is considered an “acceptable loss” for the good of others. In “Fertile Imagi­nation” by Tim Stevens and Frank Wu, Charlie is the lone human on Proxima Centauri, helping prepare it to be a colony world. As he works to figure out why the crops are failing, and why he’s experiencing strange hallucinations, the story paints an unfortunately plausible picture of a corporation putting profit ahead of people and safety.

“Susan Rose Sees Mars as the First Frontier” by Charles Velasquez-Witosky is a quiet and contemplative story, framed as a journalistic piece about the first fine artist to travel to Mars. The story does a lovely job reflecting on the nature and value of art, the drive to explore, and the patron-creator relationship, along with what day-to-day life might be like for a citizen training for and ultimately journeying into space. “Tohu Bohu” by Zohar Jacobs is similarly quiet and contemplative as a woman named Ruth leaves Earth for life on a space sta­tion, leading her to reflect on her relationship to Judaism as well as her relationship with her husband and what she truly wants out of life. “The Pure Bliss of Contrapuntal Existence” by Michael Panetta does a nice job of delving into how sentience is defined and looking at dif­ferent ways of communicating. Rafia has been offered a very large sum of money to capture an alien bug for a company that wants to harvest its secretions for military applications. Now he must decide what to do as he discovers that the bug is likely sentient and is using a form of music to communicate with the probe sent to investigate it.

“More and Less and New” by Aimee Ogden is a gorgeously written story about a woman fleeing her warlord sister and the weight of her own role in the atrocities her family has com­mitted. As she debates whether to give herself over to become part of a fungal colony, the story does a lovely job of exploring the concept of self, as well as guilt and whether it’s possible to reinvent oneself after being party to unforgiv­able destruction and violence. “Mayflies” by Richard A. Lovett is a bittersweet story reflect­ing on mortality, time, and the ability to choose when to die. The main character is an insurance adjustor sent to investigate a suicide. He ulti­mately discovers that the man he’s investigating had terminal cancer and used an experimental drug that essentially stretches a single moment to infinity, choosing to enjoy one last a perfect sunset. “Voices, Still and Present” by Mark W. Tiedemann looks at loss, healing, and what it means to remember and honor the past. Nora takes her first trip through a transfer booth, even though the technology makes her nervous. When she arrives at her destination, she learns that 43 years have passed, and while she was in transit, a pilot deliberately crashed a ship into the receiving station as a form of protest. A human named Durer, who happens to be the son of the pilot who crashed his ship, and a Menkan named Sholk recruit Nora to help them finish a memorial built on the crash site – both with their own goals and their idea of what it means to remember and honor the dead.

“Money, Wealth, and Soil” by Lance Rob­inson initially looks like it’s exploring similar themes of corporate greed as Tim Stevens and Frank Wu’s story. The main character sets out to investigate anomalous satellite data, suspecting that the company that owns the land is trying to scam the system meant to encourage re­sponsible environmental practices in exchange for credit; however, he discovers something unexpected that changes his perspective. The characters are well done, and the story has a nicely grounded feel. Finally, in “Small Minds” by Tom Jolly, humanity unleashes hunt-and-kill (HAK) bots in an attempt to destroy an AI that has gained the power to replicate, convinced that it will spell their destruction. Too late, they discover the HAKs can also replicate, feasting on everything in their path and devastating Earth, leading the survivors to team up with the AI they initially sought to destroy.

This review and more like it in the August 2024 issue of Locus.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.

©Locus Magazine. Copyrighted material may not be republished without permission of LSFF.