Analog, April 2008

To the publisher, February, not April, is the cruelest month. Having the shortest number of days, it yields the shortest sales time for a magazine. In most parts of the country, the weather is bitter. Customers do not visit bookstores and newsstands as often as in other months. Even leap year, with its generous doling out of an entire extra day of sales, cannot make up the deficit in circulation for a monthly magazine. Perhaps that is why the standards of February magazines often seem to be lower than those of the other eleven months. Which brings us to the April, 2008, issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.

This issue is adorned with a bright cover, mostly orange. There is a Big Round Something depicted (provided by NASA), presumably a planet. Most Analog covers have big round somethings on them, often blurry blobs. But most covers of Analog are black, dark brown, or various shades ranging from dark blue to grayish purple. Orange seldom happens more than once or twice a year.

The lead-off novelette, “Guaranteed Not to Turn Pink in the Can,” is written by Thomas R. Dulski. Dulski builds his plot around the Voynich manuscript, that mysterious manuscript of 234 pages, supposedly written in the 15th century (some say by Roger Bacon) in an unknown script that, as of yet, has not been deciphered. The manuscript is currently held in Yale’s Beinecke Library, and if you’re interested, a bit of Googling will turn up its known history and reproductions of its pages, not to mention a certain amount of conjecture.

In the story, Pamela Roderick, a Ph.D. and the daughter of a billionaire, writes a book on flying saucers. It a fairly well-reasoned book exploring the idea of contact with alien races, and it reads sufficiently like a sociological treatise that many of her academic colleagues have praised it, though with reservations because of its association with UFOs. When, in collaboration with a prominent UFO fanatic, she writes a second book claiming the Voynich manuscript is a document written by 15th century humans returned from a trip to another planet, there is less enthusiasm for her scholarly approach. Her father hires a private detective to investigate the matter and her.

Dulski writes in a tight, crisp style that leans heavily on identifying familiar surroundings with the use of brand names. No one in this story uses toilet paper when there’s a roll of Angel Soft handy. Characterization is good if utilitarian, which is to say just above superficial. But at the story’s slightly more 10,000 words, that’s more than adequate. There’s a lot of research evident, and Dulski keeps things moving and interesting. But in the end, this is just a science puzzle story, and no more science fiction than Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October was. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether or not that’s a problem.

“The Beethoven Project,” a novelette by Donald Moffitt, is about a company that uses time travel to commission works from famous composers of the past. Their project this time is the acquisition of Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony. It’s by no means an easy project, and it becomes a lot more complicated when the guy running things decides to bring Beethoven into our own time to work. This slight but entertaining story benefits from the author’s portrayal of Beethoven and is kicked off with a fabulous two-page illustration by John Allemand.

“Amor Vincit Omnia,” by Craig DeLancey is the third and last novelette in the issue. The idea here is that a hundred people were genetically engineered so that they could all really, really care about the future. That’s all. Just care. Now they’re all grown up and guess what? They all just know, deep in their heart of hearts, what all the answers are. Caring, it turns out, is just like a magic wand; one wave and you just know all the answers. Better: everyone who really, really cares agrees on what those answers are. So they set out to bring the rest of us into line.

Do I have a low opinion of this story? You bet I do. It’s insultingly stupid, so mindless in its political correctness as to load itself with unconscious humor. The idea that there is just one correct way to view things is a myth and one of the many superstitions shared by progressives and evangelicals alike.

Stephen L. Burns’s short story, “Righteous Bite,” is built around a pretty good idea but tries to hold back an essential point in the story just a bit too long for its own good. Burns also tries to bring in some antiwar commentary that comes across as too heavy-handed to be successful. If he’d tried writing this in a more straightforward way and let the idea take care of itself, he likely would have succeeded in doing everything he wanted to. As it is, the story is readable but misses having much impact.

Robert Scherrer’s contribution to the “Probability Zero” feature, “How I Saved the National Science Foundation,” telegraphs a too familiar ending.

“Into That Good Night” by William Gleason (described as a “newcomer” in last issue’s “In Times to Come”) is a pretty good way to kick off a writing career. It’s an old-fashioned story about space explorers living and working on a heavy-gravity planet, with the background and the equipment they use nicely realized. Something goes wrong with a fusion reactor and something needs to be done quickly, or the whole base and everyone in it will be destroyed. And the something has to be done at 4.7 g. The science is good, not quite so esoteric as the science can get in some Analog stories, and the characterization and narrative work well enough and, I suspect, will work even better in future stories as Gleason gets some experience under his belt. I’m looking forward to reading them.

From talented beginner we move to a story by a top (not to mention skilled) professional. Jerry Oltion contributes a small gem called “The Anthropic Precipice.” Attending the International Symposium on Fundamental Constants to deliver a paper on the density of dark matter in the universe, David is accosted in the elevator by an alien. Since this is modern day San Francisco, that freaks him out. The alien argues that the reading of David’s paper will result in him getting the use of a collider to create a mini Big Bang which will allow him to measure the dark energy density at the moment of quantum disentanglement which will define the most influential property of the universe. Since reality, the aliens believe, is consensual, and since David’s figures seem to be slightly off, this will result in the destruction of the universe.

I suppose this is a fairly minor story, but the handling is so good and the ending so satisfying that it really stands out. It is always a pleasure to read something handled by a pro with solid skills.

Joe Haldeman’s three-part serial, “Marsbound,” ends in this issue. The science fact article is “Nuclear Autumn: The Consequences of a ‘Small’ Nuclear War” by Richard A. Lovett. There’s a poem, “Good Morning, Class …” by Robert Lundy that fails to waste a page, but only because it is illustrated with an amusing cartoon. Jeffrey D. Kooistra contributes “The Alternate View” this month, and all the regular features are here as well.