ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, March 1971

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, March 1971

The third issue in my ANALOG PLUS 50.

At some point, I'll stop numbering, but probably not until I do this for at least a year.

In this issue:

The Editorial: "The Stay-Home Bodies", by John. W. Campbell. Written at the height of the Apollo program, Campbell writes about the opposition toward the manned space program coming from liberal-arts-type folks who don't want to spend the money and from scientists that just don't want to spend so much on that while neglecting their own very special research, when automated drones would suffice and leave the science to scientists and not engineers.

There are two basics truths: The Truth of the Universe, and Truth by Consensus. The latter one is as problematic as deciding who is to judge, and what happens if consensus changes. Also, the Universe doesn't care about your consensus.

Novelette: "The Missing Man" by Katherine Maclean, with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing a cityscape in the background of mixed architecture, seeming to span centuries, and in the foreground, there is a silhouette of a man with a nuclear detonation superimposed on his body, along with some starbursts. The caption reads, The trouble with complex automation is that it follows blindly any order to its logical catastrophe!

Maclean builds an incrediby dystopic world set in a distant future New York City, and then proceeds to tear it asunder. This story would've been written in 1969 or 1970, and I'm wondering the author's frame of mind. It was out there. The mixed architecture in the illustration represents how the city had been broken down into communes and kingdoms of people. The population is dispersed and balanced. Things run fine without any panic of the populace. Until a fellow by the name of Carl Hodges disappears. He's a city programmer who not only knows how the city operates but his maintenance predictions can anticipate ways in which catastrophes could happen by something as small as a refrigerator failure in the lunchroom of a power plant which gives the crew food poisoning, which causes an exposion along a fault line. Big consequences continue from small mistakes. Hodges walks through the wrong kingdom and gets kidnapped by a teener gang, a nihilistic bunch that doesn't see much of a future for anyone who isn't a tech. In this dystopian nightmare, there are many obstacles to having children, and many are encouraged to give up that right, selectively breeding those undesirable to society out of existence.

Enter George Sanford, who works for the Rescue Squad, and who uses Predictive Behavior to find people. He also seems to be telepathic and empathic, which both helps and hinders his efforts. George gets close to finding Hodges, up to meeting the same teener gang. Instead of kidnapping or killing George, they give him a warning beating and leave him tied up on the sidewalk. George runs off and climbs the ironwork under the GWB to get away for a while.

The gang realizes what they have, and they managed to exploit a weakness that causes the destruction of the underwater Brooklyn Dome. George is called back in by his supervison, Ahmed Kosavakats, who has George tune in Hodges again. They are on the trail when they are called to the Jersey Dome for fear that it will meet a similar fate. Once there, they try to avoid spreading panic, while panic is spreading. They are "admiring architecture" more than looking for flaws, but human error (both deliberate and careless) can worsen the situation. They make it out of the Dome before calamity strikes again.

In the end, Hodges is found because of George tunes into him. Ahmed questions Hodges through this connection, and they figure where he is. Then it's just a mater of getting him out without him being moved or killed.

Could this be televised? I don't know. It's a bit cerebral, and a little "out there" for a general audience. On the other hand, genre-loving folks might like it, if done well, but it likely won't have broad appeal. I would think that this could be a budget buster, even for an hour of television, and I don't think the story merits the expanse. As for casting, there are four main characters, and a number of minor speaking parts, which could go any which way. The only restricition I would set is that George and Carl should be somewhat similar, but not overly so.

Amusing side-note: in the future there will be public telephones with video screens, courtesy of Bell Telephone. The story was about a little more than a decade before the break-up of Ma Bell.

Science Fact: "Celestial X-Rays" by Margaret L. Silbar. The caption reads, It's long been obvious that these immense fusion generators, the stars, were bound to radiate X-rays, and that no Earth-bound observer would ever "see" them. throught he shielding atmosphere. But the things that have been found by X-ray astronomy wasn't expected.

An interesting article and I kept up with the gist of it, even if the Science was beyond me (or just not anything I've ever followed). Astronomy had been an optical science an optical science until the 1930s when radio waves were detected. These are the only other electromagnetic radiation that penetrates the atmosphere, and this gave rise to radio telescopes.

It was only "recently" (particularly 50 years ago) that astrophysicists could use rockets to launch detection equipment into the air. At the time, scientists suspected that the Sun emitted a few X-rays. They weren't prepared for the huge amounts they found being emitted from elsewhere. The article goes on to discuss tracking the sources. It is amusing to read this knowing that it was likely written before Apollo 14 launched, and it's mentioned the upcoming eclipse of the Crab Nebula by the Moon in 1972, which only occurs every six years, to get another five minutes of data recorded. Now we have telescopes in space gathering data continuously.

Fun fact 1: the Sun has a diameter of nearly a million miles but it has about the same mass as a white dwarf with a 6,000-mile diameter or a neutron star with a 10-mile diameter.

Fun fact 2: Californium 254 was discovered among the products of the first man-made fusion explosion at Bikin Atoll. A quick Internet search says it has a half-life of about 55 days. The article implies a long decay process. Cf 251 is closer to 900 years (which is close to the 1,000 years mentioned in the article), and Cf 252 has a half-life of 2600+ years.

Fun word: other than repeating the phrase "iron ion" in my head a bunch of times, there was a reference to a process called bremsstrahlung, a German word for "breaking radiation". I could see that as the title of a short story, or the name of a ship (or both).

Novelette: "The Operator" by Chirstopher Anvil, with an illustration by George Wilson, showing a man, wearing an outfit reminiscent old space serials, coming out of a hatch of some kind next to a long-barrelled mounted weapon. He's being attacked by a bear-like creature. Two more of those creatures are approaching in the background. The caption reads, In a harsh environment, you find tough organisms. In a really savage environment, the only ones left are also smart!

Dave Hunsacker and Jim Fielding are two colonists in a settlement on a planet that is experiencing a very cold winter. Their cabin barely has enough heat. Worse, they're both experiencing an illness that is characterized by "dirt" on their faces, which leads to feverish delusions. Other dangers include termite-like greevils, which are bad news for wooden cabins, and badgers, which are bad news for your supplies should they get inside the cabin. Worst would be the packberas, with teeth like daggers, which are currently hibernating. As the two recuperate, they go in search of a young woman that Jim spotted in the forest. Getting to the edge of a bluff, they spot a couple of tents and a space yacht camped near the base, right outside a cave of bears, and the temperature is warming up. They wind up counting 8 women among the group. The first time they try to make contact, they are fired upon. They come back again, with a third colomist to try again. This time, two skimmers filled with young men (outlandishly dressed under bubble protection) show up to bother the ladies, who aren't interested. The guys make enough noise to rouse the bears. Tragedy ensues. The three do what they can to scare away the bears and kill any bear that gets near the tent. None of the young men survive.

I enjoyed the story up until this point, but it is here that it goes off the rails a little. The first is a complication that Dave wished could've been avoided and I wished was left out of the story because it was a little to deus ex machina: two Space Polic skimmers show up. They're like Space Patrol, but Police. Except that they aren't even from the planet. So where did they come from? Did they answer a distress beacon? And they came that quickly? This is such a harsh environment, you'd think that more people would've called for help by now!

Dave then manages to scare off the Space Police with talk of the Pox, but before they race away, they basically quarantine the planet and give salvage right to the men's yacht to whoever claims it first. Rounding out the oddities: they check out the men's yacht to find a smelly mess and a giant frog statue (huh?). There's also a mention of another distant settlement on the planet, but it doesn't matter to much at all. Finally, they head back to their settlement, mindful of giant, killer birds.

This is probably the first story in this 50-Year Deep Dive that I both liked and found problematic. It definitiely has outdated views. For starters, one of the reasons that Dan and Jim are cabin mates is that neither has a woman in his life right now. (People have died.) They got together to save resources, and so that the empty cabin could be used by a family whose cabin was ruined, and which can't be repaired so easily in the middle of winter. It's a new settlement, and it needs people to survive. Moreover, they need women. Here are a bunch of young ladies. Keep in mind, the title is "The Operator", which is what Dave is.

While you could make everyone in those space yachts a bunch of rich, spoiled college-aged brats on a leisure trip, the fact that they are getting marooned on a planet because the settlement needs women is troublesome. The fact that Dan lies (through omission, but still) makes it worse. Were this to be brought to be brought to the small screen, the final act would need a rewrite, including a decent reason for some of the women to stay, while others left in the other ship. And it would need to leave out the "Space Police". Beyond that, this could be filmed cheaply enough anywhere in Canada with a hill, trees, a bit of snow and space to build a space yacht.

Serial: "The World Menders" by Lloyd Biggle, Jr., with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing a man on a throne, flanked by two more people, one on other side. There is a line of people queued up to present gifts. The caption reads, Second of Three Parts. The problem of the olz might be dominant -- but there are plenty of others in understanding Branoff IV. And part of the trouble was they'd never done a real cultural analysis of the people!

This Part 2 of 3, so I chose to wait to read this. I may do a separate entry for two or three serials.

Short Story: "May The Best Man Win" by Stanley Schmidt, with an illustration by Leo Summers, showing a girl, in front of a man, in front of a voting poster. There is also a sword with a blade that melts into the background. Edit: it wasn't the hilt of a sword. It was a rocketship, with a trail of smoke. The caption reads, There are many ways to measure a man's age--and most are pretty meaningless. There's only one important measure of a man.

Stanley Schmidt would later be the editor of Analog.

Story takes place in a hotel room where the 2076 nominating convention is taking place. It represents a return to an old process of nominating the candidate at the convention, not knowing who it will be in advance. Matthew Kilroy is the odds-on favorite. The leader of the first mission to Epsilon Eridani is beloved nationwide, but there's a problem. As he keeps telling his friend Pete, his birth certificate may say he's fifty, but chronologically, he's only 34 and will be 34 at the time of the inauguration. The people don't seem to care. What to make of this dilemma?

I don't know if this plot has been used in science-fiction television before, particularly in reference to an election. It's a fun little tale that could easily fill the last 10-15 minutes of an hourlong anthology series, and it can be filmed on a budget. You basically need a hotel room and a conference room full of extras. Pete and Killroy are generic enough for diverse casting.

The Analytical Library: The top five stories from December 1970. Gordon R. Dickson's serial takes the top spot. The only other name I recognize is Christopher Anvil, and only because he's in this issue as well. Two stories published in Analog three months apart? I could only dream!

The Reference Library , by P. Schuyler Miller. The intro talks about regional cons, including my gone and lamented Lunacon. This reference would've been abotu 15 years before my first one (even my friends hadn't been there yet). Books reviews are The Atlas of the Universe (an actual atlas), Dimension X, compiled by Damon Knight, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, edited by Robert Silverberg, and I Will Fear No Evil, by Robert Heinlein. Miller really didn't care for Heinlein's novel.

Brass Tacks: There is a very lengthy letter about nuclear power, which I had to choose to slog or skim the latter half. Then there's an interesting letter from a member of the 19th Special Forces regarding psionics and the U.S. Army codifying the use of a "sixth sense" with snipers.

On to April, and whatever else is in the TBR stacks in Kindle, iBooks, and the physical nightstand.