ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact May 1972
The may issue of Analog has stories by Clifford D. Simak and Isaac Asimov, as well as the continuation of the serial by Harry Harrison.
For anyone finding these reviews, my purpose is two-fold: enjoying some "classic" sci-fi, and looking for stories that I think could be adapted for TV broadcast since so much of what shows up on anthology shows is rough to awful. Additional Note: I do NOT work in television. I just watch it.
In this issue:
The Editorial: "Life Cycles". There are complex carbon molecules in interstellar space. Not life, not even pre-life, but the building blocks for life.
Short Novel: "Solo Kill", by S. Kye Boult. with an illustration by Leo Summers showing a winged creature with a beak, carapace, and taloned feet is on the ground in the foreground. There's a small plane flying over some high mountains on the left page. On the right page, there is another plane flying lower and trailing something. There are more winged creatures, including on taking off. The caption reads, Competing species may battle each other until one of them is driven into extinction. An intelligent species can speed the process -- but pays a cost of guilt.
I saved this for the end of the month to read. Halfway through I was losing interest but still reading. Actually, I didn't expect to get past the first few pages where there is a battle between two different winged creatures, neither of which is in a plane. The one that wins is the protagonist for the story, Baron Amarson, who can fly a plane. The other creature was one of "The Drak" which seem to be more animalistic in nature. This was a battle of honor for the Baron.
We're later introduced to the Rivermen, who appear to be the scientists. They have machines that measure celestial movements. There's one large red sun and a smaller yellow sun distant from the planet.
I'm not sure if I will finish this because as I went back to review the text to type some things above, I couldn't remember reading some of the pages that he passed by. Did I forget them? Did I skip them while I was falling asleep and didn't notice?
I was also distracted by continued references to flying above the mole where "mole" was obviously a place. Apparently, the fifth definition in Websters is a place formed by masonry and large stones, and the sixth is a harbor formed by a mole. Also, the machine I described above is apparently called an "orrery".
Maybe I should've known these things, but they were distractions. And since I was reading a PDF, the dictionary wasn't an option.
Anyway, it's a long story with different sets and winged creatures, so I don't know if this is something that an anthology series would want to take on. It could be a movie in its own right if a screenwriter could make it interesting and accessible.
Serial: "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!", by Harry Harrison, Part Two of Three.
I'll get to this next month.
Short Story: "Lunch Box", by Howard Waldrop with an illustration by Kelly Freas showing an alien landscape and a lunar lander of some kind. The caption reads, Intelligent creatures can recognize the benefits of high tenchology -- even if it's not their own!
I didn't make note of Myers name when I started reading this, but it became obvious with the mention of Radge Morimet and a reference to "war in our time" that this was a sequel last month's story.
Science Fact: "Celestial Mechanics", by Rowland E. Burns. The caption reads, If you wonder why the astronauts don't whip out their trusty slide rules and quickly compute a new orbit when something goes a little wrong -- try this basic course in "Celestial Mechanics and why it drives people nuts." There *is* a solution to the three-body problem ... only it can't be worked out. To catch up to a ship ahead of you in orbit, you must slow down! Rowland E. Burns is a NASA orbital mechanics mathematician and knows the frutstations of which he speaks.
Sounds like it'll be over my head. If I can get back to it, great, but it's 27 pages long, so maybe not.
Short Story: "The Observer", by Clifford D. SImak with an illustration by Kelly Freas showing a volcano in the background with a large Sun-like object with a human eyeball in the center of it. There is what looks like a snake-like staff or the underside of some kind of creature. There are weird looking trees which look like vertical stalks with large tomatoes on top of them. The caption reads, To make a workable data-gathering system, you must understand what kind of information is being sought, why it's being sought, and -- ultimately -- who is the seeker.
The first of two "big names" that I wanted to read. It seemed like the story was going to be about an AI that became self-aware. It later seemed to be an actual person, or something that used to be a person, which has its memory erased after every mission. It remembers things and then realizes that it has remembered things.
In the end, it senses that it has been cut off from whoever launched it because it knew too much and was no longer of any use to them.
This could be a quick short story. It doesn't need much except a studio backlot or a remote section in the desert. A little cerebral though.
Short Story: "Mirror Image", by Isaac Asimov with an illustration by Leo Summers a seated man and another standing near him, both looking at a giant robotic head, which seems to be speaking. The caption reads, Lije Bailey could understand how two humans could tell exactly equal but opposite stories -- one of them was lying. But robots can't tell lies, it's a violation of the Laws of Robotics. And here were two robots telling exactly the same story ... except that they contradicted each other on every point.
With the exception of the I, Robot, I have not read any of Asimov's robot novels. (Amusingly, I used picked up a used copy of a book thinking it was Caves of Steel when it was in fact The Currents of Space, which is an Empire novel, and I was wondering where the robots were.)
I know of Elijah Bailey and R. Daneel Olivaw, but not much about them. (Like, I might've guessed that the R. stood for "Robot", but I didn't know that for a fact.)
The robot has worked with the private detective before, and he contacts him about a Spacer problem -- a case of theft among two Spacer academics, old elderly and ready to retire, and one young and new in the field. Each has a robotic assistant that supports their master's claim. Olivaw is allowed to contact Bailey, who must solve the problem from his living room because Spacers would never allow an Earthman on their ship.
Bailey figures out that under the Laws of Robotics a robot could lie to protect its master's career and public image. He even applies enough logic to the situation to get one of the robots to recant its testimony. Olivaw is pleased. However, Bailey tells him that he isn't done because the robot might've changed his testimony from truthful to falsehood for a logical reason.
Bailey figures out the problem based on human nature, and the fact that the young academic would be much more likely to consult the older fellow than vice versa, while the older academic would want one last hurrah while his younger college would have over a century ahead to make a name for himself. (Spacers live long lives in space.)
This requires one set, two humans, and a couple of retro-looking robot masks. It could be filmed tomorrow except that Asimov stories probably cost more to option. This one could be a good test to see of filming a novel might be successful.
The Reference Library , by P. Schuyler Miller. Reivews include Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer, many years after the fact as Miller had always assumed it to be fantasy and not sci-fi, The Transvection Machine by Edward D. Hoch, Science Fiction: The Future by Dick Allen, 20 Years of Analog/Astounding Science Fiction Science Fact compiled by Jan A. Lorenzen.
Brass Tacks: A letter from Leslyn Campbell Randazzo, John W. Campbell's youngest daughter. A couple of readers sound off about a January letter. Someone else liked "Ecology Now" after thinking that they wouldn't. A letter about "Galactic Geopolitics", a complaint about an illustration of a vessel that should've had a gaff and boom on each of two masts, and a couple more round out the column.
Can I keep up with June? It depends if I read other things as well. I already figured out that reading more than one magazine a month wouldn't work unless I quit my book club and deleted most of my kindle library.
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