ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact February 1973

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, February 1973

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January went well, so let's do it again.

A new serial (maybe I'll get to it) and a Spider Robinson story.

The February 1973 issue of Analog has a new serial (maybe I'll get to it) and a Spider Robinson story.

The usual explaination: 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:

Guest Editorial: "Beyond the Citizen" by R. G. Cleveland. I haven't read it yet. I'll get back to it.

Serial: "The People of the Wind" (Part One of Three Parts), Poul Anderson, with an illustration by John Scoenherr showing a man with a tennis racket bending over to get something from a bag and a large round floating robot with three arms. The back hand has a tennis ball, the second has a racket and the third is stetching off to the top of the opposite page. After reading the story, I'm wondering if that's a cable to the ceiling. The caption reads, The most difficult thing to understand in the universe of man is -- the mind of man!

I hope I get to read this.

Short Story: "Biological Peacefare", by W. Macfarlane, with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing a background banner that says (one supposes) Peace of Earth, with a couple of cartoony, happy people walking with flowers in their hands. More prominent is the large round thing with a scaly belly, wings and a long bill, plodding along. The caption reads, "Sometimes a demonstration can be unexpectedly successful. And when it is, the need for such demonstratons disappears -- even though something else will soon be "bugging" the demonstrators."

Wilbur Hines works in a lab. Protestors smash the lab, calling him "Biological swine" and "bacteriological pig". Hines is studying gnats, and they escape as if Pandora's Box had been opened. He thought that they wouldn't be a problem but he was wrong. They mutated.

They were fruitful and multiplied, and have become a nuisance. More people stayed at home, avoiding going out. Some people are immune (unappetizing).

At some point, she was given the name Westbrook because that's the location were she lives.

Romee has to go to the jungle to get roots to sell to the Earth people to get money for the damn-TV and to buy chocolate. She's addicted. The new government wants to ban the sale of chocolate because they think it's unhealthy for the Notcid, and it could be why so many are dying in the jungle.

Romee meets a woman who is looking for people for a series of tests on response to envrionmental stimuli for a modest stipend. Romee applies.

The test turns out to be a little cruel. It uses the machine-sounding noises that the Noctid hear in the jungle and usually don't survive. Most of the time, their response is to jump away from the noise. By the time she's heard the noise twice, she's flattened to the ground, scared out of her wits. This continues until the experiment is stopped by a senior official who is not amused. He mentions "damage money" that Romee will be awarded ... but that won't be for quite a while.

Since she still needs money, she goes off the jungle and finds some of the roots she needs. While she's crawling around, she hears the noises roaring above her. She flattens to the ground and waits for the end to come. But nothing happens. The noise keeps repeating, over and over, until there are new sounds, a creak and a crack. It was a swinging tree limb, and it kept swinging so long that it finally cracked and fell. Worse for the tree, it fell into the very trap the limb would have pushed Romee into had she jumped into the air instead of flattening to the ground.

She now knew how to beat the tree. She wanted to tell others but their instinct would still be to jump. So she starts by training her family the way she was trained.

This was a cute story and should be easily filmable. Hollywood would likely screw it up because makes the capitalists friendly but hardly ever polite, while the government people are polite but hardly ever friendly. Too much of the current output leans in favor of the government over any private enterprise, even when it acknowledges government's shortcomings.

Casting, as written, there are two big parts for women, but you only need a few background characters in hairy suits, one main character and four humans. I'd watch it.

Howard L. Myers has written several stories that I've read already.

Short Story: "The Guy with the Eyes", by Spider Robinson, with an illustration by Vincent di Fate, showing a bartender (Callahan)behind his bar, some glasses and decanter on the bar, and two patrons. There are some spheres odd to the side, which could be taken as planets that are meant to be inferred but not actually in the scene. The caption reads, The job of a scout is difficult and dangerous. He must determine the nature and disposition of the enemy, its weak points, and its strengths. But when the scout starts to feel sorry for the enemy...

I was hyped to read an early Callahan story. I took the paperback Time Travelers Strictly Cash from the library back in high school. My oldest brother enjoyed it immensely. I read about half of it. I wasn't the greatest of readers back then, which is why I'd take multiple books out -- I'd hope one would "click" with me. I also playtested the GURPS supplement. "Mild Hangover" Advantage? That was mine. "No Hangover" was already there.

Anyway, I haven't read a lot of Spider, even though I'm always meaning to. This story seems like it's set in his universe and there's more going on. It gives the general location and the setup of the bar routines. Doc Webster is there telling bad puns. And people get up to make toasts.

There's stuff with "this Janssen kid" whose known for trouble. There's mention of heroin (he toasts "skag") and the war (it's 1973). But he's not the guy with the eyes. He's over in the corner listening, but has no answers.

Some pontificating happens, as is wont to happen in 70s stories and beyond.

The man with the eyes wore a black suit, a Joliet Special and his shoes didn't look right. He orders 10 drinks, makes 10 toasts to his profession, and then announces that he's an advance scout from many light-years away. Callahan knows he's neither drunk nor lying. A message is going to his Masters that he can't prevent, and for the first time, he has regrets. He's surprised when the bar regulars don't attack and kill him on the spot.

It petered out toward the end with a Mickey Finn reference but no solution to either problem.

Obviously, filming this would be a big deal because Callahan's is a long running series of stories and books. It could be a series of its own about a bar where everyone knows your name or something, but in Long Island, NY. Why it hasn't been made, who can say? (Well, Spider could, and probably folks who follow Spider on social media...) I don't know who I'd cast for any of the parts. And, of course, the storylines would have to be updated since they started in the 70s and lasted for many years after.

Short Story: "Modus Vivendi", by William Walling, with an illustration by Vincent di Fate, showing a large planet (Jupiter, there's a spot), some moons and a ship. The caption reads, The most critical step in any medical experiment is going from test animals to human trials. Usually this step is taken very carefully. But sometimes ...

I read the caption a while back before I read the story. It's funny reading it now as it telegraphs the ending in a way.

Clancy Bevvins, Lee Gresham, and Thaddeus Frye are scientists and researchers on a space-based station orbiting Jupiter. There's a base on Ganymede. Much of the research is of the hush-hush variety, so most have nothing to say about their work to the others. The one thing is that Bevvins has three gibbons with him. He says he's in deep space to avoid radiation and to be in zero g.

There's an accident that pushes them out of their orbit and whatever it is has breached both oxygen systems. The three of them and the gibbons are the only survivors. Time is against them. They won't spin into Jupiter before Ganymede is in range to call for help but they will run out of oxygen with no way to recycle it. There isn't enoug for one man let alone three

That's where the gibbons come in. One of them has something in their system (I was a little murky on the details) that allows her to recycle the carbon dioxide or breathe oxygen. Bevvins uses his experiment to keep the three of them alive. But there are consequences.

This was a good story, and only require a cast of 3 that can be as fiverse as you want them to me. It would also need three gibbons, briefly, which could be trained animals or could be cgi. Probably cheaper to get an animal trainer for a day of shooting, but what do I know? Only a couple of interior sets are needed, but the wreckage, and exterior would likely require CGI. I'd watch it.

Science Fact: "The Third Industrial Revolution" by G. Harry Stine, with an illustration of industry on the Moon that appears to be credited to "General Electric". The caption reads Conclusion. When you want to have our cake and eat it too, you're in a dilemma. When you want to continue a high-level technolog without further gutting Mother Eart for resources, you have to move your industrial base out of this world.

I followed a bit of this and then skimmed the rest. Gravity wells are issues for get resources and materials up into space. Slingshoting from the Moon or Mars would be easier, as would be mining asteroids. And you wouldn't have to worry about heating the environment.

If I knew enough about manufacturing in general, let alone space manufacturing, this could be a good resource to revisit for writing. The problem is that unless I want to write hard science fiction, most of this can be hand-waved.

Novellette: "Force Over Distance", by Tak Hallus, with an illustration by Jack Gaughan, showing a man working at a table, where there's a large box and a vertical ring. On either side of him are men with sombreros and guns. In the forground, there appears to be an object floating in a ball of light. The caption reads, The military-industrial state can sometimes amount to nothing more than two or three men with a common purpose. They don't even have to like each other.. just have a common purpose.

I've read Tak Hallus before at least twice. (I did a quick blog search.) This story is filled with Mexican banditos and revolutionaries.

Federico Jenson is a physicist who goes to Mexico and has his tire shot. He discovers this when he replaces it with the spare. As soon as he's done, the banditos steal the car and intend to strand him on the roadside. He wants his briefcase with his life's work in it. They refuse. So he says that he's going, too. So he's a hostage for ransom that he basically agreed to (insisted upon).

He tries to work out a math eqaution in the dust because he doesn't have paper but he insists on continuing his work. Juan, the guard, asks about it, calls him crazy for all the work he does to get a "cero" (the sequence should converge to zero). This sums up the opening illustration.

Jenson is being held prisoner by the revolutionary el Buitre, the Vulture. El Buitre isn't dumb -- he is good at strategizing and planning. He has Jenson demonstrate his transporter, which moves something to the other end of a table. El Buitre wants him to build a "beeg one", as big as a room. Jenson says what that would require.

This is no problem for El Buitre because his people can steal whatever they need. People die along the way. Jenson isn't happy about this, but on the other hand, he doesn't want their deaths to mean nothing. They're already dead and the project can move forward. He's almost as obsessed about his life work as El Buirtre is about his revolution.

His men make it into Tucson to get tantalum, and they kidnap construction engineer Harold Wright. Wright refuses to opperate for several days. El Buitre is about to kill him when Jensen intervenes. So El Buitre decides to kill him first. At this point, Wright agrees to help (although he nearly gets himself killed for calling El Buitre "Buzz").

The two complete the machine even though Wright is trying to stall it because he believes that they'll be killed before it's done. Finally they plan to escape through the device, with Wright worrying that Jenson might stay behind for "science" and his life work. Their plan is thwarted by the fact that Juan is smarter than he's been letting on.

The banditos go through the device (which seems like a large stargate) but they're in for a surprise when they get there.

An enjoyable story. It could fill an hour-long episode of an anthology show. I don't know how well the Mexican bandito angle would play unless it's done in a retro style, as in this actually happened in the 70s. The cast would require a handful of revolutionaries, El Buitre, and a physicist and an engineer. Women don't have a lot to do in this story. The ending requires a lot of extras and motorcycles, but it could just be a handful, and then cut away to Jenson and use a lot of sound effects and smoke and rattling boards.

Note: there is a very odd interior art piece which looks like El Buitre is riding a motorized unicycle. There's smoke to obscure the missing parts of the bike (and his arms because there are no handlebars) but you can see the far legs which should be on the other side of the motorcycle, out of sight. I found it amusing.

Short Story: "Trade-Off", by R. A. Beaumont

This entry appears to have been deleted. I must've typed it at work and didn't "save" it. Or it was lost the last time my computer froze and I had to do a hard boot.

Until it's restored: I wasn't thrilled with this story. It's filmable, but I don't it could/would be made into a segment on an anthology series.

Short Story: "Trade-Off", by R. A. Beaumont with an oval-shaped illustration by John Schoenherr, showing what appears to be a bunch of silos (or cylindrical objects) on a field at night and there are lots of bubble. The caption reads, There are times when the cure is worse than the disease. But when the cure triggers other diseases ...

I just started reading this. It appears to be told in a series of top secret memos. I didn't get far.

I have libary books to finish, so I may or may not get back to this.

The Reference Library , by P. Schuyler Miller. Opens with a discussion of books about on-screen SF. Reviews include The Overman Culture, by Edmund Cooper; The Wrong End of Time, by John Brunner; The Reality Trip, by Robert Silverberg; Pstalement, by Lester del Rey; and The Darkness of Diamondia, by A.E. van Vogt.

Brass Tacks: In July, there was an article on the future of automotive plants. Analog received a lot of responses, so they printed a reply by the writer, R. G. Cleveland first. I don't remember the article and the issues involved are 50 years old, so I didn't miss much skimming this.

I got an early start on this, whih was good, but then my book club and other library books took my attention away for a couple weeks, and February ended before you knew it.

What Moves the Dead (Kingfisher)

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a book club selection. I read it a month before the meeting, so I may update this with group thoughts.

TV Tropes, of all places, tells me that T. Kingfisher is a pen name of Ursula Vernon.

This was the thinnest of the nominees for the monthly selection and I don't remember if it was my first choice. It might not have been because I'm sure Good Reads would've told me that it was an update on "The Fall of the House of Usher". I wasn't aware of this when I started reading it, but as soon as we get to the decrepit mansion owned by the Ushers, I had an inkling.

I'm sure that I read the original story, that is to say, it was read aloud in class, in 11th grade English class, but I couldn't remember any particular details, except for allusions to the story in various sci-fi books and stories, and possibly snippets of a Vincent Price film. (Just checked. Price did a film in 1960, so it would've been on local TV stations many times in my childhood, and my oldest brothers would've likely watched it every time.)

The book starts a little awkwardly because the narrator isn't identifited much beyond a soldier and a friend of Maddie. There is a little confusion with pronouns, which are used before they are explained, so when I saw a phrase like "under kan heel", I didn't realize that "kan" was a pronoun in that case. I thought "kan heel" actually meant something as an expression. "Under one's heel" went straight out of my mind.

In the kingdom of Gallacia, where the narrator in from, va and van refer to he/she and his/her, respectively, for children. This continued to confused me because I see va and van and I think of Spanish 1, where those are verb conjugations. Then there's ka and kan which is reserved for the military. And during the war, they started allowing women to join, but didn't add new pronouns. After one leaves the service, one has the option of keeping "ka" or reverting back to whatever.

This preface is to criticize the fact that unless there were subtle references that flew by me, it was a good chunk of the book before you discover the former soldier narrating the book is, in fact, female. I think it was a reference no longer to binding "kan" breasts, or something similar. Alex is actually Alexandria. This also explains why she's such good childhoos friends with Madeline, but not her brother Roderick, who was in Alex's unit in the war.

The other thing that throw me was the year. References to the war had me thinking World War I, originally, but it was older than that. The appendix places it (from the story's context) to be in the late 1800s.

That confusion dealt with, it was an interesting update on the story (as much as I remember the original). A fungus expert is introduced, fairly knowlegdable but considered an amateur because women can't be mycologists in England.

All I can think of now is all of the tropes, because I hit the page. There isn't much to say that isn't a spoiler for something or other. Madeline is so sick so wouldn't survive traveling from the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania off to, say, Paris. But the house will be the death of her. Seriously. There are strange goings on in and around the house, like rabbits that don't act like rabbits shot -- even after you shoot them in the head.

Cool new word: tarn, which is the biolumimescent lake outside the house which was infected with a fungus.

This was a very quick read. Luckily, I put the ebook on hold as soon as we knew what the choices would be, so it was available early. I enjoyed it. I may go back and reread the beginning before the meeting, if I still have a copy of it.

As it turns out, all three choices became available so I checked them out. Now I have to read them quickly because I don't know which I'll be able to renew. Not really a problem. I'm already enjoying the next book, which will show up on the blog sooner or later.

The Atlas Six (Blake)

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a book club selection.

Since it's a recent book, getting an ebook wasn't easy to do. I managed to get the audiobook, which I didn't have time to finish, and then picked up the hardcover to finish it. That was an interesting ride. I listened to the first two chapters twice each to make sure I'd heard everything. My mind can wander while listening and I can put myself to sleep. I put myself to sleep with print and electronic books, too, but with those, you don't miss anything. I was about 2/3 of the way through when I had to return it and couldn't renew it. So I took over with the hardcover where I started with Chapter 3 so I could reread a lot of what I'd heard.

There were six readers, but they each took a POV, so it wasn't a "full cast" recording. Some were better than others, but I still heard them while I was rereading the parts I'd heard. Their voices faded a little at the end, but I still heard one male and one female voice in my head. Listening can be confusing, as the dialogue can run together and you can't always be sure who said what. Worse, you might believe the wrong character said something.

There was also a problem just in the structure. Someone's POV chapter would start and they would be with another character, and they would recount an event that happened with a different character during a time covered by a different POV section, and then the present character would speak, and I'd forget that they were even there. The chronology is just messy.

So the story: A man named Atlas approaches six people about a chance at joining a secret, ancient organization. It's the Library of Alexandria, which still exists. Okay, so now I'm thinking about The Librarians from cable TV, which I've only seen a few episodes of. After one year, five of them will move on and one will not, so there's some competition, even though they are supposed to be creating a team. We later discover that the one who doesn't make it will be killed. Now I'm thinking about Scythe, which I read last year (Link pending), and wondering how are they going to get around this. The characters are too well-developed and there's too much backstory to just pick one to eliminate, especially since there are sequel books.

Of the six of them, two of them have power over physical forces, Nico de Verona and Libby Rhodes, there's one, Reina, who has power over plants and can hear them all the time, someone, Tristan, who sees through illusions and sees the very nature of things, a mentalist, Parisa, who's a mind-reader and sexpot, and an empath, Callum, who can influence people, and is the other side of the coin from Parisa. There isn't much interesting or compelling about any of them, and you won't find yourself rooting for any of them (and if you do, it won't last long). Additionally, there is Nico's roommate Gideon, who is part mermaid and his mother is looking for him, and Ezra, Libby's boyfriend/ex-boyfriend. And there's Dalton, who has been living at the library for the past 10 years, since the last cycle, and seems like he can't leave.

There was an online review that said if you read the first and last chapter, you didn't miss anything. That sums it up very well. A lot of stuff goes on in the book but nothing happens. One of the people in my book club decided to read the entire series and (when I spoke to her) was in the middle of the second book. She mentioned that some of the threads from the first book pop up in the second. That's all fine and well, but there was too much in the book that either went nowhere (or was never mentioned again) or was setting up the next book.

The shocking twist, which wasn't much of one, was introduced at the end of the book and wasn't resolved. If anything, more questions were raised, but I don't want to sit through the answers.

Of the characters, Libby had a complex and couldn't be as good as she should be. Parisa tells her this much right before seducing her into a threesome. I was waiting for Libby to assert herself and walk away. (This was also an interesting section to hear narrated.) Libby could have overcome and be a hero. Then there's Nico who thinks too much of himself. He might've found some humility and then course-corrected. Tristan seemed to be the most timid, even more than Libby, and the most powerful once you learn of his nature. If I understand it correctly, he could change the nature of atoms, which means he could transmute one metal into another. Maybe this comes up again. Finally, Reina never seemed to use her power over plants except to hear them talking to her and telling her when they're suffocating and such. It seems like she could be more powerful than everyone except Tristan.

As for Parisa and Callum, they seemed to be set up as which one do you hate more and which one do want to see die. Whereas Nico and Libby are "frenemies" who can work together, Parisa and Callum are enemies, or at least antagonistic to each other from the start. Despite the references to Nico and Libby having the same power, so one of them is expendable, it's Parisa and Callum you want to see go. I wasn't on either team.

We find out that the house is basically sentient, or even alive, and it needs the sacrifice of magic every ten years. I thought it would turn out that Dalton actually died 10 years ago and is the living embodiment of the library. That wasn't the case. We also learn that this has been subverted with apparently no consequences. Maybe there are in the sequel. I won't be reading it.

There were some missed opportunities here, like maybe Callum influencing Libby to have Tristan do something that Callum would then know about in advance. Or just about anything, really.

Final judgment from the book club: not overwhelmed, didn't understand the hype, thought it dragged and nothing happened until the end to set up the next book, which all but one have no intention of reading, so she spoiled some of it for us, just to answer some questions.

ePulp Sampler, Vol 1

ePulp Sampler, Vol 1 created by John Picha (2013)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a freebie online while I was searching for "dieselpunk". I didn't realize how old it was. It says "edited by Kilroy" but everything online credits it to John Picha. The splash page says created by John Picha, Matthew J. Davies and Russ Bopp, and N. R. Grabe. The copyright notice show those four wrote the five stories (Picha writing two).

There are five stories contained of varying lengths, with may be launchpads for other series. I haven't gotten to the point of checking that out yet.

"Rurik of the Demonwatch: Arena of Death", Russ Bopp. We never really find out what the demon watch do (other than watch and battle demons). Rurik is traveling through someone's realm when he's captured and put into the arena for the queen's amusement. He defeats one foe and is about to be beset with more with the queen's son jumps into the ring to challenge the queen. Rurik is told to leave but not come back through the realm again. Not much to it.

"Dead Reckoner: October 21, 1917", Matthew J. Davies. A man falls victim to an African tribe and its with doctor and suddenly finds himself in WWI (decades later). Trench warfare and mustard gas. He seems to die at the end. I thought he would go from battlefield to battlefield, continually suffering. It seemed incomplete.

"Wild Marjoram: The Pill", John Picha. In an alternate timeline, WWI lasted a lot longer, so science and innvation continued. Basically, dieselpunk. The Germans have taken over parts of New York City, and the French have a stronger presence in Canada. Majoram is a mechanic in Chicago where there are still gangs, including one for women. THis makes sense because most of the young men are needed for the war effort. It seems that women are also needed to have babies for the war effort, which seems to imply that no one believes that the war will end in the next two decades. The Pill in the title refers to an actual birth-control pill, but its one made of heavier metals, so it has side effects of discoloring eyes to gray, and well as providing something akin to Popeye eating spinach (to a lesser extent) and damaging bones. Women who take the pill won't have children, which is helpful when the gang girls work in a brothel. The "anti-Slates" attack, and there are moves by foreign gangs to take over Chicago, so a group makes their way to Canada.

Maybe it was less convulted than I'm making it sound, or maybe it's more. It seems more of an excerpt of a bigger story rather than a standalone story. I would've ended it sooner. I didn't hate it.

"Pandora Driver: Blind Luck", John Picha. The Green Hornet, but a girl in black, like a black cat. The story follows a Charm School girl who sneaks out of a dance with a charming boy who turns out to be a serial killer who can get away with what he does (he's interested on how a body's insides work) because no one interferes. No one responds to screams. Pandora arrives and fires a tranq gun but it doesn't penetrate the guy's coat. He flees and Pandora has to get the girl to the hospital. Meanwhile, a nearly blind homeless man hears the screams, is aware of the fleeing man, and fires a flare gun at him that wounds the man in the shoulder. The two end up at the same hospital. The girl doesn't know the boy's real name, but the police bring him in, telling the nurse that he's important (son of a senator or somesuch). Pandora gets lucky. The girl survives, gets to meet the homeless vet, and decides to give up on charm school.

Interesting story. I could read more of them before I decide. There was something there.

"Skyracos: Set Adrift", N. R. Grabbe. Rocketmen versus alien bugs. I skimmed to the end. A lot of action but I lot interest.

The collection was a mixed bag. I did appreciate the intros to all the stories by whoever "killroy" is. If he's one of the authors included, that would make some sense. If there are more free samplers available, I might check them out before I spend money on any of them. These are "old" now, so it's possible.