Analog Magazine, January/February 2016 - Part Two

We Will Wake Among the Gods, Among the Stars by Caroline M. Yoachim and Tina Connolly

002/15012016 - Remember how the big reveal of Planet of the Apes was that it was not the distant past but the distant future?  This is that same kind of thing.

Seven ships land in different parts of a habitable planet.  One is never heard from again and becomes a thing of legend, like Atlantis.  We are generations past the initial landings and find the descendants have reverted back to kingdoms and blind religious faith.  In this story we are following an expedition to find the lost Seventh City.

The story was well written and interesting enough but this kind of dystopian future is not my rusty tin cup of muddy tea.  These tales are best set right here on Earth, for the simple truth that we understand implicitly how tings were, we are invested in the past of the story.  For this very reason I found the story fell flat.  It may have worked better had it been a novel, making the end of the story even more powerful.

Caroline M. Yoachim -  http://carolineyoachim.com/

Tina Connolly - http://www.tinaconnolly.com/

Farmer by Joe M. McDermott

003/150/2016 - Another dystopian story, this time set on Earth.  A New York brownstone is converted into an urban farm.  Not because it's trendy but necessary for survival.  Things are not good in this future.  We are never told exactly what happened to cause the infrastructure to collapse as it has, only that this type of urban farming is not unique.  People live in squalor and are ever-fearful of superbugs, drug resistant infections.

It is such an infection of one of the farm's customers that threatens the livelihood of the two men who own and operate it.  The government still functions and now the men are under threat of an inspection to see if they are the cause of the infection.  Were they doing something illegally?

I liked this one.  It was very vivid in my mind's eye.

Joe M. McDermott -  http://jmmcdermott.blogspot.ca/

Rocket Surgery by Effie Seiberg

004/150/2016 - What happens when you give a guided missile artificial intelligence? 

This was a cool story.  I enjoyed how the AI evolves.

 http://www.effieseiberg.com/

Saving the World by James Gunn

005/150/2016 - An exploration about genre fiction.  How does reading Science Fiction affect the brain.  Can reading science fiction save the world?

This is a well argued story.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1162

The Persistence Of Memory by Rachel L. Bowden

006/150/2016 - A quick story about a memory of a time and place that changed the direction of the narrators' life. 

I could picture it as a short film. Well done.