Analog Science Fiction and Fact 01/01/11
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The bulk of the book, clocking in at over 100 pages, is the lyrical novella “The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass.” This story is set on a marvelous far-future Earth whose major feature is the mysterious River That Flows Through the Air. Young Liaei, the Queen of the Hourglass, has a destiny. She is born of pure ancient human DNA, preserved for millennia, in order that she might mate with the Clock King. Their children, it is hoped, will survive the coming collapse of civilization and preserve knowledge through the coming dark ages.
“The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass” reads like vintage Roger Zelazny, with an added flavor all Nazarian’s own.
All things considered, this collection is definitely worth your time.
Dragongirl
Todd McCaffrey
Del Rey, 464 pages, $26.00 (hardcover)
E-book: $26.00 (Fictionwise) $9.99 (Kindle, Nook)
ISBN: 978-0-345-49116-9
Series: Dragonriders of Pern 24
Genre: Animal Companions, Beloved Worlds, Dragons
The Dragonriders of Pern series started as short stories published in Analog. Over the decades the books (like the series itself) have grown longer; at 482 pages, Dragongirl is longer than the first two Pern books put together. It is also the sixth book of a sub-series set before and during the Third Pass, when civilization on Pern is threatened by two different menaces, which together may destroy all human life on the world.
If all of the above is gibberish to you, then you must not have had the fortune to read the Pern books—and Dragongirl is not the book for you. Go back to the beginning of the series, Dragonflight, and start reading there.
For the rest of you, Dragongirl takes up where the previous book, Dragonheart, ended. In that book, a plague was killing dragons all across Pern—just when the all-consuming menace called Thread was beginning to fall. Since the telepathic dragons and their human riders are the only defense against Thread, things looked bad. Fortunately, dragons have the ability to travel through time as well as space. Fiona, who rides the gold dragon Talenth, accompanied the injured dragons and riders to the past, where they could take time to heal and recuperate.
Now, in Dragongirl, Fiona and her charges return—three years older on their own timelines, but coming back after only days after they departed. Although the plague is still killing dragons, the returnees are strong enough to fight Thread. After being in charge for three years, Fiona has trouble fitting in as a junior . . . until tragedy strikes and she is thrust once again into a position of authority. Her charges are happy to follow her, but some of the stay-behinds are reluctant to take orders from someone they see as only an inexperienced girl.
Characters from the earlier books return, including the harper Kindan whom Fiona loves, as crisis follows crisis and Pern hangs in the balance.
This is Todd McCaffrey’s third solo Pern book (he co-authored three others with his mother, Anne McCaffrey). He channels his mother well; if not for the byline, one would be hard-pressed to guess whether this was a solo effort or a collaboration. Everything we love about Pern is here: world-menacing threats, family and romantic relationships among characters we really care about, love between alien dragons and their human riders, and especially the all-important sense of wonder. As always, the immediate story comes to a satisfying conclusion, but plenty of room is left for the next book.
Fans of Pern will be enchanted and delighted at this book.
Noise
Darin Bradley
Spectra, 222 pages, $15.00 (trade paperback)
E-book: $9.99 (Kindle) $10.12 (Nook)
ISBN: 978-0-553-38622-6
Genre: Cyberpunk, Dystopian Futures
Since this month’s theme is stories of different lengths, I am tempted to call Noise “short and sweet”—except “sweet” just doesn’t apply, in so many ways. Let me simply note that in the past, this would have been classified as a standard-sized novel; nowadays it is perhaps a long novella. Which shows you exactly how artificial such length divisions ultimately are.
Set in the very near future, Noise is a story of economic and social collapse, and of those who live through it.
Hiram and Levi are hackers and Dungeons & Dragons players when the collapse comes. Fortunately, they are prepared with The Book, which tells them everything they need to know. They compiled The Book from the pirate broadcasts of an anarchic group known as Salvage, broadcasts that went out on the unused airwaves after the switch to digital TV was complete. Amid static and noise, Salvage has been warning of the coming collapse, and giving advice on how to survive in the chaos of a fallen world.
So Hiram and Levi set forth, prepared for the newly-violent world around them, in search of a place of safety called Amaranth, where they can begin to build the world anew. Along the way they gather a band of hackers, malcontents, and misfits.
But in the real world, things aren’t as cut-and-dried as The Book makes them seem, and cold-blooded decisions aren’t as easy to make as the boys thought they would be. In the final analysis, Hiram and Levi are left with choices to make . . . and their choices will affect the sort of society that finally emerges from the collapse.
Edgy and disturbing, Noise is a worthy successor to all those post-holocaust books of yesteryear.
Wookiee-Ookies
Kevin Bolk
Interrobang Studios, 16 pages, $5.00
Ensign Sue Must Die
Clare Moseley and Kevin Bolk
Interrobang Studios, 32 pages, $6.00
Purchase from interrobangstudios.com
Genre: Parody comics
And now, as they say, for something completely different. I know I said science fiction was primarily a literary form, but SF is also movies, and comics, and humor. These two full-color books of comic strips combine all three in a package that’s enchanting, whimsical, and too funny for mere words.
Artist Kevin Bolk draws his characters in the style that the Japanese call “chibi” and we refer to as “cute.” With oversize heads and enormous eyes, even the obvious adult characters appear to be a well-seasoned ten years old. Yet these aren’t Peanuts kids...their humor owes more to South Park than to Charles M. Schulz.
Wookiee-Ookies is, as you’d expect, a series of twisted Star Wars parodies. Each four-panel strip stands on its own and makes a definite joke, usually irreverent and always funny. Princess Leia’s reaction to dinner with Jabba the Hutt (“I hate Internet dating”) is only one of the treats.
Ensign Sue Must Die is a continuing story set in the universe of the most recent Star Trek movie. It chronicles the adventures of a perky newcomer to the Enterprise, Ensign Mary Amethyst Star Enoby Aiko Archer Picard Janeway Sue, as she inspires dread and hatred in the other members of the crew. The poor crewmembers try everything they can think of to get rid of Ensign Sue, but she keeps coming back for more.
The story and art are funny enough on their own terms, but Ensign Sue Must Die is also a clever meta-commentary on the so-called “Mary Sue” phenomenon, in which fan writers insert themselves as characters (“Mary Sue”) in their favorite TV shows or movies. Ensign Sue Must Die skewers every dreadful trope of the Mary Sue story, and ends with a horrifying evil loosed on the worlds of fiction.
There you have it: long and short and everything in between, another assortment of fine SF to start the new year off right.
Don Sakers is the author of The Leaves of October and WA Voice in Every Wind. For more information, visit www.scatteredworlds.com. Genre and series information is based on listings at www.readersadvice.com.
Copyright © 2010 Don Sakers
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BRASS TACKS
Dear Stan,
Well, this is a first. I haven’t even finished reading this month’s issue yet (September 2010), and I’m already dropping everything to write you and let you know that this one is the best ever.
The “Leviathan” story (
Eric James Stone) was a pure joy. Its simplicity and sincerity were just right from a thematic standpoint. When the theme of a story is integrity, it makes sense for that story to have a straightforward structure. And Stone’s clear language fits the theme perfectly also.
I hope I can be forgiven for reading the stories in Analog as if through the eyes of my father. Ira Thomas Myers was a subscriber for decades. He passed away in 1995 at the age of 70. Part of the reason I started my subscription just about two years ago was that I remembered seeing Analog around the house when I was a child, and I knew how much enjoyment he got from it.
Each time I read a story, I find myself wondering how Dad would have reacted to it. I know what his reaction would have been. He would have loved it.
Dad was a high priest in the Mormon Church, and Stone’s story captures with perfect accuracy the beliefs, attitudes, and behavior of Mormons. An astonishing achievement, and I know that Dad would have been beside himself with joy.
The ending of the story was very satisfying also.
So that story blew me away. Then the fact article was by H.G. Stratmann, who is my favorite. You should publish something by him every month. I prefer his fiction, but the fact article was a marvel of clarity and informativeness. I like listening to people who are actual experts.
Rusch works magic. Her story “Red Letter Day” affected me so intensely that I was moved to write my own letter to my 17-year-old self. I held back all the bad news—that’s what most people do, right? Anyway, I’m not sure what I had to tell him was bad news. Most people would think so, but I don’t know.
At any rate, that’s what science fiction is supposed to do—that’s what it’s supposed to be. Thought provoking, with emotional impact, and based upon a hypothetical technology.
“Pupa” was great (David Levine). Extremely creative. I like to read writers that set themselves hard technical challenges, and the point of view in “Pupa” definitely constitutes a challenge for an author. It is so easy to accidentally (unconsciously) let human-specific attitudes slip in. (Or rather, since we have no idea what attitudes are human-specific, I guess the mistake I’m referring to would actually be letting an alien character demonstrate attitudes which displease the acute reader by seeming human-specific.) Furthermore, how does an author advance his plot? It’s possible, of course, and Levine pulls it off. A treat.
Well, I can’t let you go without a little criticism. A letter with nothing but glowing praise in it would be awfully boring, wouldn’t it? Here’s a little constructive criticism—how about a few more illustrations? I like illustrations. Don’t go crazy, but one or two more per issue would be nice. They could be small, even.
And here’s a warning on time-travel stories. I know I just praised Rusch’s offering, but still. Be careful, Stan. I measure time-travel stories against “By His Bootstraps” and very few measure up. I’m just saying that my recommendation is you should look askance at time-travel stories.
But I’m reaching, I know, because what is there really to criticize Analog for? Nothing, that’s what. You guys are great. Thank you for the good work that you and your team does.
Sincerely,
Christopher Myers
Lovelock, NV
Dear Stan,
In the media frenzy following hurricane Katrina, I was quite gratified to see that, for the most part, the scientists interviewed made a point of emphasizing that there was no reason to think that Hurricane Katrina had been caused by global warming. In fact, there was, at the time, not a clear consensus that the number of hurricanes would be increased by global warming (although there were some preliminary models suggesting that they might be).
So I was quite baffled by Jeff Kooistra’s recent column discussing anthropogenic global warming (“AGW”), where he crows about his success in “confronting the claims being made that hurricanes were going to be more frequent and powerful than ever due to AGW.” Wait—what claims? Kooistra refers to the April 2007 column, which referred to a two-page Popular Science article from 2006. Reading that article, I found the text that mentioned global warming: two sentences that quoted no scientists and made no actual predictions.
So, when he says that he was right, and the non-scientist writing for Popular Science was wrong, because “the years following Katrina had relatively calm hurricane seasons”—this relates to the science of global warming not at all. Even if hurricane frequency would be affected, this would be seen over a time scale of many decades, not one or two years. He is “confronting” a popularization, not the science.
This is, unfortunately, the problem with most of the so-called skeptics—they get their science from popularizations, not from the real science.
The greenhouse effect, in its basics physics, is quite simple. Like anything with a temperature above absolute zero, the Earth emits infrared radiation. Some of this infrared radiation is absorbed by trace gasses in the atmosphere. This energy is eventually re-radiated (also in the infrared) in all directions, and some fraction of it returns downward. That downwelling energy from the atmosphere adds to the total energy budget heating the Earth. (This is called “radiative forcing function.”) So the question that needs to be addressed by the skeptics is: why shouldn’t the average temperature of the Earth increase if the input power heating it increases?
I use a simple test to distinguish true skeptics, people who want to understand the real science, from people who only repeat information that confirms pre-set opinions: I ask, have they read the science? Or only the critics? In the case of anthropogenic global warming, I ask whether they have read the IPCC Working Group I report, “The Physical Science Basics.” This is the basic report explaining the underlying science—it’s easy enough to find; it’s on the web.1 But here is a remarkable fact: although dozens of people claiming to be skeptics write to me, talk to me, and send me their opinions, when I ask if they’ve actually read the report they’re criticizing, the answer, so far, has always been “well, no, I haven’t actually read it.”
Okay: if you haven’t read the report, why not? You don’t want to learn the science, or what the data is that supports the science—but you will uncritically accept all the criticisms?
That isn’t skepticism—that is denial.
Geoffrey A. Landis, Ph.D.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
1. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Working Group I Report “The Physical Science Basis” can be found, among other places, at http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm. This report is a review—in its way a popularization, not primary science—and the real student will want to delve into the references, peruse the related textbooks, and find the associated literature. But it’s a good place to start. Dear Dr. Schmidt, There is a scenario or subplot (or worse, a plot) that occurs often enough in ASF to be a trite cliché. It appears in military, government, commercial, etc. milieus. In it we have a junior and a senior member of the crew, scientific group, engineering, etc. organization. There is (of course) a problem to be solved. The senior member gives the junior member explicit instructions to be followed. The junior member argues for a different course of action but is overruled by the senior member.
The junior member goes off on the mission. He decides he knows better and follows his own path, disobeying his orders. It turns out that he was correct and the senior member was wrong. A terrible tragedy is averted. The senior member chares the junior member with disobedience to orders, resulting in an investigation, trial, court martial, etc. The defense counsel (perhaps a beautiful woman?) successfully saves the junior member and causes the senior member to be punished in some manner.
Of course there are large numbers of variations on this theme possible, so there is unfortunately no danger of running out of them.
In my own experience in the military and the aerospace industry I have never seen or heard of anything even close to this scenario actually taking place. Senior members know better than to give detailed instructions to the man in the field. Give him his goals
and let him work out his actions.
Nowadays if the actual situation is not what was originally estimated it to be, the junior just gets the senior on the phone and requests new instructions. If the two are out of contact for some reason, the junior is on his own. If he deviates from his instructions and turns out to be right, he is congratulated for his initiative. If he deviates from his instructions and turns out to be wrong then some court or board or panel, etc. Decides whether his actions were justified by the situation as he found it. This might not be a yes or no verdict, but a nuanced judgment of his actions taking into account the “fog of war.”
People in authority just aren’t as stupid as this scenario implies.
If you want to see a real screw-up read about Adm. Halsey and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. (Chose a recent book. Victory at Sea [TV] and the books written while Halsey was still a living hero were cover-ups.)
Yours Truly,
James C. Wilcox
Palos Verdes Estates, CA
You’ve been lucky—I’ve seen plenty of cases in which people in authority did behave stupidly, including micromanaging jobs that they didn’t understand at the “hands-on” level. And in any case, interesting stories are likely to be that way in part because they deal with unusual rather than routine situations.
The course of history can be changed but not halted.
—Paul Robeson
Opinion is that exercise of the human will which helps us to make a decision without information.
—John Erskine
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2010 Index
Here is the Index to 2010, Analog’s Volume CXXX. Entries are arranged alphabetically by author, with month and page. When the author’s name and/or part of the entry’s title is omitted, it is the same as that of the previous entry. Multiple entries by the same author are listed alphabetically according to the story/article title. Collaborations are listed under all authors with cross references. Unless otherwise noted, each entry is identified as an Alternate View (av), editorial (ed), fact article (fa), guest editorial (ge), novella (na), novelette (nt), poem (pm), Probability Zero (pz), serial (se), special feature (sf), or short story (ss).