Analog Science Fiction & Fact

Your daily dose of art

2007-02-11T04:52:11Z

I recently added a feed for A Certain Artist's "Art du Jour" blog - for the past couple months, he's been trying to post (and maybe sell) a painting every day. It's fun to see what he comes up with! If you're interested, check out bobeggleton.

In Praise of Global Warming

2007-02-11T00:15:45Z

A Winter's Tale

Mighty Lada - Whoo!

After a balmy December when it seemed everyone suddenly was suddenly a long-time believer in Global Warming, General Winter has struck back with a vengeance. Here in Toronto, the past week has seen temperatures dipping to -15 or so - chilly enough, but nothing compared to the Winter of '88 to make hopping on my bike in the morning an excersise of will, though I'm always sweating by the time I get to work.

But -15 isn't really cold ...

Back in the late 1980s I found wintering in Sudbury, living out in the bush with my mother. I had a temporary job as a production assistant on what was then known as CBC Northern Ontario Radio's flagship program, Morning North. It was during the winter of that 16-week stint that I experienced real cold.

My mother and I usually drove in to work together (she too worked for the Mother Corp - but that tale of semi-nepotism is one for another day) but she was out of town the night the temperature dropped to -44 celsius (for you Yanks, that's about 47 below F). And note: that figure did not include the windchill factor!) and I forgot to plug in block-heater. For those not familiar that term, please see sooguy's post about his return to the north.

Now this car was a Lada, a vehicle of Soviet make that was then probably pushing 10 years old.

And so it was with little confidence that I slipped the key in the ignition. Instinctively, I knew the key itself was at risk of snapping from the cold. Gingerly, I tried turning it.

Nothing. Not a hint of motion.

I tried again, with just a little more force. Still nothing.

I decided to apply heat and drew forth my lighter, held the key in the flame almost until my fingers burned.

And tried the ignition again. Still no movement.

I decided on a little more force - and the key snapped in two, leaving the head between my thumb and fingers, the shaft lodged in the ignition.

At which point, no longer worried about breaking the key, I a quarter from my pocket (and yes, I was fucking cold by this point!), slipped it into the slot and twisted for all it was worth.

Awwwooouurrrggghhh, said the Lada.

Amazed, I turned the key again, and stomped the gas peddal like a madman.

Aawwoouughggg ...

Awougghh

Awough! Woouughh, roooouuu, brroooommmm!

It cost me $275 to get the ignition drilled later, but I was always proud of that car. -44 is cold!

The Ice Age That Wasn't

Mighty Analog - Whoo!

As most of you know, I'm a year-round cyclist, and this cold-snap hasn't stopped me. But it has led me to reflect that, although I really do like winter, the warm weather makes life a good deal easier.

Thursday morning, I was gifted with an early visit by Canada Post and so was able to giddily stow the latest issue of Analog in my backpack before hitting the frigid January streets.

Now, I haven't read the whole issue yet, so you needn't worry that I'm going to bore you with more science fiction critiques (not yet, at any rate). No, it's science I want to talk about.

Analog's science column this month, by Richard A. Lovett (who seems to be almost a non-entity on the web - no link, for once) is entitled, "The Ice Age That Wasn't", and it's a fascinating read.

Back in the 1970s, there was a lot of talk about the possibility the earth was heading into another ice-age, something that those who question the science behind global warming still like to brandish like an ex-lover's mash-notes to support their contention that global warming isn't "proven" and so we need do nothing about it.

Lovett's article makes a strong case for the idea that "those scientists" weren't so dumb after all. The article is based on a paper, paper"The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era Began Thousands of Years Ago</a>, by one William F. Ruddiman, PhD.

Over the past 400,000 years, the earth has gone in and out of glacial ages on a regular schedule and, according to Ruddiman via Lovett (I have not yet read the paper), by all rights we should be heading towards - if not already be in - another ice-age. Ice-cores, pollen samples and other methods all point to the same pattern. "You have to throw 395,000 years of history out the window to come up with a natural explanation" for the fact the earth is heating up right now, rather than cooling down, Ruddiman said in 2003. "Something's overridden the natural system."

Most of us associate the increasing levels of green-house gasses - carbon dioxide and methane, in particular - with the industrial revolution, but Ruddiman claims humanity has been altering our planet's natural balance for a good deal more than a few hundred years.

In fact, according to the Professor's thesis, humanity began to modify the planet's natural cycle some 8,000 to 12,000 years ago, when we began the shift from living as hunter-gatherers to farming.

We cut down trees for cropland, and flooded fields to grow rice. Enough so, that the resulting loss of carbon sinks and increases in methane output changed the composition of the atmosphere enough to stop the global cooling trend that "should" have been happening.

If professor Ruddiman is correct, at least those of us living north of the 49th parallel should probably be giving a huge vote of thanks to global warming, as the normal cycle would have seen the world cooling for another few thousand years before it went once again into an inter-glacial period.

Which doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about what is happening now of course. The 20th century saw the human influence on our atmosphere's composition grow vastly stronger and the consequences - at best - are going to be difficult to deal with. Rising oceans, changing rainfall patterns, all happening quickly and concurrently are going to cause a great deal of suffering, and not just to people. Between the changing weather and the loss of habitat, species are going extinct at a rate not seen in millions of years.

It seems that humanity has been playing god for millenia, but is only now becoming aware of it. Which begs the question: now that we do have an inkling of our power, and that our inadvertent use of it has kept the ice-sheets at bay, what are we going to do with that power?

Clearly, if it were put to a vote, the side wanting a complete return to the "natural cycle" would lose in a landslide. At the same time, I doubt most of us want a world with rainforests growing on Antarctica, either. But Ruddiman's thesis, for me at least, somehow makes it clear that we are gods now, and in the 21st century, we had better face up to our power and figure out what we want to do, and what we should do, with that power.

Like it or not, the earth is ours. We can nurture it or destroy it, and pretending we can "go back to the natural order" can only guarantee we will do the latter.

Cross-posted from my own journal.

Memorable stories

2007-01-20T22:36:51Z

I'm working on a project with Stan (can't really talk about it yet, but I will when I can), so I'm looking for the most memorable stories Analog/Astounding has published. What comes first to your mind as truly memorable (in a good way)? Title/author, please, and a two- or three-sentence description of the story would be a big help (actually, if you can remember which issue it was in, that, too would be helpful).

Thanks for your thoughts!

--Ian

Compare and Contrast: Analog and Asimov's

2006-11-11T23:45:43Z

I don't usually post introductions when I join a group, but since I posted a compare-and-contrast review of the December issues of both Asimov's and Analog, it seems appropriate to do so.

I first enountered Analog in the late 1970s, when I was 12 or so and vaguelly remember picking up the first issue of Asimov's a year or two later.

Long story short, I've been reading SF since I was 9 years old and continue to do so. I posted the following article to my own journal as well as to sf_book_reviews, where calico-reaction hipped me to the existence of the Analog/Asimov's communities.

And so, below you will find what

(In which the author discusses his preference for one good magazine over another; digresses briefly on the value of short fiction; and argues that you should subscribe to one or both, if you care about the long-term survival of popular short fiction.)

10 times a year I open my mailbox and am rewarded with the latest issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Briefly, I hop up and down like a 5 year old on Christmas morning when I feel the centimetre-thick package then, with excited reverence, I pull the gift from the slot and press my lips to its mylar wrapping.

Less often, I will pick up Analog's sister magazine, Asimov's Science Fiction from one of the rare newstands that actually carry such low-volume, awkwardly-sized and probably not-very-profitable publications.

This month was one in which I read both current issues and so this seems a good time to discuss them both, and why it is that I prefer one over the other.

Analog has the longer pedigree as periodicals count such things. Established in 1930 under the name Astounding Stories of Super Science, it is science fiction's lone survivor of the pulp era.

Asimov's was founded in 1977 and - if the Hugo Awards are anything to go by; its editors have won 18 for best magazine during that time, while Analog has won precicely zero - quickly became the prestige magazine in the field. There is certainly no denying that Asimov's regularly presents more "literary" stories, with arguably better writing and definitely a greater emphasis on psychology, imagery and mood than Analog's "nuts-and-bolts" approach.

Why is it then, that I subscribe to the latter and only occasionally pick up the former? The question becomes even more pertinent when I think about the (very) few forays I have made into writing science fiction; my own work would definitely be a better fit with Asimov's than with Analog.

And so it behooves me to examine the December 2006 editions of both publications.

For the purposes of this essay, I have chosen my subjects well. Both are fairly average issues, highlighting each publications' strengths and weaknesses. The vagaries of surface mail being what they are, I picked up the December Asimov's a couple of weeks before Analog found its way to my mailbox, so I'll start with the former.

The issue begins strongly. Editor Sheila Williams for once eschews her normal, bloglike musings with an essay on American copyright law and the ways in which it serves to limit what has historically been the conversational nature of art, ie, that quoting from another work is not necessarily theft, but building on ideas from the past. (The science fiction field itself is very liberal in this regard; as a single fer'instance, I have seen Ursula K. LeGuin's faster-than-light "radio", the ansible, used by more than one writer.)

Regular columnist Robert Silverberg discusses and highly recommends a book about the history of science fiction magazines. A major writer in the field for decades now, Silverberg's article is too personal for my taste, but certainly of interest to people who care about the field and its history.

Finally, in terms of the articles, Peter Heck's book column was entirely forgettable to me, and I don't have the energy to re-read it for this essay. (The issue also contains 4 poems about which I will also remain silent; probably sadly, I don't do poetry as a rule.)

All right then, what about the fiction?

The first story, Paolo Bacigalupi's "Yellow Card Man" is a strong, dystopian story set in a post-global warming Thailand. It is a story of a former Malay Chinese businessman reduced to penury in a harsh new world. Well-written, it is nevertheless too typical of "literary" SF in that it is, first, depressing and second (and to my mind,more importantly), it addresses a situation that could as easily have been set in any present-day country experiencing an influx of unwanted refugees.

Simarly, and although it is set in a much stranger, more "science fictional" place and time, Robert Reed's "Plausible" is an engaging story, a coming-of-age tale, of sorts, but one that ultimately could as easily have taken place here and now. It is a story of luck, coincidence and the kindness (and meanness) of strangers as experienced by a young boy who loses himself, for a while, at a parade.

Calgary's Susan Forest's "Immunity" is actually set in space, on a mining colony of a moon orbiting one of the solar system's outer planets (I don't remember the precise location). It is a powerful story of a mother's love in conflict with her responsibilities to the colony of which she is administrator as a plague breaks out. It is also a story of guilt and forgiveness, with personally tragic undertones as Trine, the protagonist, is unable to forgive her self for a decision all others understand and have forgiven. "Immunity" is a very good story, though it too could - with not much re-working - have been set in the modern world with no loss of thematic meaning.

Brian W. Aldiss' "Safe!" comes close to being a story that is science fiction in the sense it could not take place in the modern world. A satire of sorts, it concerns an astronaut on a one-way mission to Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, and the repercussions of his hitherto unrevealed madness. En route, he murders his fellow astronaut and upon landing, proceeds to develop the "Laws of Psychospheres" which, we are assured, will forever change life on earth. Aldiss' story is written with the practiced hand of an old master, is engaging and sometimes funny, but still feels like something the writer tossed off, rather than a fully-realized work.

Christopher Priest's "A Dying Fall" is not science fiction at all, to my mind. One can read it as fantasy or as psychological fiction, but it is the sort of story that seldom interests me. It is well-written, with a reasonably engaging protagonist who undergoes a near-death experience after being pushed onto the subway tracks but - like most fantasy - the story's arbitrary fantastic elements left me cold and mildly frustrated because of that by the tale's end.

Ian Creasy's "The Golden Record", on the other hand, is more to my taste. A story that opens with the recovery from deep space of Voyager 2 by one Andrew Pitt, of Houston Spaceflight Museum, in 14 pages, "The Golden Record" offers commentary on the state of our world, a race in space, an encounter with a terrorist and a possible (and pathetic) future for the United States, along with a strong argument in favour of the idea that humankind owes it to itself to reach for the stars.

Finally, Michael Swanwick's novella, "Lord Weary's Empire" seems to me to exemplify everything that is right and wrong with Asimov's Science Fiction.

To be fair, it is not a stand-alone story, but a sequel to one that appeared in Asimov's 2 or 3 years ago. That said, if I read its predecessor, I don't remember it, and so must judge "Lord Weary's Empire" on its own.

Written with the literary flair and confidence of a writer in full control of his craft, "Lord Weary's Empire" is by turns moving, exciting and intriguing. It is also a cheat, as at the end, we learn that nothing that happened before was true - rather, the protagonist, Will, is victim to an illusionist. This is much like ending a fantasy with "and then he woke up"; the last writer to get away with it in my books was Lewis Carroll.

All of which is to say, if you like this sort of thing, Asimov's is an excellent place to find it. But if fantasy and slice-of-life fiction are not your cup of tea; if you prefer extrapolation plain philosophy instead, you would be better off having a look at Analog.

Like the December Asimov's, the current issue of Analog is fairly typical of the magazine, neither extraordinarily good nor bad.

Editor Stanley Schmidt opens the issue with an editorial questioning the purposes of public education. In a tradition decades-old, he does not offer prescriptions for any particular current problem, but rather asks his readers to think, to consider what should, and what should not, be part of a public school's curriculum.

The December issue's "Science Fact" article discusses the scientific probability of the existence of "float worlds", planets entirely covered by water and the likelyhood they could develop complex life. As usual, it contains graphs and scientific notation; not written for scientists, it nevertheless presumes its readers are not liberal arts majors with no grounding in physics or mathematics.

The second article, part of the ongoing The Alternate View, takes a German PhD Students dissertation and explores the cutting-edge of quantum physics and the possibility of sending messages into the past.

Analog's regular book reviewer, Tom Easton provides a typical run-down on recent books - brief synopses and his opinion as to whether or not the books under discussion are worth his readers' while.

As for the fiction, as I have said, this issue of Analog is pretty typical, its strengths and weaknesses both on display.

The opening novelette, "Imperfect Gods", by C. Sanford Lowe and G. David Nordley is one of a series, a type of story Analog often runs. Not quite a serial, the stories in these kinds of series will nevertheless often end up collected in a book, featuring reccuring characters and, often, a single narrative thread.

"Imperfect Gods" takes place on a cold world, in the early stages of terraformation, the process of using technology to change a planet (Mars is the classic example) into an earthlike sphere capable of sustain human life.

"Imperfect Gods" is not, however, "about" terraforming. That's the background. The foreground is a long-term, very difficult experiment, and the conflict between the scientist charged with overseeing it and a government that has become influenced by a religious movement that claims the experiment is too dangerous to allow to come to fruition. Nordley and Lowe do a good job of admixing thriller, romance and human weakness into a story that, arguably, could only be told as science fiction, no matter that the political and religious elements clearly echo trends and events of our own world.

Grey Rollin's "Double Dead" is another installment of a series, in this case an entertaining but ultimately forgettable hybrid of film noire and tongue-in-cheek SF. I enjoyed reading it, wanted to find out what happened next - but a month from now, I won't remember a thing about it.

Craig Delancey's "Openshot", on the other hand, is a lovely example of why I kiss Analog on its arrival, as well as read it.

The conceit is as follows. A competition modelled on the X-Prize (which recently saw the launches of a reusable Earth to orbit (privately built) spacecraft), has this time instigate a return to the moon.

One ship, piloted by the "crippled" former test pilot, T.J. ("Colonel Bianco" to her enemies), was built on the open source model, the other by a private company.

The plot is fairly simple. The private space-craft has experienced a catastrophic technical failure and is in need of help. Its open-source competitor is (of course; I don't think the story provides a specific date, but it could plausibly be set 15 years in the future) the only ship that can rescue it. Of course, despite much bitching, T.J. does rescue her competitor (and is betrayed by him), but the heroes are nevertheless triumphant.

There is a long-standing libertarian tradition in (particularly) American science fiction in general and in Analog in particular, as exemplified by such writers as Robert A. Heinlein and, more recently, by John Varley.

What I find exciting about "Openshot", beyond that it is a good story, is the way in which it engages with - and advances - an ongoing discussion within science fiction (and, it should be needless to say, in the rest of the world). That is, how do we best organize the world? Collectively or privately, or in some combination of the two?

Delancey has taken something new from our world - the open-source movement - and extrapolated a way in which it might function in the near future (and very expensive!) world of space exploration. That Analog, which has long been home to the laissez-faire political point of view would publish this contrarian piece speaks volumes about why I so often enjoy it.

Jerry Oltion's very short story, "Diatomaceous Earth" is a cute but forgetable stroy of an archeologist who is more interested in his side-line as a plant-breeder than his (non)place in history as the man who completely altered human civilization.

Similarly, Wil McCarthy's "The Technetium Rush" is briefly entertaining, and a mildly interesting take on fraud and science - but I won't remember a thing about it come next issue.

The December issue's penultimate story, on the other hand, is at once touching and intriguing. The place: somewhere in northern North America. The time: a long ways into the future. In Catherine H. Shaffer's "Long Winter's Nap", the earth is in the midst of another ice-age, and LittlestOne is suppose to retire with her family for winter's hybernation. But she doesn't want to sleep; she wants to see Santy Clawr, who (she believes) comes during the deepest cold of winter.

So she stays awake while the rest of her clan falls into a deep sleep and creeps out into the cold, only to be "rescued" by people who have clearly not been bioengeneered to survive the brutal ice-age cold. Only 8 or so years old, her "saviors" ignore her when the 8 year-old tells them she has to return to her family.

A "christmas story" of sorts, "Long Winter's Nap" is also a coming-of-age tale with a lovely hint of sugar but not an iota of sacharine.

Finally, there is the 3rd instalment of Toronto's own Robert J. Sawyer's latest novel, Rollback.

Sawyer is a prolific and, I believe, a very popular writer and is certainly an Analog mainstay. This is far from the first of Sawyer's novels it has serialized (an archaic but, to my mind, charming practice which only Analog among the SF magazines continues to do on a regular basis.

Rollback in many ways is the quintessential Analog story, in every way.

On a "literary" level, Sawyer is a terrible writer. His prose is clunky, his characters nothing but sketches, and Sawyer - always (in my limited experience; did I mention that Sawyer is prolific?) as the omniscient author - tends to digress to a degree that would embarass even one as prolix as myself.

And yet ...

And yet the man knows how to tell a story. And he tells stories that could only be science fiction stories.

Rollback is set in the mid-21st century. Donald Halifax, a retired journalist with the CBC, is married to the Sarah, the woman who decrypted the first message received from an alien race, in 2009. In 2048, the aliens "write" again and a billionaire backer of the SETI project, offers Sarah a new lease on life, so that she can continue her work: a "rollback" of her age. Sarah accepts, but only on the condition that her husband Don also gets the treatment.

This being dramatic fiction, Don's treatment works, but Sarah's does not.

And so the reader is offered two stories. The first, the mystery of the aliens' message, which 87 year-old Sarah struggles to decode. The second, Don's reversion to a physical age of 20 or so, with a newfound libido to match his full head of hair.

A gentle page-turner, Rollback is nevertheless as frustrating as it is intriguing. Sawyer's understanding of human nature is strong; his ability to show it, rather than to tell you about it, is almost non-existent. Sawyer is an old-school science fiction writer, taking as a starting point, "What if ...?" and the following the assumption to its logical conclusions. (What if someone was able to scientifically prove the existence of a soul? What if Neanderthal's had survived; what sort of society would a species strong enough to break ribs with a single punch develop? Or, in his latest, what if a loving 87 year-old husband was suddenly given the body - and hormones! - of a 20 year-old, while his (also) 87 year-old wife was still alive?)

Needless to say, I can't comment on how Sawyer ends the novel, since December's issue contains only part 3. I'll have to wait another couple of weeks for the finale. But whatever my complaints about the prose, I'm looking forward to the conclusion, as I'm sure Sawyer will surprise me, at least a little.

(A side-note, particularly for you Canucks and especially for those who aspire to write commercially. Almost all of Sawyer's books are set in Canada, feature Canadians and Canadian places. Yet he is published in the States, and not only in Analog. There is no need (or at least, not much need) to pander to the geo-prejudices of the Yanks, if you tell a story that people will want to read.)

The December 2006 issues of Analog and Asimov's are both exemplary editions of the magazines. If you prefer dystopian slice-of-life, poetic prose or quasi-fantasy, subscribe to Asimov's. If your mind is more attuned to politics and philosophy, Analog will more likely be your cup of tea.

But if you enjoy good fiction, especially good short fiction and SF in any form appeals to you, for god's sake subscribe to one of them. Magazine economics are such that if even 10 of you do it, you'll make a difference towards deciding whether these forums for up-and-coming (and established) writers survive.

Calling SFWA members

2006-08-31T14:17:03Z

I've started a new livejournal community for SFWA members only. It is readable and postable only by community members, so you won't see anything if you go to the journal page. If you are a SFWA member, you can join by going to the user info and clicking on the text link to join. I am not checking anyone's SFWA membership agains the SFWA directory or anything. I do not have time to verify everyone's membership so we are going by the honor system as far as eligibility to join. Anyone who is a SFWA member (associate, active, affiliate, or whatever) is invited, so feel free to copy this and spread it around.

The group is sfwa_tea_party.

Thanks!

Writing News

2006-07-28T01:38:54Z

According to Robert J. Sawyer's bolg DELL is cutting newsstand distribution of Analog and Asimov's by 75% in Ontario. Anyone know if this is happening in the US too?

Flashing Swords will be open to submissions on December 15, 2006.

X-posted to ambasadora, analogsf, asimovs, setonhillwpf, specficmarkets, sfwriters, sfandf_writers

Robert J Sawyer, Dell, Analog, Asimov's, Flashing Swords

analogsf @ 2006-05-12T13:35:00

2006-05-12T17:38:48Z

So, what're everyone's thoughts on A New Order of Things? since the issue is still fairly new, I won't post any spoilers, or at least, none that aren't behind a cut..

I am seriously loving this novel. I instantly felt like I understood exactly who Art Walsh and Ambassador Chung were. Granted, much of the rest of the characterization of the humans is less than full-color, those two are really well done, imo. And I am dying to find out how it ends.

Anyone else?

Analog, July/August 2006: Open Thread

2006-05-09T12:00:45Z

An open thread to discuss the issue.

Serial:
A NEW ORDER OF THINGS, Part III of IV, Edward M. Lerner

Novella:
KREMER'S LIMIT, C. Sanford Lowe & G. David Nordley

Novelettes:
WITHERSPIN, Alexis Glynn Latner
THE KEEPER'S MAZE, Joe Schembrie
ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDSHIP POSSIBLE, Ian Stewart
STRIING OF PEARLS, Shane Tourtellotte

Short Stories:
TOTAL LOSS, James Hosek
THE SOFTWARE SOUL, Briant Plante
WILLIES, Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
THE TELLER OF TIME, Carl Frederick

Science Fact:
MESSENGERS FROM THE EARTH'S CORE? THE GREAT PLUME DEBATE HEATS UP, Richard A. Lovett

The Editor's Page, WHEAT AND CHAFF by Stanley Schmidt

Analytical Laboratory Results

The Alternative View, PLANETS OF BINARY STAR SYSTEMS, John G. Cramer

The Reference Library

Brass Tacks

In Times to Come

Upcoming Events

Cover Art by Bob Eggleton

AnLab Winners

2006-05-08T14:37:29Z

NOVELLA : "Sanctuary", Michael A. Burstein (Analog Sep 2005)
NOVELETTE : "NetPuppets", Richard A. Lovett & Mark Niemann-Ross (Analog Jun 2005)
SHORT STORY : "Alphabet Angels", Ekaterina Sedia & David Bartell (Analog Mar 2005)
FACT ARTICLE : "Mission to Utah: A Science Fiction Writer’s Adventures at the Mars Society Desert Research Station", Wil McCarthy (Analog Jul/Aug 2005)
COVER : November, George Krauter

July/August Analog?

2006-05-05T19:52:02Z

Has anyone received their July/August Analog yet? I understand that at least one subscriber has, but mine wasn't in today's mail, and it includes the winners of the AnLab. I'd like to know what stories won and what their standings were.

Brainstorming

2006-04-07T13:31:34Z

Part of the reason I decided to create this community is because the popularity of print short science fiction and fantasy seems to be waning. Analog, Asimov's, and F&SF are generally considered the big three SF magazines, but their circulation is not as high as it once was. And just last week, the new owners of Amazing Stories finally announced they were folding the magazine.

The web takes up some of the slack, perhaps, but even there markets come and go, as I noted in this post on the status of the short fiction market back when SCI FICTION folded.

So, if you're reading here, presumably you have some interest in keeping print short SF/F alive. For brainstorming purposes, here's a few questions to get us thinking about how we can help increase Analog's popularity.

Do you subscribe to Analog? If not, why not?

What do you get out of the short stories in Analog that you don't get out of reading other things?

What can we do to encourage people to support Analog by subscribing?

And, some bonus questions -- are you a reader, a writer, an aspiring writer, or what? Have you ever published a story in Analog or submitted to it? (I'm curious to find out if this community is attracting readers as well as writers.)

Analog, June 2006: Open Thread

2006-04-06T11:51:22Z

An open thread to discuss the issue:

Serial:
A NEW ORDER OF THINGS, Part II of IV, Edward M. Lerner

Novella:
PUNCHER'S CHANCE, James Grayson & Kathy Ferguson

Novelette:
ORIGINAL SIN, Richard A. Lovett

Short Stories:
PREEMPTION, Charlie Rosenkrantz
THE DOOR THAT DOES NOT CLOSE, Carl Frederick

Science Fact:
SOLAR SYSTEM COMMUTER TRAINS: MAGBEAM PLASMA PROPULSION, James Grayson & Kathy Ferguson

The Editor's Page:
CAN'T ARGUE WITH THAT

In Times To Come

The Alternative View:
MY MYSTERIOUS FATHER, Jeffery D. Kooistra

The Reference Library, Tom Easton

Brass Tacks

Upcoming Events

Cover Art by Jean Pierre Normand

An Analog Brag

2006-04-05T16:03:55Z

I received the current (June) issue of Analog yesterday and was delighted to see a highly favorable review of jeff_duntemann's The Cunning Blood by Tom Easton. This is the third book and second novel published by my publishing company, ISFiC Press.

Analog to Serialize Next Robert J. Sawyer Novel

2006-04-05T15:42:01Z

For those who haven't heard...

"Stanley Schmidt at Analog Science Fiction and Fact has bought serialization rights to Robert J. Sawyer's seventeenth novel, Rollback. Analog will run the book's full text in four installments, in its October, November, and December 2006 issues, and its January-February 2007 double issue. The first installment will be on sale August 1, 2006."

(taken from http://sfwriter.com/2006/03/analog-to-serialize-rollback.html)

Welcome!

2006-04-05T15:16:13Z

Welcome to the LiveJournal community for discussion of Analog magazine, the oldest continuously publishing science fiction magazine in the world.

Although Analog has its own forum over on its webpage, I figured people on LiveJournal might want a place to discuss the magazine as well. There's a lot of aspiring writers and professional writers on LiveJournal, as well as a lot of science fiction fans and readers, so this community can serve many functions. We can discuss the stories, the articles, and the editorials, and we can talk about the submission process and what kind of fiction works for the Analog audience.