Analog May June 2017 final assessment

Hrm. So. I think if this magazine were a conversation I'd find different people to talk to. Some of the stories are clever and have good qualities, but there's... stuff going on with them. The kind of stuff that says Our Kind Of People have all the smarts and the good thinking, and Those Other Sorts need to shape up and assimilate, or they're some kind of dangerous.

This is not what I look for in science fiction.

But there's other threads about listening to different views and learning better. I don't know. The big story at the start of this issue was foul so it stank up the rest.


The Girls With Kaleidoscope Eyes, Howard V Hendrix
I have said what I think of this nastiness.
I don't think I mentioned there but there was also a never plot relevant bit where the ten year olds looked 16 with "womanly curves". That creeped me out in its own distinct way.

To See The Elephant, Julie Novakova
Animal Psychologist here means mind melding with animals. Lady figures out why elephant is in distress. Turns out to ( Read more... )

It had neat stuff about elephant language and social groups, and the idea of animal mind melds is appealing, like all them soulbonded animal stories but with more leaving.

The Final Nail, Stanley Schmidt
On one level this is an interesting science problem. People start being allergic to red meat, and the protagonist is the guy who has enough pieces to figure out why. But it thinks it is more clever than the people it is lecturing. ( Read more... )

it just looks like it hasn't thought its own science through.

Kepler's Law, Jay Werkheiser
Fair play science problem, in a space colony that is 100% women.
So it has a lot going for it and I quite liked it.
It is not exactly ideal that they're all women because the colony needs wombs to grow transplanted embryos in. ( Read more... )

... I liked it more before I started thinking about it.


Those were the longer stories, then a ton of shorts.
( Read more... )

Nothing that really stood out as making my reading time worth it.
Few things that were okay reads.




Also the cover ink continues to not last long enough for a fairly careful reader.
not best.

(no subject)

I watched some more Continuum.
I think if I just read the trigger warnings I wouldn't have started. I don't know if there's a page with trigger warnings. But this season so far there has been suicide and serial killing and child sex abuse and some messing with the line of if they're crazy, all on top of the usual terrorist violence with shooting and blowing things up. Oh, and decapitation. And drug use, resulting in car crash with pov guy in the back seat. And... just, like, all the things?

But it's mostly adventures. mostly.
... I just finished watching the serial killer one and bounced off the idea of watching the next and ended up going back to researching what butterfly it could have been in A Sound Of Thunder. Which I realise is beside the point. But butterflies are very seldom recognisably violent.

Also wouldn't it be cool to have a whole butterfly themed Time Agency?
Butterflies have so many cool names, you could have admirals in charge, and all sorts.

And next I'll be designing the uniforms again. Though obviously they'd have to blend in in various eras so it would be more variations on a theme. Green gold black.



... so, I like Continuum, but sometimes it goes past my comfort zone and I bounce off into happier pictures.



I'm a bit frustrate at how she stays isolated in a sea of men even when the story introduces more women. Also how many women turn out to be evil. I mean, that's a thing.


But time adventures of the No Fate sort? still interesting.