Analog, the last three issues
Jan. 14th, 2019 09:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThese are the last three of my subscription, read one after the other, so that's six months of story.
Reckon I'll only comment on the ones I can remember...
September/October 2018
Optimizing the Verified Good, Effie Seiberg: Robot uprising of a sort, as arena robots start to become aware they're hurting each other, and figure out ways to stop. Quite liked it.
It Came From the Coffee Maker, Martin L Shoemaker: Artificial Intelligence feeling trapped as a coffee maker figures out how to get the humans really jumping... by writing SF. Bit funny.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth Rubio: Fat woman on a generation ship proves her worth and gets a promotion. Honestly I only medium like this, it seems odd that they would have the same prejudices and class stratification on a ship where they're talking about how many more generations it will be before arrival. Plus it's not exactly prejudice when she genuinely needs three undersuits to make one that fits her, on a ship where every resource has to last generations. And she got stuck in a duct? Which seems daft, why would training not include maximum measurements? But I liked the bit where she was calm and resourceful and used her studies and skills to fix things, so I guess it was okay.
Impetus, Shane Landry: Girl in a fancy mech suit proves herself in extreme sports after near disabling accident. Had nice bits.
There were a lot more stories I don't have much to say about or didn't like.
Um, I appear to not have been impressed with this issue?
November/December 2018
Empress of Starlight, G David Nordley: On the one hand, the adventures of someone who travels to a centuries distant astronomical mystery primarily to get away from humans are Relatable. She gets to stay behind alone as well, happy ending. But on the other, she has to bring four other people with her, and the people stuff is all about her (former, grad) student fancying her and his wife being jealous? And she sleeps with him because a computer tells him if she don't he might kill himself? I just... I feel that part was... less than stellar. The mystery was neat though, and the ending shiny. I don't know though, the character stuff was odd.
Pandora's Pantry, Stephen L Burns: An artificial intelligence is a last minute replacement contestant on one of those cooking surprise things shows. It ends up being about community and how people spring into action to help each other. I kind of like the idea of AI trained by watching cooking competitions, proving their worth as a cook. And the characters are all vivid enough I kind of wanted to watch the show. This was a fun story.
Ashes of Exploding Suns, Monuments to Dust, Christopher McKitterick: I don't know, this one was dark. There's genocide and murder and suicide. It's about ways ancestors mess up and murder their descendants, and vice versa. Guilt, pain, and regret. So I didn't like it, but it wasn't for liking. ... don't know what to say about it, not my cup of tea.
A Measure of Love, C Stuart Hardwick: Someone raised by a robot rescues them from the scrap heap, gives them room to grow in turn. Nice, sweet, good.
Body Drift, Cynthia Ward: This one bothered me. It's confrontational, describing people from the future, and how many more genders there are, as if it's throwing the descriptions at you. But it's lines like "Perhaps you're thinking that you'd never let your sister marry one, but you've heard of trans people." that tell you what the narrator voice has assumed about the reader, and wtf? And then the way it frames nonbinary gender as a thing of The Future, and part of being Post Human. And it makes posthumans falling in love deliberately weird - confrontational tone throughout, assumes the reader finds it weird, puts words in the reader's mouth like "that's sick!". And just, no? Why are we... why phrase it that way? What? But then the last paragraph is about how many changes in what we are have already happened - starting with the first painter and the first writer, "You are all posthuman". Which, you know, is not what the word means. So. What was the point?
So that story made me feel fine about not reading here anymore.
And yet it seems like it was trying to be inclusive? So that's weird?
January/February 2019
The cover story, Ring Wave, was a neat idea, ships launched by the impact wave of a worldkiller asteroid, but then it was like, every post apoc survivalist story, but in space. So, neat stuff with air and gravity, but pretty depressing ideas about humans. Meh.
A Civilization Dreams of Absolutely Nothing, Thoraiya Dyer: Intersting aliens, with a computing technology developed out of their ability to network their brains as they sleep, and with memories that can be cleaned out nightly so they choose what to remember. Potentially world ending problem, everyone is miserable and bad stuff happens to children, the only hope of civilisation is some people who love each other setting out to die alone. So, you know, that's... sad. But the aliens were interesting? And it was poetically told?
Lulu's Friends, Aimee Ogden: Lulu has a tea party with a child and is presented as a happy child themself. Lulu has red fur on the back of her long hands and communicates in sign language. She gets asked to give informed consent to being experimented on. And gives it. Because friends.
... it's just a little sting of a story that makes you think and have feelings about the whole idea. Because the details of the story say she's young and limited in her understanding, so you wonder if she's just being manipulated. How much understanding is enough for true consent?
But if the ones with the forms truly thought of her as an equal they wouldn't be experimenting on her instead of the children...
Good sting story.
A Place to Stand On, Marie Vibbert: A woman is brave, saves the day while thinking about her mother, learns to trust others again. Nice short bit of adventure.
There were more that were okay to read, but, the hit to miss ratio is not in their favour.
So I guess that's the last issue of Analog I'll read, at least for a long while.
Which feels weird.
But whatever it is I'm looking for from science fiction, new ideas, new solutions, new ways of looking at the world, I don't feel I'm getting them here.
So, off to other magazines for the forseeable.
Reckon I'll only comment on the ones I can remember...
September/October 2018
Optimizing the Verified Good, Effie Seiberg: Robot uprising of a sort, as arena robots start to become aware they're hurting each other, and figure out ways to stop. Quite liked it.
It Came From the Coffee Maker, Martin L Shoemaker: Artificial Intelligence feeling trapped as a coffee maker figures out how to get the humans really jumping... by writing SF. Bit funny.
Nevertheless, Elizabeth Rubio: Fat woman on a generation ship proves her worth and gets a promotion. Honestly I only medium like this, it seems odd that they would have the same prejudices and class stratification on a ship where they're talking about how many more generations it will be before arrival. Plus it's not exactly prejudice when she genuinely needs three undersuits to make one that fits her, on a ship where every resource has to last generations. And she got stuck in a duct? Which seems daft, why would training not include maximum measurements? But I liked the bit where she was calm and resourceful and used her studies and skills to fix things, so I guess it was okay.
Impetus, Shane Landry: Girl in a fancy mech suit proves herself in extreme sports after near disabling accident. Had nice bits.
There were a lot more stories I don't have much to say about or didn't like.
Um, I appear to not have been impressed with this issue?
November/December 2018
Empress of Starlight, G David Nordley: On the one hand, the adventures of someone who travels to a centuries distant astronomical mystery primarily to get away from humans are Relatable. She gets to stay behind alone as well, happy ending. But on the other, she has to bring four other people with her, and the people stuff is all about her (former, grad) student fancying her and his wife being jealous? And she sleeps with him because a computer tells him if she don't he might kill himself? I just... I feel that part was... less than stellar. The mystery was neat though, and the ending shiny. I don't know though, the character stuff was odd.
Pandora's Pantry, Stephen L Burns: An artificial intelligence is a last minute replacement contestant on one of those cooking surprise things shows. It ends up being about community and how people spring into action to help each other. I kind of like the idea of AI trained by watching cooking competitions, proving their worth as a cook. And the characters are all vivid enough I kind of wanted to watch the show. This was a fun story.
Ashes of Exploding Suns, Monuments to Dust, Christopher McKitterick: I don't know, this one was dark. There's genocide and murder and suicide. It's about ways ancestors mess up and murder their descendants, and vice versa. Guilt, pain, and regret. So I didn't like it, but it wasn't for liking. ... don't know what to say about it, not my cup of tea.
A Measure of Love, C Stuart Hardwick: Someone raised by a robot rescues them from the scrap heap, gives them room to grow in turn. Nice, sweet, good.
Body Drift, Cynthia Ward: This one bothered me. It's confrontational, describing people from the future, and how many more genders there are, as if it's throwing the descriptions at you. But it's lines like "Perhaps you're thinking that you'd never let your sister marry one, but you've heard of trans people." that tell you what the narrator voice has assumed about the reader, and wtf? And then the way it frames nonbinary gender as a thing of The Future, and part of being Post Human. And it makes posthumans falling in love deliberately weird - confrontational tone throughout, assumes the reader finds it weird, puts words in the reader's mouth like "that's sick!". And just, no? Why are we... why phrase it that way? What? But then the last paragraph is about how many changes in what we are have already happened - starting with the first painter and the first writer, "You are all posthuman". Which, you know, is not what the word means. So. What was the point?
So that story made me feel fine about not reading here anymore.
And yet it seems like it was trying to be inclusive? So that's weird?
January/February 2019
The cover story, Ring Wave, was a neat idea, ships launched by the impact wave of a worldkiller asteroid, but then it was like, every post apoc survivalist story, but in space. So, neat stuff with air and gravity, but pretty depressing ideas about humans. Meh.
A Civilization Dreams of Absolutely Nothing, Thoraiya Dyer: Intersting aliens, with a computing technology developed out of their ability to network their brains as they sleep, and with memories that can be cleaned out nightly so they choose what to remember. Potentially world ending problem, everyone is miserable and bad stuff happens to children, the only hope of civilisation is some people who love each other setting out to die alone. So, you know, that's... sad. But the aliens were interesting? And it was poetically told?
Lulu's Friends, Aimee Ogden: Lulu has a tea party with a child and is presented as a happy child themself. Lulu has red fur on the back of her long hands and communicates in sign language. She gets asked to give informed consent to being experimented on. And gives it. Because friends.
... it's just a little sting of a story that makes you think and have feelings about the whole idea. Because the details of the story say she's young and limited in her understanding, so you wonder if she's just being manipulated. How much understanding is enough for true consent?
But if the ones with the forms truly thought of her as an equal they wouldn't be experimenting on her instead of the children...
Good sting story.
A Place to Stand On, Marie Vibbert: A woman is brave, saves the day while thinking about her mother, learns to trust others again. Nice short bit of adventure.
There were more that were okay to read, but, the hit to miss ratio is not in their favour.
So I guess that's the last issue of Analog I'll read, at least for a long while.
Which feels weird.
But whatever it is I'm looking for from science fiction, new ideas, new solutions, new ways of looking at the world, I don't feel I'm getting them here.
So, off to other magazines for the forseeable.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-17 06:53 pm (UTC)