A new serialised story was started in this edition, Triggers by Robert J. Sawyer. The premise is interesting enough – a chance event causes a set of people in a hospital to suddenly gain access to the ongoing memories of another person. One of the people impacted is the President of the United States. The story is competently executed, but as you’d imagine this first instalment is mostly set up. I’ll probably save making any review comments until the entire story is completed.
I enjoyed the style of Ninety Thousand Horses by Sean McMullen, with its steampunk sensibility and an interesting protagonist.
Project Herakles by Stephen Baxter is one of the novellas in this edition. It tells the story of an alternate history 1960s United Kingdom where a newspaper magnate orchestrates a coup. There are also slightly infeasible giants involved. Interesting premise and the writing is good, but I couldn’t seem to willingly suspend my disbelief on the giants for long enough to really get into the story.
Doctor Alien and the Spindles of Infinity by Rajnar Vajra was the other novella. I enjoyed the core story, but there were a couple of info dumping sections that I found a little distracting. Otherwise a reasonable read.
Both novellas were stories that followed on from previously published stories in Analog. Readers who have read the previous stories might get more from this issue.
Also in this month’s edition was:
- Humanity by Proxy by Mark Niemann-Ross
- An Interstellar Incident by Catherine Shaffer
- Listen Up, Nitwits by Jack McDevitt
- Faster than a Speeding Photon by Edward M. Lerner
- Return of the Zombie Sea Monster by Michael F. Flynn
