Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July/August 2011

• Serial (2 of 4): Energized, by Edward M. Lerner - After the Crudepocalypse decimates OPEC, Russia's oil reserves make her a world superpower--power she will do anything to preserve when America threatens to replace Russian oil with cheap, plentiful electrical power beamed down to Earth from geosynchronous power satellites.
• Novella: Coordinated Attacks, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - When terrorists assassinate several big-name lunar politicians in a daring coordinated attack, the investigation takes Detective Bartholomew Nyquist back four years to relive an earlier terrorist bombing that nearly cost the life of his partner.
• Novelette: Jak and the Beanstalk, by Richard A. Lovett - Jak's lifelong obsession is to climb the Beanstalk, a space elevator. He does, and literally leaves the world and all its troubles behind.
• Novelette: One Out of Many, by Kyle Kirkland - A frustrated regulator investigates a new drug that has the capacity to render people suggestible, and gets all tied up with a legendary organized crime boss.
• Short story: A Witness to All That Was, by Scott William Carter - A robot built to witness the end of a civilization tells her story to a husband-and-wife team of explorers.
• Short story: Death and Dancing in New Las Vegas, by Ernest Hoga - A bizarre story about an itinerant musician on Mars who writes songs about the nano-hudu, which apparently angers the people in charge of terraforming the planet.
• Short-short: ...Plus C'est la Même Chose, by Arlan Andrews, Sr. - A surprise contestant wins the matter transmitting contest by teleporting a tin of spam.
• Science fact: Before You Get to String Theory, by C. W. Johnson - Forget string theory--the fun stuff is in all the complicated particle physics leading up to string theory.
• Science fact: So Long, Proxima Centauri, by Kevin Walsh - There may be undetectable brown dwarf stars that are much closer than Proxima Centauri.
• Special feature: More Than Plot and Character: The Story-Telling Secrets of Narrative Voice, by Richard A. Lovett - If you believe in "Show, don't tell" then you should make movies, because writing is telling--it's all in how to tell the story.
• Special feature: Science Fiction Imagines the Digital Future, by James Gunn - A review of science fiction's imaginings about the future of computers and the digital age.