Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September 2013

"Creatures From a Blue Lagoon" is one of my favorite kind of stories: space doctors treating alien patients. But the ending was confusing and kind of disappointing. There wasn't really a puzzle to solve, that I could see.

I enjoyed "Life of the Author Plus Seventy" because I love the idea of using Preservative Hibernation to freeze the copyright holders and thus make copyrights effectively unlimited. The story itself is less about copyright and more about the legal ramifications of Preservative Hibernation.

• Novella: "Murder on the Aldrin Express" by Martin L Shoemaker - Professor Azevedo died on Mars when his cable broke during a climb. On board the Aldrin during the trip back to Earth, ship captain Nick Aames learns that Azevedo's cable had been sabotaged, and thus the killer must be on board.
• Novelette: "The Whale God" by Alec Nevala-Lee - Set in Vietnam during the war. A whale beaches itself, and Captain Exley tries to save it, but it dies and the villagers blame the army. All the while, Exley keeps glimpsing ghostly images at the edge of his vision.
• Novelette: "The Oracle" by Lavie Tidhar - A post-singularity story set in Israel, about a woman who Joins herself to an AI and becomes the Oracle.
• Short story: "Full Fathom Five" by Joe Pitkin - Stuck on a moon of Jupiter, a woman discovers a strange creature in the water, and the creature seems to be able to produce any element or substance that she needs.
• Short story: "Life of the Author Plus Seventy" by Kenneth Schneyer - Eric goes into Preservative Hibernation to escape a library fine, only to discover that his action has inspired new law, and he now owes a million dollar fine.
• Short story: "Creatures From a Blue Lagoon" by Liz J. Andersen - A space vet, armed with a wetsuit and minisub, dives into the Zarjassian sea to heal a "cow" that has stopped eating. She gets too close and is eaten by the "cow". Once inside, she discovers the problem--parasites blocking the digestive tract--and engineers a solution.
• Short-short: "Wreck Support" by Arlan Andrews, Sr. - A clever spin on tech support: Alexandros of Macedonia is dissatisfied with the defective Antikythera device, and is shipping it back to be fixed.
• Science Fact: "The Evaporation of Worlds" by Kevin Walsh - Among the newly discovered planets are hot earths--small rocky planets with surface temperatures into the thousands of degrees Celsius. The extreme temperatures and solar radiation are literally evaporating these planets away--one has lost as much as half its original mass.
• Special Feature: "From Idea to Story (Or Why "High Concept" Is Only the Beginning)" by Richard A. Lovett - Although we often say that science fiction is about the ideas, the best stories are consistently about the characters. This is true even when the germ of the story was an idea.

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