Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 2006
Reviewed date: 2006 Oct 9
144 pages
144 pages
Openshot is a cute story, but the spacecraft should have been named Raymond rather than Stallman.
- Serial (3 of 4): Rollback, by Robert J. Sawyer - Humans make radio contact with a nearby star system. Robotics mogul Cody McGavin thinks that Sarah Halifax, the astronomer who deciphered the first message, should stick around to analyze future messages. To that end, he offers to pay for multi-billion-dollar rejuvenation operations for Sarah and her husband.
- Novelette: Imperfect Gods, by C. Sanford Lowe and G. David Nordley - Hilda Kremer arrives on New Antarctica to help them launch their impactor, a device that will fuse with other impactors from other planets and form a small artificial black hole. A message from Earth asks her to delay launch. Kremer knows the message is fake, and that a delay will be catastrophic, but she cannot convince the local government to believe her.
- Novelette: Double Dead, by Grey Rollins - A private investigator and his computer-resident AI double investigate a man who they suspect used an illegal clone body to fake his own death.
- Short story: Openshot, by Craig DeLancey - An open source moon mission nearly misses its landing opportunity when they divert to help a rival spacecraft that had a decompression accident.
- Short story: Diatomaceous Earth, by Jerry Oltion - A rose gardener looking to stop an aphid infestation flips on some unused genes in diatoms, just to see what happens. The diatoms multiple and begin building technological artifacts of a long-dead civilization.
- Short story: The Technetium Rush, by Wil McCarthy - The discovery of technetium ore appears to be a clever fake, as technetium is not a naturally occurring element.
- Short story: Long Winter's Nap, by Catherine H. Shaffer - In a new ice age, a young girl decides not to hibernate through the winter with her family.
- Short-short: Upgrade, by Eric James Stone - A doctor specializing in human upgrades fits a mysterious client with a nuclear-powered gastrointestinal replacement.
- Science fact: Floatworlds, by Stephen L. Gillett, Ph.D. - Naturally occurring floating islands a la Perelandra are improbable. More realistic are man-made habitats floating in the atmosphere of Venus or similar planets.