Readers
Rich Horton's Market Summaries:
Summary: Analog, 2004
Analog published 79 stories in 2002. Two were serials, Joe Haldeman's "Camouflage" and Mary A. Turzillo's "An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl". Of the 68 shorter pieces, 5 were novellas, 25 were novelettes, and 38 were short-stories, 9 of the latter being short-shorts (7 Probability Zero pieces and two more stories of less than 1500 words, my highly unofficial "short-short" limit). This was about 697,000 words of fiction, about 523,000 words of it short fiction. (This was just slightly less fiction than in 2003.) One story was a reprint (Robert J. Sawyer's "Shed Skin"), leaving about 516,000 words of new short fiction this year.
(One story each among the novellas and novelettes came in at 200 words below the boundary according to my estimates, but as I've said before, 200 words is well within the margin of error of my word-counting techniques, so I list them as the magazine categorized them. It is worth noting that one story listed as a novelette in 2003, Michael Burstein's "Paying it Forward", was a short story by my estimate (at 7300 words), and was in fact nominated for the Hugo as a short story.)
Incidentally, sometimes I try to pick the winners of the Anlab Readers' Poll. Last year I predicted that Vernor Vinge's "The Cookie Monster" would win in Novella, that Stephen Burns's "Capture Radius" would win the Novelette, and that one of two Shane Tourtellotte Short Stories would win ("Persistent Patterns" or "A New Man"). I was shut out rather spectacularly in those predictions -- "The Cookie Monster" finished second, and the others finished out of the running.
Serials
I normally don't mention the serials -- my real focus is the short fiction. But I may as well say that I thought Haldeman's "Camouflage", a tale of two powerful shape-changing aliens on Earth, was pretty enjoyable, though it seemed Haldeman at only half-throttle. And I thought there were some pretty nice ideas and a good start to Turzillo's "An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl", but that it ran off the rails on two counts -- a plot that just got too far-fetched, and characters that simply became unbelievable. I was happy enough to read both of the novels, though.
Novellas
Analog's novellas this year were not as good as last year's set. My three favorites were Rajnar Vajra's "Layna's Mirror", Ken Brady's "Baby on Board", and Bud Sparhawk's "Clay's Pride", in that order. "Layna's Mirror" is one of those stories that posits science-fictional explanation for myths and legends, and it does so with a lot of enthusiasm, for a lot of different sorts of myths/legends. Good fun. "Baby on Board" concerns automobile computer systems that have become AIs, and a man who "frees" them from stick-in-the-mud owners that don't let them have lots of fun. "Clay's Pride" is a first contact story plus incompetent political types story.
Novelettes
Three novelettes stood out for me -- all quite intriguing stories. Stephen Bratman's "Deletion" (January-February) is about an unusual future in which personal bonds are formed in strikingly different ways -- for example, parent-child relationships are unimportant (for genetic reasons). "Periandry's Quest" (June), by Stephen Baxter, is built around a really neat idea -- a society living on a ledges on a steep cliff, on which time runs at different rates depending on your level on the cliff. A young man falls in love with a servant girl from a level that ages much faster. Nicely worked out. Michael F. Flynn's "The Clapping Hand of God" (July-August) is a dark story about an exploration team to a beautiful new planet, pledged not to interfere, and the depressing discovery they make. I think I'll leave them in the above order on my ballot, though I'm torn -- any order would be OK, and particularly the Baxter story might end up first.
Other fine novelettes this year came from Jeff Hecht, Allen M. Steele, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Rajnar Vajra, and Mike Moscoe.
Short Stories
Again, three short stories stood out for me. I'll have Brian Plante's "Dibs" ranked first on my Anlab ballot. This posited a National Organ Donor database, in which recipients are matched to donors -- giving the recipient "dibs" on your organ if you die. But there's a twist -- not terribly believable but effectively thought-provoking. Next I think I'll place Kevin J. Anderson's "The Bistro of Alternate Realities", which has the same person in different timelines comparing notes (on lovers, for example). Not, it turns out, an unmixed blessing. And third will be Robert J. Sawyer's "Shed Skin", about the fate of the body left behind when people upload to androids.
I also liked stories by Richard A. Lovett, G. David Nordley, Edward Muller, Robert Scherrer, and Carl Frederick.
Predictions
I'm hopeless at this, but I'm going to go with "Layna's Mirror", "Periandry's Quest", and "Shed Skin" as potential AnLab winners.
