Summary: Analog, 2012
Summary: Analog, 2012
Analog published 68 pieces of short fiction in 2012, plus one four-part serial. There were 7 novellas, 23 novelettes, and 38 short-stories, 5 of the latter being short-shorts (four of those Probability Zero pieces). This was about 657,000 words of fiction, rather more last year and not untypical for Analog. About 557,000 words of this was short fiction.
On balance, this year, Stanley Schmidt's last full year at the helm, was a good year, one of Analog's best in some time.
Novellas
The best novella this year was probably "The Moon Belongs to Everyone", by Michael Alexander and K. C. Ball (December), a murder mystery/labor relations piece about work on the Moon in an alternate history. Just about as good was "The Conquest of the Air", by Rob Chilson, about aliens who live underwater mounting an expedition to dry land, where they encounter humans. Other fine novellas included "Nightfall on the Peak of Eternal Light" (one of two stories this year about that location!) by Richard A. Lovett and William Gleason, "The End of Ordinary Life" by Daniel Hatch, and "Project Herakles" by Stephen Baxter.
Novelettes
My favorite novelette at Analog was "Nahiku West", by Linda Nagata (October), also a crime story (lots of those at Analog, it seems), about a policeman on a space habitat, charged with enforcing rather draconian genetic purity laws. Other good ones included "Ninety Thousand Horses", by Sean McMullen (January-February), a steampunk-flavored alt hist story about a really early English rocket project; "The Journeyman: On the Short Grass Prairie", by Michael F. Flynn (October), about humans on a long-colonized planet discovering a mysterious object; and "Siege Perilous", by Daniel Hatch (November), about an attack on a space habitat that is developing significant AI-related tech. There were also fine novelettes from Alec Nevala-Lee, Susan Forest and Sarah K. Castle.
Short Stories
Best of the year at Analog was Joe Pitikin's "A Murmuration of Starlings" (June), about plague caused by unusual-acting starlings. I also enjoyed, from the same issue, Emily Mah's YA-oriented "Darwin's Gambit", a space adventure story set on a journey to Ganymede. Howard V. Hendrix's "Red Rover, Red Rover" (July-August) is also very strong, about a man on Mars and his enhanced dog. Other good work came from Jerry Oltion, Catherine Shaffer, N. M. Cedeno*, and Steven Utley.
Statistics Corner
Gender Balance: 14.5 of 67 stories were by women. (For one author, N. M. Cedeno, I have no idea of the gender)That's almost 22%, by far the highest percentage I've seen at the magazine. As usual for Analog, all the stories were SF.
(*the n in Cedeno should have a tilde, but I don't know how to do that!)
Analog published 68 pieces of short fiction in 2012, plus one four-part serial. There were 7 novellas, 23 novelettes, and 38 short-stories, 5 of the latter being short-shorts (four of those Probability Zero pieces). This was about 657,000 words of fiction, rather more last year and not untypical for Analog. About 557,000 words of this was short fiction.
On balance, this year, Stanley Schmidt's last full year at the helm, was a good year, one of Analog's best in some time.
Novellas
The best novella this year was probably "The Moon Belongs to Everyone", by Michael Alexander and K. C. Ball (December), a murder mystery/labor relations piece about work on the Moon in an alternate history. Just about as good was "The Conquest of the Air", by Rob Chilson, about aliens who live underwater mounting an expedition to dry land, where they encounter humans. Other fine novellas included "Nightfall on the Peak of Eternal Light" (one of two stories this year about that location!) by Richard A. Lovett and William Gleason, "The End of Ordinary Life" by Daniel Hatch, and "Project Herakles" by Stephen Baxter.
Novelettes
My favorite novelette at Analog was "Nahiku West", by Linda Nagata (October), also a crime story (lots of those at Analog, it seems), about a policeman on a space habitat, charged with enforcing rather draconian genetic purity laws. Other good ones included "Ninety Thousand Horses", by Sean McMullen (January-February), a steampunk-flavored alt hist story about a really early English rocket project; "The Journeyman: On the Short Grass Prairie", by Michael F. Flynn (October), about humans on a long-colonized planet discovering a mysterious object; and "Siege Perilous", by Daniel Hatch (November), about an attack on a space habitat that is developing significant AI-related tech. There were also fine novelettes from Alec Nevala-Lee, Susan Forest and Sarah K. Castle.
Short Stories
Best of the year at Analog was Joe Pitikin's "A Murmuration of Starlings" (June), about plague caused by unusual-acting starlings. I also enjoyed, from the same issue, Emily Mah's YA-oriented "Darwin's Gambit", a space adventure story set on a journey to Ganymede. Howard V. Hendrix's "Red Rover, Red Rover" (July-August) is also very strong, about a man on Mars and his enhanced dog. Other good work came from Jerry Oltion, Catherine Shaffer, N. M. Cedeno*, and Steven Utley.
Statistics Corner
Gender Balance: 14.5 of 67 stories were by women. (For one author, N. M. Cedeno, I have no idea of the gender)That's almost 22%, by far the highest percentage I've seen at the magazine. As usual for Analog, all the stories were SF.
(*the n in Cedeno should have a tilde, but I don't know how to do that!)