From: aaron@atlantis.uucp
Subject: Analog (was Re: S.R. does it again)
Reply-To: aaron%atlantis@kakwa.ucs.ualberta.ca
Organization: Atlantis Communications, Edmonton, AB, Canada
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 05:15:43 GMT

Barbara Trumpinski (trumpins@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu) wrote:
: >	"Some of you may already have read it, but for those of you
: >without subscriptions to Analog magazine, Spider Robinson has gone and
: >done it. That's right, Mary's Place is open. January 1993 issue."
: >	"The story is called _The Immediate Family_. I just finished reading
: >it and its of the same consistent quality and good feeling as the original
: >stories of Callahans. "

: >	"To _The Immediate Family_."

: ><<<Crash.>>>

: kitten hears this toast after she comes back in...she shakes the snow
: out of her curls and adds her bit to dreamweaver's toast...

: "don't wait, because it will be awhile.  spider said that the third
: book in the "stardance" collaboration will come first...and 'analog'
: is worth buying anyway..."

"Well, I'll have to differ, here, at least about Analog being worth buying
anyway...but that's just my personal taste.  It amazes me that they still
publish Spider, but I guess he's a contributor of long standing there.  No, I
have problems with Analog because a)I don't pick it up regularly or subscribe,
and they keep running serialized novels that basically waste a third of the
issue, and b)because I usually don't care much for their stories.

"Today I picked up the first issue of Senary, a local SF magazine that may
have a promising future if they ever get organized.  One of the Editors,
Derryl Murphy, had the following to say(and I quote):

  You will notice one specific type of SF missing from these pages, although
its absence may not become so glaring until a few more editions of this
journal seep into the stores.  In our opinion, hard science SF is not a field
that will grow much of a decent crop anymore, as any monoculture will tend to
devastate the soil if not rotated often enough.
  Many specific instances come to mind, but at this moment the book I am
thinking of is _Fallen Angels_ by Niven, Pournelle, and Flynn.  This sort of
paranoid thinking and absolute trust in science as our saviour seem to be
found hand-in-hand more often today than any time in recent history; is it
any wonder society is still having problems finding its way out of
patriarchalism?
  So we would like to rule out hard SF, but like all strict rules, we can
always find an exception.  Greg Benford's "Matter's End" from _Full Spectrum 3_
is just such an exception, and goes to prove that you just can't rely on some
writers to hold to form.  We'd take a story like that in a second.

"I wouldn't say that my opinion matches with Derryl's completely, but the first
paragraph is spot-on.  I include the others just for purposes of discussion.
As someone who likes to read the stuff somewhere between SF and Fantasy(has
there ever been a solid line between them?), I can sometimes get a little tired
of the stuff too firmly entrenched in one or the other if I don't intersperse
them.  An issue of Analog is almost too long an immersion in hard SF for me."

-- 
---Alfvaen(Still looking for "October's Baby")
"Give me your mirth.  It bores me when you weep.                                 My loves you cannot touch.  They're buried deep."  ---Don Marquis
Current Album--Frank Mills:The Twentieth Anniversary
Current Read--Tesseracts4
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