Thu 13 Jan 2022
Diary Review: ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION February 1967.
Posted by Steve under Diary Reviews , Magazines , Science Fiction & Fantasy[3] Comments
ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION February 1967. Cover by Kelly Freas. Editor: John W. Campbell. Overall rating: 3 stars.
JOE POYER “Pioneer Trip.†The completion of the first manned flight to Mars must be weighed against a man’s life. Interesting problem, but conventional ending. (3)
JACK WODHAMS “There Is a Crooked Man.†Short novel. We are rapidly approaching the point where science and engineering can easily enable the criminal mind to outwit the law, if the particular law does indeed exist. Law enforcement becomes a hilarious problem, as Thorne Smith becomes SF, not fantasy. Not Analog’s usual stuff. (4)
J. B. MITCHEL “The Returning.†Alien takes over experimental US rocket to return home. (2) [His only published SF story.]
MACK REYNOLDS “Amazon Planet.†Serial, part 3 of 3. Separate report forthcoming.
WINSTON P. SANDERS [POUL ANDERSON] “Elementary Mistake.†Crew sent to establish mattereaster [?] on a distant planet discovers they haven’t the necessary elements available. Too technical to make sense. (1)
January 13th, 2022 at 10:40 pm
Poyer had a good career in the Alistair MacLean stakes as a sort of early variation on the kind of Techno thrillers Tom Clancy would write but much better written.
January 14th, 2022 at 7:48 pm
I don’t remember anything about the story Poyer did for this particular issue, but ANALOG would have been the perfect magazine for the kind of SF he wrote. I suspect that many of the techno-thillers he wrote had a solid futuristic component to them as well. (I never read any of them, but of course I never read anything by Tom Clancy either.)
January 20th, 2022 at 6:11 am
Steve, Poyer did appear in several issues of Analog in the 1960s. From memory this is the only time his name appeared on the cover.
Three of the stories published in Analog were later reworked to form his first two novels ‘North Cape’ & ‘Operation Malacca’
The last of his techno-thrillers is ‘Vengeance 10’ and it’s definitely in the science-fiction as techno-thriller category.