Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine - November/December 2023

In this issue

It’s probably hard to believe—if you read this in mid-October, when this issue goes on sale—that our next installment is already the November/December seasonal issue, but it is! (And if you think that’s weird: I’m writing this in late May!)
So we begin to close-out 2023 with “Apollo in Retrograde,” a follow-up to Rosemary Claire Smith’s popular 2012 novelette, “The Next Frontier.” Time has marched on since we last saw Natalya Orlova, and so has the space race, after the events surrounding the Apollo 13 mission in the previous story. But while failure isn’t final, success is fleeting, and new challenges arise that Natalya and the rest of the crew may have more trouble handling as the years progress and the program moves into the ’70s.
Our fact article really—ahem—digs into the reality behind one of the most famous planets in the history of this magazine—and all of SF: Arrakis, in “Dune and Superdune,” by Kevin Walsh.
We also have the SFnal equivalent of a locked-room mystery from longtime Analog regular, Rajnar Vajra; a light-hearted yarn of just about the most out-of-the-way tourist trap possible in “The Eiffel Tower of Trappist-1d” by Jeff Reynolds; an action-packed ship recovery mission in Mark Pantoja’s “The White Tiger”; a heart-rending reminder that sometimes we treat pets like people more for our benefit than theirs, in “An Infestation of Blue,” by Wendy N. Wagner; something seasonal in Ron Collins’ “Home For Christmas,” and more, including stories from Greg Benford, Michael Cassutt, Tom Jolly, Kate McLeod, Michael Capobianco, James Sallis, and other!