[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

my last purchase of 2013: Analog SF, Mar 2014 edited by Tevor Quachri

Again, some I liked, and some I didn't like so much. An average issue.

One story was good, but had a serious problem that still irritates me. It's a bit spoilery, so the spoilery bit is in spoilers

Life Flight by Brad R. Torgersen is about the first interstellar colonisation ship. Hibernation has been developed, so the colonists can sleep, unaging, for most of the 80 year journey. Some stay awake for a dozen years in turn, returning to hibernation after their shift. The journey starts with two adults and four children awake, (the children will grow to young adults during their awake period), and all the others in hibernation.

Spoiler:

It turns out that 1 in 10,000 people cannot tolerate the hibernation process. With six people starting the journey awake, than means they have a greater than 1 in 2000 chance that at least one of the six won't be able to go into hibernation. This is a ridiculously high chance to take, so I can't accept the premise that not all the colonists were put into a test hibernation before being selected for the trip. This rather spoiled the story for me.

Now reading my newest purchase, (it was just £0.99 at Amazon UK today), highly recommend by Time Magazine and some members of MobileRead.

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson