It Was a Tradition When You Turned 16, by Eric Cline

[Analog]

★★★★☆ A sweet little tale of time and change.

(SF Drama) A father determines to teach his teen-age daughter the lost art of driving an automobile. (3,775 words; Time: 12m)

A Compass In the Dark, by Phoebe Barton

[Analog]

★★★☆☆

(Lunar Colony) A young woman on the moon loses faith in her Father’s odd religion, but even though she moves to Farside, he still has a hold on her. (2,137 words; Time: 07m)

Net Loss, by James Sallis

[Analog]

★★★☆☆

(Legal SF) A man goes to jail because his TV accuses him of domestic violence. (869 words; Time: 02m)

To Persist, However Changed, by Aimee Ogden

[Analog]

★★☆☆☆

(AI SF) A partly organic AI on a moon attempts to return to the planet it came from. (821 words; Time: 02m)

Candida Eve, by Dominica Phetteplace

[Analog]

★★★☆☆

(Mars Landing) Susana lands on Mars after an epidemic that killed the rest of the crew and untold millions on Earth. (3,909 words; Time: 13m)

Calm Face of the Storm, by Ramona Louise Wheeler

[Analog]

★★★☆☆

(Alien SF) When Bret almost dies in a storm, he finds himself in a part of the continent that holds creatures that supposedly died out ages ago. (9,369 words; Time: 31m)

Recommended By: 👍STomaino+1 (Q&A)

Despite his name, Bret is an alien a lot like a giant bat, not a human.

A Breath of Air, by Tom Jolly

[Analog]

★★★★☆ A great hard-SF thriller!

(Mars Colony Thriller) A series of “accidents” on their Martian homestead make Banner Goodman and his teenage son think someone wants to take their land—even if it kills them. (12,377 words; Time: 41m)

Moral Biology, by Neal Asher

[Analog]

★☆☆☆☆

(First Contact Adventure; Polity Universe) A first-contact team visits an alien planet where the aliens have a defense system meant to keep anyone from crossing in either direction. (23,275 words; Time: 1h:17m)

This story is set in the author’s “Polity Universe,” which contains over a dozen novels and shorter fiction, but this story seems to be completely stand-alone.

One Hundred, by Sean Monaghan

[Analog]

★★★★☆ Fun Tale of Perseverance

(Mars Colony) Cam sticks out as the only teenage boy on the Mars colony, but it’s been years since anyone heard from Earth, so he works as hard as anyone to keep the place going. (6,011 words; Time: 20m)

Rover, by A.T. Sayre

[Analog]

★★★☆☆

(Robot SF) Against all odds, the little Mars rover keeps exploring and collecting data, even it has been many years since anyone on Earth responded. Then it detects a radio beacon not far away on the surface. (6,029 words; Time: 20m)

Recommended By: 👍STomaino+1 (Q&A)

Lemonade Stand, by Brenda Kalt

[Analog]

★★★☆☆ Mixed

(SF Adventure) Dani wants to prove to her father she can run a successful company in the asteroid belt, but when one of her customers has an emergency, she has to choose between saving a life or saving her company. (2,924 words; Time: 09m)

The Smartest Damn Machine on Earth, by Bo Balder

[Analog]

★★★☆☆

(Robot SF) Sapphire used to be the smartest machine in the world, but today it works at a carnival entertaining children. (870 words; Time: 02m)

The Halting Problem, by Em Liu

[Analog]

Not Rated No Speculative Element

(Mainstream) An airport bartender serves a regular customer named Ada and fantasizes that she’s Ada Lovelace. (1,038 words; Time: 03m)

Zeroth Contact, by Joshua Cole

[Analog]

★★☆☆☆

(First Contact) An astronomer spots multiple alien spacecraft in the asteroid belt, where they seem to be eating the asteroids. (3,659 words; Time: 12m)

On the Causes and Consequences of Cat Ladies, by Richard A. Lovett

[Analog]

★★☆☆☆

(Horror) After her husband’s death, Barbara moves to a quiet farmhouse in Iowa, where she attracts the interest of the local cats. (4,736 words; Time: 15m)

War Lily, by Beth Dawkins

[Analog]

★★★☆☆

(SF Drama) The recording of Shelby’s mind was meant to comfort her family after her death in action, but how does the recording feel about all this? (1,884 words; Time: 06m)

Curious Algorithms, by Hayden Trenholm

[Analog]

★★☆☆☆

(Dystopia) A robot works delivering refugees from across the wall to a detention center, and it never thinks about anything else until it meets a very special refugee. (6,005 words; Time: 20m)

Respite, by Catherine Wells

[Analog]

★★★★☆ Well-written with a surprising outcome.

(SF Drama) An immortal man returns to a space station he designed over a thousand years ago to see if anyone still uses it, and if the inhabitants need help. (5,579 words; Time: 18m)

Cooling Chaos, by Gregory Benford

[Analog]

★☆☆☆☆

(Climate SF) When Sandra almost dies fighting a wildfire in the California Sierras, she gets an inspiration for a better way to fight fires in the future. (3,539 words; Time: 11m)

Dix Dayton, Jet Jockey, by Liz A. Vogel

[Analog]

★★★☆☆

(Solar-System Space Opera) Dix is on a routine trip to mine an asteroid when he observes something that has to be a space pirate headed for an unmanned freighter. (2,707 words; Time: 09m)