THE FINAL ELEMENT by Eric James Stone

I always look forward to receiving the next issue of Analog in the mail, even when I haven’t finished the previous issue. I rarely finish an issue, but supporting a critical short story market is important to me.

Having been a manager in a customer order/support center and fulfillment for a number of periodicals, I have seen first hand how difficult it is to finance and run small to medium sized monthly and quarterly publications. One of the wildcards in periodicals is the US Postal service. The laws and regulations are numerous and confusing, even though most are designed to benefit the periodical. However, once those forms are completed, ensuring that a clean, well cared for issue of your magazine, reaches your customer is extremely difficult.

Case in point: see the picture of my April 2009 issue of Analog. I’ve used clear tape to secure the cover, well, what is left of the cover, as best as I can. If one of the periodicals that I used to work with arrived looking like this, the customer would call and request an new issue be sent, which erodes already small profits.

Anyway, I’ve let this post get away from me.

Stone’s story, “The Final Element” is a mystery that only a human savvy nanotech engineer can unravel. The rarest of musical instruments, the Soil Stradivarius, a violin that has been played by Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman, and Yuri Volokh, was stolen and replicated. It is Dennis Lombardo’s job to distinguish the fake from the original.

If I tell you more about this story, I will ruin the ending, the plot as it progresses, and the joy of reading it. So, instead I will end this review early with a note about craft. Where I am weak and allow my fiction to digress and ramble, Stone is somehow able to keep this prose sparsely fully of relevant details that never distract and only add to scene and deepen the speculative science. It is a good model for learners, like myself, an architecture that should be noticed and stolen by other writers that wish to successfully manage an story from the spark of idea into a readable story on the page.

Note: Following this story there is a short “Biolog” of Stone, as written by Richard A. Lovett. I’m normally not a big fan of biography, wishing to enjoy the story a part from the author, but in this case, I enjoyed it. I hope that Analog continues, from time to time, included extras like “Biolog.”

Stone, Eric James. “The Final Element.” Analog. April 2009, Vol. CXXIX, No. 4. P. 44 - 48