Vincent Di Fate once again has the cover for our July/August "double" issue, this time for An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl, a new serial by Mary A. Turzillo. The story itself is old-fashioned only in the sense of having an intriguingly intricate plot with plenty of adventure; it also has some very new ideas and some engagingly fresh and memorable characters. Turzillo has a unique bonus qualification when it comes to imagining how life and culture might develop in a Martian colony in a few decades: a live-in consultant with access to the very latest information on that planet. (She’s married to Geoffrey A. Landis, and as I write this they’re both in Pasadena digesting the rover Spirit’s letters home as they come in!)

In keeping with suggestions from some of you readers, this double issue offers two quite different science fact articles, both by uniquely qualified authors. Eric S. Raymond is well known in computer circles, especially for his association with the "open source" mode of software development, and his article on that shows dramatically how, when people are put into a really new situation, they don’t always act the way you’d expect. Joseph J. Lazzaro offers news about "artificial vision": visual prosthetics for the blind. He has a vested interest in such research, having been legally blind himself for some years. That hasn’t stopped him from doing an impressive range of things (including repairing computers, which he says sometimes startles customers), but he’d be glad to expand his options even further–and the prospects look promising.

We also have stories by such writers as Michael F. Flynn (who recently won the first Robert A. Heinlein Award, but if "The Clapping Hands of God" reminds you of anybody else, it’s more likely to be Poul Anderson), Allen M. Steele, Bud Sparhawk, and Richard A. Lovett. In anticipation of Analog’s upcoming 75th anniversary, Kyle Kirkland offers a special feature on your relationship with the magazine: a history of "Brass Tacks." And, as usual in the summer double issue, we present the results of The Analytical Laboratory for 2003–your own choices of the best of what Analog published last year.