YASID: Man and woman on planet affected by local life/conditions/pheromones/sense of smell makes them attracted to each other when they wouldn't be

[Blue Tyson]

Here's one that has been bugging me for a while, and there's maybe a
50-50 chance it was a FSF story, given I picked up a couple of mags at
LAX one day.

Probably 2000-2002, more likely earlier than later perhaps.

I remember a story where a man and a woman, probably some sort of
researchers were affected by local conditions/organisms that made them
attracted to each other when perhaps they would not have been.

The only other things I possibly remember is there may have been
Charles Sheffield and James Patrick Kelly stories in those mags or
corresponding mags that I picked up that month.

It was perhaps a pheromone/sense of smell thing too, maybe?

----
http://freesf.blogspot.com
http://notfreesf.blogspot.com
http://superprose.blogspot.com
http://spaceoperareader.blogspot.com
http://ozsf.blogspot.com
http://graphicsf.blogspot.com

[Blue Tyson]

Thanks, but no, unless this was an excerpt many years later on from
that, which I doubt.

This was absolutely a story, however vaguely I remember it, in FSF,
Asimov's or Analog, around the times mentioned above.

The book I had with me wa son Australia-West Indies cricket, so can't
have been in that. :)

[Daphne Brinkerhoff]

On Dec 17, 8:45 pm, Blue Tyson <aussieva...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It was perhaps a pheromone/sense of smell thing too, maybe?

This is just a guess, but...

"The Great Economy of the Saurian Mode. Michaelene Pendleton.
What is it with the clumsy titles in this issue?
Sonia Vasilyeva has the right combination of pheromones and emotional
stablity to
run a competition team of Sorsh raptors. A government agent offers her
and her team
a big reward to hunt down an escaped terrorist - the biggest reward
being passports
which will enable them to get away from Earth. Sonia smells a rat, and
as the hunt
for the escapee unfolds, her suspicions increase. The denouement sees
the
government agent making a Big Error of Judgement (so big you wonder
how he
got any degree of seniority in the government agency)."
(all quoted from http://www.bestsf.net/reviews/asimovs0007.html)
It's in July 2000 Asimov's -- Kelly and Sheffield were in the June
2000 issue, so maybe
you picked up two at once?

--
Daphne

[Blue Tyson]

Daphne,

Thanks, that is more than possible, certainly, given it was in an
airport shop, and it is quite plausible that is the story. What makes
it even more likely now I check that out is I am pretty sure something
from the issues I had made it into a Year's Best Dozois edition I had
for a while - and Oceanic by Egan is there, so I think you more than
likely have worked it out.

Well done! :)

Thanks very much,

bt

[Blue Tyson]

That would also explain why when I read 'Interstitial' by McAuley that
he put on his website recently I found it somewhat familiar. So
evidence mounts for this issue.

[Blue Tyson]

This is the bit I was misremembering it looks like :-

I'm not sorsh, but I'm not immune to pheromones, myself. Nor was
OCallan. His hair was slick to his head, his eyes wild, his wet
clothes clinging to his body, a very good body, at that. He took my
hand, pulling me into a close embrace that owed something to a tango,
and much more to a different kind of dance. He wanted me. I wanted
him. The sorsh were in favor. But then, they always are. They don't
want to watch, but they do want to be within scent distance. They bask
in the pheromones I give off. I don't mind; hell, why not? It's the
closest they're going to get to sex on this planet.

The whole story is actually here :-

http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0202/MODESaurian.html

[peterw...@hotmail.com]

On Dec 17, 8:45 pm, Blue Tyson <aussieva...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Here's one that has been bugging me for a while, and there's maybe a
> 50-50 chance it was a FSF story, given I picked up a couple of mags at
> LAX one day.
>
> Probably 2000-2002, more likely earlier than later perhaps.
>
> I remember a story where a man and a woman, probably some sort of
> researchers were affected by local conditions/organisms that made them
> attracted to each other when perhaps they would not have been.
>
> The only other things I possibly remember is there may have been
> Charles Sheffield and James Patrick Kelly stories in those mags or
> corresponding mags that I picked up that month.
>
> It was perhaps a pheromone/sense of smell thing too, maybe?
>
>

Robert F. Young's short story _Boy Meets Dyeritza_ has a situation
like this. An American male astronaut and a Soviet woman cosmonaut
meet on a classic habitable Venus and are affected by the local rain.
In observation of local marriage custom, they are captured by native
humanoids who forge in place around each of their necks a metal collar
that cannot be moved more than a short distance from the other collar.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist