Quote:
Originally Posted by db105
I read it in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964. The story is perfectly fine, IMO. I understand it bothers some people nowadays because female characters should have agency or something, and why oh why the writer did not allow a workaround. But the story is powerful, and the decision not to find any workaround is 100% the right one for this story. With a workaround, it would be one more SF story about engineering problem solving, perfectly forgettable. As it is, it has impact.
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It's remembered today because John W. Campbell made Tom Godwin revise the story so that it had that ending. Reportedly, Godwin wrote it so that she lived. And for whatever reason, JWC decided he was going to use this story to go against the grain of the typical problem-solving story of the time. I don't know why he chose that story -- maybe because Heinlein or Asimov would have fought back if this was not the story they wanted to tell.
I also think that the story works best because that character is a young woman. That brought out the protective instincts in readers at the time it came out. But that can also be read different ways.
Even without the help of JWC, Tom Godwin could write brutal stories even when there was a way out. His story "
The Survivors" has a huge body count. (The original story was published in
Venture.)
At the same time, I wonder what an editor like H. L. Gold, Edward L. Ferman, or Anthony Boucher could have molded this story into -- with or without the original ending.
Quote:
Originally Posted by db105
The writer loads the dice so that there's no way out? Sure, so what, that's why there is a story to tell. That's the whole point. If they had ballast to throw out just in case, there would be no story.
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One of the movie adaptations had them throw out ballast -- but there wasn't enough. Maybe on paper, that would have dragged the story out too long. As it is, some of the paragraphs of dialogue... Phew.
Quote:
Originally Posted by db105
As for why they did not explore in more details other possibilities... I assume they did not overlook anything obvious, but it's not explored in detail because the story is just not about that. I feel like we are so unused to short stories nowadays that people can not conceive of a story getting to the point, but this is how many of these old SF stories used to be: Just an idea (math doesn't care about your feelings) and go for it. If you don't like it, well, move on, it's not like there aren't plenty of stories where math cares about your feelings.
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For what it's worth, there is
a critical article that says the story got the math wrong.
I don't know if that's true because when I look at an equation, I do so as a copyeditor and not a mathematician. (Yay, he didn't incorrectly italicize "ln"!)
Also, I can't believe I forgot to link to
this detailed article by Richard Harter, based on what he originally posted in some form on Usenet.
