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The Cold Equations | ||||||||||||||||||
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his omnibus volume contains an entire novel and eight stories out of the lifetime total (three novels and some 30 stories) written by Tom Godwin (1915-1980). Additionally, two essays by Barry Malzberg and one by David Drake bookend the fiction.
The novel comes first: titled The Survivors, it was also known as Space Prison and appeared first in 1958. A colony ship during time of war is overtaken by a cruel race called the Gerns. The assailants maroon 4,000 of the ship's complement on a fatally harsh world called Ragnarok, where all life forms are turned against the humans. Within a few years, only some threescore colonists are left. Yet that handful will form the nucleus of the Gerns' undoing, as they mutate and adapt to the harsh conditions, becoming warriors such as the universe has never before seen.
"The Harvest" is a short-short with a bitter punchline, revealing that mankind's place in the universe is other than what we have assumed. The first test of an experimental warp drive must take place while Earth is under attack by alien invaders in "Brain Teaser." It's too bad for the lone crewman left alive that all the experts attending the runaway drive died when it was turned on. Cast away on a world whose sun is due to supernova, the crew of the Star Scout must repair their ship for escape or die. But how to effect repairs in a lethal environment? Lateral thinking is the answer in "Mother of Invention."
Alliances among two star empires seem destined to leave Earth a defeated ruin in "—And Devious the Line of Duty." Can it be possible that Terra's only chance at salvation lies in the hands of a drunken diplomat and his beefcake assistant? In "Empathy," Capt. Harold Rider of the Frontier Corps is forced to watch all his laborious first-contact work with an alien race dissolve into misunderstanding and conflict—thanks to the bumbling bureaucrats foisted on him by the Extraterrestrial Relations Board. However, at the point of disaster, one simple bit of human affection proves to be Roder's salvation. "No Species Alone" is set on a contemporary Earth visited by a lone representative of a hostile reptilian race. The invading Snake proves himself superior in every way, and Earth seems doomed—until the smallest of the small steps in. Shortly after the Korean War—in Godwin's terms, the near future—the inventions of a master computer have opened the stars to humanity. But the gap between "flesh and steel"—"The Gulf Between"—proves fraught with potential disaster.
Finally, we encounter Godwin's most famous story—with some justification, it's cited as the most famous SF story ever. "The Cold Equations" chronicles a harrowing hour in the course of a rescue mission gone awry.
Keeping yesterday's dreams alive
First off, praise is due to both Baen Books and compiler/editor Eric Flint for not only the assembling of this volume—long overdue—but also for their larger publishing program, which has rescued in similar tomes the work of Keith Laumer, Christopher Anvil and James Schmitz from out-of-print oblivion. Keeping alive these seminal—or simply good and journeyman—stories by lesser-known writers is a noble pursuit. Additionally, Malzberg and Drake deliver fine and perceptive essays to set the work in context.
Prior to this omnibus, it would have been easy—was actually a consensus judgment—to regard Godwin as a one-trick pony. "The Cold Equations" was such a landmark, such a dominant monument in the field, that it overshadowed all his other work. But by placing this story last in this collection, Flint leads us to see it as consonant in both outlook and quality with the rest of Godwin's output, emerging with consistency from the author's stern worldview.
Right from the first page, Godwin's unbending outlook on the universe—a kind of cold-eyed, merciless appraisal of humanity's simultaneous insignificance and fragility combined with its indomitable will to survive—flares forth. Such a philosophical stance would not occur again in the field until the advent of James Tiptree. (One of Tiptree's titles, "Painwise," might serve as shorthand for Godwin's approach to life. Apparently, debilitating physical ailments of his own played a large role in the formation of his worldview.) The cast of The Survivors is brutally whittled down to a handful, all so that future generations can ascend, in meticulous, unsparing prose that is both workmanlike and somehow elegant, vivid and sharp. Yet Godwin is hardly cruel or callous to his characters: You can feel his sympathy and empathy radiating off the page. But he's not going to rig his plots to sugarcoat reality as he interprets it. This same approach informs "Brain Teaser" and "Mother of Invention" and of course, most famously and controversially, "The Cold Equations," where a teenage girl's spirited impulsiveness leads, step by step, inexorably to her state-sanctioned murder.
Of course, Godwin could unbend a little too, which is what makes him more interesting than a simple one-note author. "—And Devious the Line of Duty" is farcical in the manner of an Eric Frank Russell tale. "Empathy" is an effective and earned tearjerker about interspecies bonding. "No Species Alone" reminds me for some reason of Theodore Sturgeon's work. Godwin was no poet of Sturgeon's caliber, but the tone and affect of this story are somehow full of Sturgeonesque emotion. Additionally, his problem-solving bent aligns him with such masters of that sub-genre as Hal Clement and Poul Anderson. And in "The Gulf Between" Godwin ventures into Asimov's territory with an examination of the limitations of artificial intelligence.
Over the course of his somewhat frustrated and limited career, Godwin carved out one simple message—the universe is hard and has no special regard for humans—a message that some would argue is the core tenet of SF. Luckily, humanity can provide the emotional aspect the universe lacks, and this volume proves that our field still cares about Godwin, as well it should.
Grim as is the lot of the castaways in The Survivors, they are never portrayed as resorting to cannibalism, a logical recourse for desperate people on a planet empty of protein. It seems the literary market forces of the 1950s might have drawn a line in the sand that even Godwin's bleak utilitarian vision could not quite transcend. — Paul
Also in this issue: Brighten to Incandescence, by Michael Bishop
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