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Tom Godwin
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 Tom Godwin was a Campbell writer of hard sf and science fiction adventure who began
publishing stories in Astounding in 1953; in 1954 wrote his most famous story, "The Cold Equations." Although he wrote
on into the 1970s, producing three novels and a relatively small number of stories, his generally
sentimental approach to characterization did not bring him notable commercial success or popular attention. Except for
the enduring interest in this one story.
Here is one of the most popular and controversial hard sf stories of the last fifty years, a story that
stacks the deck and then plays with the reader's emotions with carefully juxtaposed cliches that imply a deus ex
machina -- then frustrates that false expectation. It is a provocative companion piece to Philip Latham's
"The Xi Effect," with which most sf readers of the period would have been familiar. Godwin's story angered
many readers when it appeared in the 1950s, nearly all of whom wanted the problem solved by violating some
scientific principle or law. It is said that Campbell demanded the story end this way.
The point of the story, of course, is that scientific laws cannot be violated under any circumstance.
And ignorance of scientific law can kill you, no matter how sincere you are. James Gunn, in his influential
historical anthology, The Road to Science
Fiction (Vol. 3, 1979), declares the story a touchstone for sf reading: "If
the reader doesn't understand it or appreciate what it is trying to say about humanity and its relationship to
its environment, then that reader isn't likely to appreciate science fiction. If the reader keeps objecting . . .
then that reader isn't reading the story correctly." Such readers do not have the right attitude, the hard sf attitude.
If there is a universal allegory beneath the hard sf story, it is, as Hal Clement has stated, that the
universe is antagonistic to life, and that only through knowledge of physical law, and adherence to it, may life survive.
There is no clearer affirmation of the principle that science and scientific law rules the universe than "The Cold
Equations" in all of sf, which perhaps accounts for its enduring popularity.
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The Ascent of Wonder copyright © 1994 by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. | ||
Cramer: On Science & Science Fiction || Hartwell: Hard Science Fiction
David G. Hartwell || Kathryn Cramer || About Tor Books || Ordering Info
Interactive Intoduction to THE ASCENT OF WONDER copyright © 1995-1997 by Kathryn Cramer.