Eric Flint - The Cold Equations

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The Cold Equations
Tom Godwin
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this
book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is
purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2003 by Tom Godwin.
The Survivors
was first published by Gnome Press in 1958, and reissued in
1960 by Pyramid Books under the title
Space Prison.
"The Harvest" was
first published in
Venture
in July, 1957. "Brain Teaser" was first published
in
If
in October, 1956. "Mother of Invention" was first published in
Astounding
in December, 1953. "—And Devious the Line of Duty" was
first published in
Analog
in December, 1962. "Empathy" was first
published in
Fantastic
in October, 1959. "No Species Alone" was first
published in
Universe
in November, 1954. "The Gulf Between" was first
published in
Astounding
in October, 1953. "The Cold Equations" was first
published in
Astounding
in August, 1954.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 0-7434-3601-6
Cover art by Clyde Caldwell
First printing, April 2003
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Godwin, Tom.
The cold equations & other stories / by Tom Godwin ; edited and
compiled by Eric Flint.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-7434-3601-6 (pbk.)
1. Science fiction, American. 2. Space flight—Fiction. I. Title:
Cold
equations and other stories. II. Flint, Eric. III. Title.
PS3557.O3175C65 2003
813'.54—dc21 2002043995
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH
Printed in the United States of America
Preface
by Barry Malzberg
The title story of this volume, "The Cold Equations," is perhaps the most famous and
controversial of all science fiction short stories. When it first appeared in the August
1954 issue of
Astounding
, it generated more mail from readers than any story previously
published in the magazine. Since then, it has been reprinted thousands of times (almost
all college courses on science fiction routinely include it on reading lists). It has been the
basis of a television movie and a
Twilight Zone
episode, and prior to that had been
adapted for radio and television many, many times.
Its impact remains. In the late l990's it was the subject of a furious debate in the
intellectually ambitious (or simply pretentious; you decide)
New York Review of Science
Fiction
in which the story was anatomized as anti-feminist, proto-feminist, hard-edged
realism, squishy fantasy for the self-deluded, misogynistic past routine pathology, crypto-
fascist, etc., etc. One correspondent suggested barely-concealed pederasty.
The debaters' affect over a story more than four decades old was extraordinary, and
the debate did not end so much as it kind of expired from exhaustion. Godwin's adoptive
daughter, Diane Sullivan, said in conclusion that Godwin himself had always felt women
were "To be loved and protected" and A.J. Budrys in a similarly funerary tone noted that
" 'The Cold Equations' was the best short story that Godwin ever wrote and he didn't
write it."
But, of course, he did. I'll have more to say about the history of the short story in my
afterword (see below), but for now that's enough. Here, in one volume, are the best
writings of Tom Godwin. It begins with his most popular novel,
The Survivors,
and
closes with his legendary story, "The Cold Equations."
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