If you are interested in learning more about the short science fiction stories of this period, one interesting on-line resource is the website for Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard Science Fiction, edited by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer. The website does not include the stories themselves, but it does include the overall introduction and the introductions to each story.

Heinlein - Green Hills of Earth

1. Heinlein was usually good at conveying information on his future societies and technologies without resorting to long explanatory lectures. In this story he succeeds in squeezing a lot of additional information into Rhysling's story. Read it careful, and identify some of the techniques he uses to make you aware of his future history without slowing down the narrative. Have an example to discuss in class.
2. How realistic do you find Heinlein's idea of poetry writing? What actual poets might he have been inspired by?
3. Heinlein puts his technology in the background, presenting it as an everyday part of his characters' lives. But his assumptions about the progress and culture of space travel seem to draw heavily on earlier historical periods. How plausible do you find his "space men" and where do you think he got his ideas?
    

Heinlein - The Roads Must Roll

This story was consider Heinlein's best during the 1950s and 1960s, though it has not aged particularly well. The political ideas in the book are strongly influenced by the 1920s and 1930s -- particularly the New Deal, the rise of trade unions in response to the Depression, and the Technocracy movement. (I'll be covering this background a little).

1. Same question. Heinlein has clearly spent a lot of time thinking out the implications of his "roads" idea. What techniques does he use to show the roads themselves, and the people who work on them, to his readers?
2. The story is set in the 1960s. Leaving aside the obvious (nobody every built mechanized roads), what assumptions from 1940 is he carrying forward?
3. Heinlein has a point to make about the relationship of crucial technologies to society. What real historical technology was he inspired by? To what extent do his concerns apply to important recent technologies, such as personal computers and the Internet?
4. How does Heinlein feel about Unions? Who does he think should be in charge? To what extent does he trust readers to draw their own conclusion?
5. He presents his characters in quite stark terms -- what makes his hero heroic, and what makes his villain villainous?

Godwin - The Cold Equations

This story, like the Asimov and Heinlein stories, was published in Astounding Science Fiction during the long reign of its legendary editor John W. Campbell, Jr. Its form was shaped by Campbell's own idea that he wanted to play with the reader's expectations. Many stories of the era, such as the Asimov story "Runaround" set up a some kind of crisis situation as a puzzle. As in a murder mystery, the characters solve the puzzle, using the same information that has been made available to the reader. In this case, though, there is a different message.

Science fiction writer and teacher James Gunn has argued that "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." Certainly the story proved very popular -- in a poll conducted among professional science fiction writers in the 1960s it finished in the all-time top 15. It is also the tenth most frequently anthologized story in the genre. It is the only thing its author is remember for. Its popularity is tied more to its mindset that its literary grace.

1. What is the message of the story? Do you agree with it?
2. Why do you think the story was so popular with readers of Astounding, and with science fiction fans in general?
3. The exact time and setting for this story are never made clear -- but it must be at least a couple of hundred years into the future. What has changed (both in society and in technology)? Is there anything that seems dated in it?
4. (a continuation) How is the woman in the story depicted? What does this say about Godwin's imagination.
    

Page created by Thomas Haigh. Last edited  01/12/2002.