{"id":19199,"date":"2021-12-08T11:47:11","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T19:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/?p=19199"},"modified":"2021-12-11T19:40:32","modified_gmt":"2021-12-12T03:40:32","slug":"some-responses-to-the-cold-equations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2021\/12\/08\/some-responses-to-the-cold-equations\/","title":{"rendered":"Some responses to \u201cThe Cold Equations\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Here\u2019s a roundup of some responses to, and works that could be seen as being in dialogue with, Tom Godwin\u2019s 1954 story \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Cold_Equations\">The Cold Equations<\/a>.\u201d (The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lightspeedmagazine.com\/fiction\/the-cold-equations\/\">original story<\/a> is also available online.) The first five links below are nonfiction; the rest are fiction.<\/p>\r\n<p>I should note that I don\u2019t really want to host yet another round of the long-running floating online argument about \u201cThe Cold Equations.\u201d Pretty much every point that I\u2019ve seen made about the story, either pro or con, is covered in one or more of the below links.<\/p>\r\n<p>If you already know all about the story and the arguments, then the one potentially new thing below is the link to the 2021 Aimee Ogden story \u201cThe Cold Calculations.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<h3>Nonfiction links<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n  <li>Richard Harter\u2019s thorough 1977\/1997 <a href=\"https:\/\/richardhartersworld.com\/coldeq-2\/\">analysis and critique<\/a> of \u201cThe Cold Equations.\u201d (My favorite line: \u201cThe original posting triggered an extended discussion, conducted in the calm, even-handed, dispassionate style [that] usenet is famed for.\u201d)<\/li>\r\n  <li>James Nicoll\u2019s related but less thorough 2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tor.com\/2019\/04\/29\/on-needless-cruelty-in-sf-tom-godwins-the-cold-equations\/\">critique<\/a>. (\u201cScience fiction celebrates all manner of things; one of them is what some people might call \u2018making hard decisions\u2019 and other people call \u2018needless cruelty driven by contrived and arbitrary worldbuilding chosen to facilitate facile philosophical positions.\u2019 Tomato, tomato.\u201d)<\/li>\r\n  <li>Cory Doctorow\u2019s 2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/locusmag.com\/2014\/03\/cory-doctorow-cold-equations-and-moral-hazard\/\">critique<\/a> of this story and of Heinlein\u2019s <cite>Farnham\u2019s Freehold<\/cite>.<\/li>\r\n  <li>Many <a href=\"https:\/\/tvtropes.org\/pmwiki\/pmwiki.php\/Headscratchers\/TheColdEquations\">arguments for and against various details of the story<\/a> at TV Tropes.<\/li>\r\n  <li>Mike Brotherton\u2019s 2011 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lightspeedmagazine.com\/nonfiction\/the-cold-legacies\/\">overview<\/a> of other works that cover similar and related ideas, published both before and after \u201cThe Cold Equations.\u201d<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h3>Fiction links<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n  <li>Aimee Ogden\u2019s 2021 story responding to \u201cThe Cold Equations\u201d: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/clarkesworldmagazine.com\/ogden_12_21\/\">The Cold Calculations<\/a>,\u201d which is both an impassioned critique of capitalism and a partially steelmanned response to the original story (that is, it fixes some flaws in the original and then critiques the improved version). I\u2019m especially impressed with this one for responding on multiple levels\u2014both to some underlying unspoken assumptions, and to specific details. Several of the specific critiques here have previously been covered in various of the above nonfiction responses, but even so, good stuff.<\/li>\r\n  <li>I don\u2019t know of an authorized online version, but Don Sakers\u2019s 1991 story responding to \u201cThe Cold Equations\u201d: \u201cThe Cold Solution,\u201d in which the solution involves cutting off limbs and tossing them out the airlock.<\/li>\r\n  <li> James D. Macdonald\u2019s 2017 story responding to \u201cThe Cold Equations\u201d: \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/madhousemanor.com\/2017\/01\/11\/the-coldest-equations-yet\/\">The Coldest Equations Yet<\/a>,\u201d featuring another solution.<\/li>\r\n  <li>Cora Buhlert\u2019s 2020 piece \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/corabuhlert.com\/2020\/03\/18\/the-cold-crowdfunding-campaign\/\">The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign<\/a>,\u201d featuring yet another solution, albeit not one that works in the context of the original story.<\/li>\r\n  <li>Jack London\u2019s 1908 story \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/To_Build_a_Fire\">To Build a Fire<\/a>.\u201d (You don\u2019t need to go to space to set up a situation where cold + nature + poor planning + human mistakes = death\u2014although Wikipedia says that in the original 1902 version of the story, the protagonist survives!)<\/li>\r\n  <li>Kelly Jennings\u2019s heartbreaking and superb story \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/strangehorizons.com\/fiction\/in-the-cold\/\">In the Cold<\/a>,\u201d published in <cite>Strange Horizons<\/cite> in 2012\u2014I don\u2019t know whether this was intended to be partly in dialogue with \u201cThe Cold Equations,\u201d but I feel like it\u2019s worth mentioning in this context.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,54,28,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-improving-society","category-science","category-short-stories","category-speculative-fiction"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19199"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19222,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19199\/revisions\/19222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}