Customer Reviews

Cold Equations

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I discovered this book in the early 1960's at the time I was mostly sustaining myself on Heinlein and his more upbeat proliferation of classic science fiction. The centerpiece of "Cold Equations" is actually not the title work, but the included novel "The Survivors", included in this volume of Godwin's works. Known in the early 60's as "Space Prison", this novel relates the 200 year long saga of a group of humans relegated to a planet after being attacked by barbarians during a space journey near the planet Ragnarok. Fully half of the thousands of colonists aboard this ship are relegated to this planet, declared uninhabitable by prior explorers (the other half is taken into slavery). Ragnarok is noted for its 1.5 G gravity, and the collection of ferocious beasts inhabiting it. On the first night alone, 200 of the colonists are killed. At the low point, the colony is reduced to only 49 individuals, before the group finally learns to adapt to the harsh conditions and to thrive and start to grow in numbers again.

The novel is a mixture of desperation and total hopelessness coupled with incredible yet believable examples of humankind's efforts to survive and succeed under incredible adversity. The story is very haunting, and finally ends when descendants of the original group of colonists escape from the planet.

I can think of only a handful of science fiction books that have stayed with me 40 years later after only a single reading, and I have occasionally looked for a copy, only finding old collectibles as a source. I could not have been more pleased when I found it had finally been reprinted only last month: I ordered it on the spot and await reading it again with great anticipation and sharing it with my 17 year old son.

When I was a pre-teen I once found myself restricted to my Uncle's farm for two weeks. I couldn't leave the yard, investigate the farm buildings, and there was no TV. The single redeeming feature of the two week experience was the book, The Survivors, in this collection of stories by Godwin. My Uncle was a voracious reader of SF and never let any of his books go - he had thousands. I read several during that two weeks, but this one - only this one I remember. Unfortunately, I remembered the wrong title (Prison Planet) and could never find it again. I reread it recently for the first time in about 40 years. Although the technology is classic 1950's SF and seems dated today, the story's view of how people fit into the universe had a big impact on me then. I appreciated the chance to revisit this long lost book and read for the first time Godwin's other stories included in this collection.

To the teens who might be attracted to the nicely posed young thing on the cover- she's nowhere to be found inside. This book was written in the 1950's after all. Still, if you like classic SF, you'll like this book.

I bough this book purely for the novel "The Survivors", which is included in the book. Let me tell you The Survivors is a absolutely wonderful book about overcoming the odds. I have read all the other stories in this book. but Tom Godwin's tale grabs hold of you and won't let go. Let me tell you this is one story you will never forget.

A number of the other short tales are memorable yes. But out of the entire compilation of Tom Godwin's tales done by Eric Flint "The Survivors", which is the only short novel length story is far and beyond the gem of this collection.

In the distant future Colonists heading to a new world are attacked while passing a world called Ragnarok, a world with 1.5 gravity and very little food that humans can eat and very many things that would like to eat humans. And here half of the colonists are marooned, left to die while the Garn take the others as slaves. But in 200 years that take a Garn cruiser and because they are now stronger and can withstand more G's they crush the Garn, freeing Earth from constant attacks and themselves from Ragnarok.

I had read the story that gave this compilation its title back in junior high school, and it has haunted me ever since.
So, when I found an entire compilation of stories from this great writer, I jumped at it.
Rereading the story "The Cold Equations" all these years later reminded me of the power of Godwin to keep his audience spellbound, unable to stop until the end, which I will not spoil here.
This story is so famous that, for decades, it has sparked controversy and lengthy debates, some due to claims of Godwin having "borrowed" the story from an earlier comic book, and some due to mathematicians and physicists questioning the central dreadful dilemma of the story.
It really is a measure of greatness that (the late) Tom Godwin to this day has a story of such power and fascination that people are still talking about it, over forty years after he published it.
Kudos to Amazon for the speedy service, too.

Three of the previous 4 reviewers have it right. 5 stars!! I guess we must have all have been Tom Godwin/Space Prison(aka The Survivors) fans. I had a copy of this interesting, entertaining story, that, with the advent of computerized animation of the type used in the Jurassic Park movies, would make a great film adventure. It is a real pleasure for this reader to know that once again this wonderful work of classic sci-fi writing has again been made available to a whole new generation of readers. My copy of the book disappeared in the 40 years since I read it. Now it is back! I heartily recommend this book -- thoroughly entertaining. Get it, read it, enjoy it!

Baen's reprint program is praiseworthy, but I'm afraid this reprint isn't going to be of much interest to adults, beyond "The Cold Equations", which isn't hard to find elsewhere.

The first 143 pages is Godwin's 1958 novel The Survivors, supposedly his best. It's readable, but pulpy YA (at best): stalwart heros with short WASP names (Gene Taylor, George Ord, John Prentiss), sneering villains, and the usual 50's can't-keep-humanity-down plot. Here, Earth's first colony-starship is captured by Gern meanies, who dump 4,000 of the colonists on Ragnarok, a decidedly inhospitable planet. Ragnarok is the most interesting part of the novel, really -- Godwin went to some effort to design a (fairly) plausible barely-inhabitable planet.

I'll put a **SPOILER WARNING** here, but no real surprises follow, either here or in the novel. The unhappy colonists are mown down by hostile wildlife, plagues, food shortages etc, but a few survive, and they are tough, mean SOBs, determined to get back at those bad, bad Gern. Their efforts to do so are hampered by their numbers dropping to about 75 (ims) at the low point, and by the area around their camp being almost metal-free.

But those plucky humans persevere, and 200(!) years later, they're up to 2,000 tough, hardy Ragnarokian SOBs, including an engineer-hero who builds a subspace transmitter from old rifle-barrels, knife-blades, transistor-radios etc. They transmit a taunting message to Gern HQ, a Gern cruiser filled with slavering slavers duly appears, and -- surprise! -- the humans capture the cruiser. After that, it's KO to a Gern battleship, their fleet, and the entire Gern Empire. The End.

I see I didn't mention the great, gaping plot-holes, scientific absurdities, paper-thin characters, an acute shortage of common-sense, and other problems.

The couple other stories I read or scanned are more of the same, competent, pulpy stories of engineer-heroes overcoming, well, whatever problems Godwin throws at them.

Except for "The Cold Equations", of course, which truly is a classic. If anyone here hasn't read it, well, you should. Google Groups (rec.arts.sf.written) for a number of interesting (if interminable) discussions [CAUTION: SPOILERS], over the years. Anyway, it's clear to me that Godwin's other work is justly obscure, but who knows, that fur-bikini might lure in a new SF reader or two...

Happy reading!
Pete Tillman

They may show they can deliver it, but (after a year and a half!) they finally just emailed me saying they cannot get this book. If you really want to read it, try ordering from somewhere else.