The Ugly Little Boy/the Widget, the Wadget, and Boff (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This expanded version of the late Asimov's classic 1958 tale is a collaborative effort that surpasses the original. There are no plot surprises; the authors have retained the basic story of an alien four-year-old child who is kidnapped from his time zone and brought into a future world. Yet this is a fresh and satisfying version, primarily because the characters have been made richer, the depiction of 21st-century society rounded out and the history of the Neanderthal tribe from which the eponymous boy was abducted more fully given. When the woebegone waif, now named Timmie, was snatched from his epoch, he was brought into a pool of no-time, which exists coincident with the present. Since Timmie is condemned to living within that pool forever, his presence raises moral questions: Is it abusive to leave him alone in this limbo for eternity? Would it be equally cruel to send him back to the Ice Age? Asimov ( Foundation ) and Silverberg ( Lord Valentine's Castle ) explore these issues in an intriguing story supported by seamless writing.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

Plucked out of the past and transported forty thousand years into the future, a Neanderthal child discovers that human nature has remained unchanged, in an expanded version of an original Asimov story published in 1958. 60,000 first printing. $60,000 ad/promo. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Tor Books (June 1989)
• ISBN-10: 0812559738
• ISBN-13: 978-0812559736
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,895,387 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting way for 2 authors to collaborate., August 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ugly Little Boy (Mass Market Paperback)

I enjoyed Asimov's novella Ugly Little boy & so I tried the novel. The authors ,I'm guessing, did an intersting approach to collaboration. Rather than trying to merge their different styles (something that would've been very difficult) they ,once again I'm presuming, wrote 2 stories & connected them. The Neanderthal story of where the child came from is pure silverberg, the future tale of where the boy ended up is a great deal like the original novella so it's pure Asimov. This works because asimov's original story was about the child being "a fish out of water" & silverberg does a good job of showing the "waters" he came from. Therefore the contrasting styles are almost necessary. In novel form it becomes a story of a child going from a Silverbergian world (Which in my experience means beautiful, passionate, melancholy, dangerous, & in this case primitive) to an asimovean one (Which I'm more experienced with: rational, shiny, techy, & in this case a bit cold). This approach makes the contrast between the primitive & the futuristic more real. It will please fans of prehistoric romance & futuristic fiction. Also it's just a great story about being thrust to a place where you don't fit in, but where you find people to care about anyway. Recommended & I wouldn't mind other collaborations using this technique. If ,of course, they really did use the technique I described. I'm almost certain they did, however.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rather heart-rending story about a boy from another time., August 9, 2004

By	R. Garcia "Beeyotch" (Brockport, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Ugly Little Boy, The (Hardcover)

Two of our most famous sci-fi authors, Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg got together to produce a great "what if" story exploring how technology of a make-believe 21st-century lab could go far enough to bring right back a child from 40,000 years ago to live with a caregiver in a bubble.

Miss Fellowes, who had been hired under very strict regulations to watch the prehistoric boy, had a kind of a sharp tongue and sometimes acted like a demented soccer mom, especially when nosey scientists and the media eagerly flocked over to gawk at the kid and make a big fuss over him. But she had fallen into love with the strange-looking Neandertal child and thus would never want to part with him.

The little boy named "Timmie" had turned out to be such a charming little angel in spite of his "unsightly" prehistoric appearance. And he had also ended up facing a very uncertain fate, especially with a scientist who brought him over, yet didn't intend to keep him forever, an overzealous child advocate who screamed bloody "child abuse", and a worried nurse who feared that he wouldn't survive in a prehistoric environment after a few years of learning to read and eat with a fork.

In addition to Timmie's heartwarming adventure in the modern times, we also get glimpses of the prehistoric tribe that he had left behind, which was now facing its own dangers forty thousand years back.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A tearjerker any time..., July 31, 2001

By	Sathyanarayanan Sekar "a book worm" (Bangalore, India) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Ugly Little Boy (Mass Market Paperback)

Asimov in his introduction to the short story, put it as a "tear-jerker" and his second favoutite story. It is my all-time favourite though - a wonderful read. The novel is good - there is some expansion on the Neanderthal times from where the boy is brought as a specimen to today's world. But what is truly relevant here is the way the maternal feelings grow in Nurse ???(whats her name) and how mutual love develops between the two. The finale is brilliant. I would recomment all to read this one. There is nothing special in the "Silververg" part as I see it. The short story of Asimov is what carries the thing through - and so, you may as well read the short story. Its his finest tale.