It is no secret that Campbell did prefer “upbeat” stories. Ben Bova, who certainly knows what he’s talking about, once wrote: Of all the short stories that were published in Astounding after the golden age, it’s the one that has probably inspired the most subsequent discussion, usually in response to the question of whether or not Campbell deliberately avoided unhappy endings. Campbell, that is still widely read or anthologized. “The Cold Equations” made an enormous impression on readers at the time, and it’s the only story by Godwin, a favorite of editor John W. As a character in another story reminded his captain under similar circumstances, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few-or the one.Īnd that’s pretty much it. Marilyn is sucked into space to die horribly, while Barton returns to the controls. Barton allows her to talk to her brother over the radio one last time, then marches her into the airlock and opens the doors. After an agonized discussion of the situation, Marilyn comes to terms with her fate. Barton, in despair, realizes that he has no choice but to jettison her: if he doesn’t, they’ll both die, along with the six colonists awaiting the serum. The story opens with Barton discovering that he has a stowaway, a teenage girl named Marilyn, who snuck onboard to visit her brother at the ship’s destination, unaware that the penalty was death.

As a result, the punishment for stowaways is severe: in order to save the ship as a whole, the pilot is legally obligated to immediately eject any unauthorized passengers through the airlock.

Because the emergency vessels are deployed only as a last resort from larger transports, they carry the bare minimum of fuel required to get them to their destination, and any extra weight would cause the entire ship to crash. Its protagonist is Barton, the pilot of the Stardust, a small emergency spacecraft carrying a shipment of serum that is urgently needed to save the lives of six colonists on an isolated planet. The plot of “The Cold Equations,” a short story by Tom Godwin that first appeared in Astounding in August 1954, can be summarized in just a few sentences. You can read the earlier installments here. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, I’ve taken the opportunity to highlight works within the genre that deserve to be rediscovered, reappraised, or simply enjoyed by a wider audience. Note: As part of the research process for my book Astounding: John W.

Alec nevala lee astounding