The Cold Equations

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What Hacker News says

• fractallyte · Jun 28, 2020 · Recommends

  …proper ebook - let me know if you want a copy; I can't locate it at this moment... And, in my opinion, the finest science fiction short story ever written (apologies to Asimov's Nightfall and Godwin's The Cold Equations): Nine Minutes, by Genrikh Altov https://www.altshuller.ru/world/eng/science-fiction4.asp

  on “Sensors detect rise in nuclear particles on Baltic Sea” ↗
• tombert · Oct 29, 2024 · Recommends

  Not a "book", but a short story: The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin. I read that story when I was pretty young, and it's shaped my opinion on cold, uncaring bureaucracies in a way that I'm not sure anything else could.

  on “Sci-fi books that you may never have heard of, but definitely should read” ↗
• khafra · Sep 26, 2009 · Mentions

  …barring some miracle like practical, cheap fusion power appearing in the next decade. If I were to make a comparison to a work of fiction, it wouldn't be to Mad Max or The Day After Tomorrow; but to The Cold Equations, by Tom Godwin.

  on “"Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air" by David JC MacKay” ↗
• Retric · Oct 23, 2020 · Mentions

  …that way about A Fire Upon the Deep. I rank it as some of the softest science fiction I have ever read. It’s a decent story, but falls heavily into the science as magic trap. Contrast it with say The Cold Equations which as I recall has FTL and everything else is bog standard physics and yet it was still criticized as unrealistic from an engendering standpoint. You can’t make that kind of criticism of A Fire Upon…

  on “The Hypertext annotated version of “A Fire Upon the Deep” (1993)” ↗
• glitchc · Aug 20, 2018 · Mentions

  …disposal? Ender spends the rest of the series struggling with that very question. Ultimately, he comes to realize that, yes, he would do it all over again if he had to. Thank you for the recommendation on "Cold Equations". Haven't read it, will happily take a look. Hopefully my local library has a copy.

  on “Creating the Innocent Killer (2009)” ↗
• dsr_ · Oct 23, 2020 · Critical

  /The Cold Equations/ is lambasted for being a story that's set up to make a point in ways that completely contradict any sort of good engineering practice. Given the situation as described, the simplest ordinary precautions…

  on “The Hypertext annotated version of “A Fire Upon the Deep” (1993)” ↗
• rsynnott · Oct 23, 2020 · Critical

  > The Cold Equations I never liked this very much, because the whole "we can only take exactly this mass, and an extra 60kg or whatever will doom us" thing is such an obvious design and/or process flaw. If you really are…

  on “The Hypertext annotated version of “A Fire Upon the Deep” (1993)” ↗
• perl4ever · Jun 1, 2020 · Mentions

  …different take on a young woman looking for adventure who ends up paying the ultimate price for the good of humanity. Edit: Haha, I clicked on a link to goodreads and the second comment compares it to "The Cold Equations".

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• svieira · Aug 22, 2020 · Mentions

  You should really read The Count to the Eschaton Sequence by John C. Wright. The Cold Equations is another answer to the question you pose.

  on “Mystery of interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua gets trickier” ↗