Lloyd Biggle, Jr's "Monument" (novelette, colonialism, free): Non-violent, non-Gandhian, resistance against colonialism
So far, the only stories of peacefully & successfully fighting off the far more militarily powerful alien colonists I've read have been Gandhian. This one is different. And beautiful resolution.
Download full text from Webscription. [via Bill Garthright @ ClassicScienceFiction Yahoo group].
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Nominated for Hugo Award 1962.
Related: Stories of Lloyd Biggle.
Story summary.
An unnamed alien world, later in the story named Langri - after the local name of a human who foresaw their doom & gave them tools to fight it. An idyllic world human colonists want to grab. A lot of things happen, many of them familiar ones, until the natives throw their masterstroke.Fact sheet.
First published: Analog, June 1961.Download full text from Webscription. [via Bill Garthright @ ClassicScienceFiction Yahoo group].
Rating: A.
Among the stories from Astounding/Analog issues edited by John Campbell.
Nominated for Hugo Award 1962.
Related: Stories of Lloyd Biggle.
3 comments:
I'm really glad you liked this, although, as I mentioned elsewhere, the novel (published in 1974) is much better. Well, I think so, anyway.
Usually, when short fiction is expanded into a novel, I prefer the original. But Monument is different. It's still not overly long, and it's a story I can read over and over again.
They need to reprint it in a mass market paperback. (It's still available, but quite expensive for a paperback.)
One of my faves - and a novel that I think would serve as the basis for an excellent movie script, a movie that would really resonate with our times.
WCF: I had that experience with Asimov's "Nightfall"; read the novel before the original short story version. While I never liked the second half of the novel, I've always liked its first half - redoing the old story - better than the original short story. May be first reading effect.
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