Algis Budrys' "Chain Reaction" (as by John A Sentry) (novelette, freedom): You're free, but live my way!
I intended to write this post on 15 August, India's Independence Day, but have been busy recently. This is an independence day story, but I found the author's idea of freedom somewhat obnoxious, even if well intended.
A passing human ship discovers the enslavement, & frees the slaves. Only the humans are treating the newly freed as children that need to be taught how to live, & natives naturally resent it.
Rating: B.
Among the stories edited by John Campbell for Astounding/Analog.
Related: Stories of Algis Budrys.
Story summary.
An alien world where an intelligent species is held enslaved by another with much superior technology. Slaves whose work the owners don't even need anymore; they're held enslaved out of habit, or may be of need to exercise power over others.A passing human ship discovers the enslavement, & frees the slaves. Only the humans are treating the newly freed as children that need to be taught how to live, & natives naturally resent it.
Collected in.
Fact sheet.
First published: Astounding, April 1957.Rating: B.
Among the stories edited by John Campbell for Astounding/Analog.
Related: Stories of Algis Budrys.
1 comments:
completely wrong.
The "twist" to the story is that the natives were "slaves"... except the slavers were exhausting themselves keeping the "slaves" alive.
Then when we humans "free" them... they go back to their old ways that were killing them. So we ended up doing what the former masters did, taking away their freedoms... until a native helped us find a way to *force* the natives to learn new ways.
Post a Comment