Unwillingly to Earth by Pauline Ashwell

[james_davis_nicoll]

A teenager's social engineering skills are harnessed for good.

Unwillingly to Earth by Pauline Ashwell

Comments

[dsrtao]

I am nearly certain that the reason I have read this -- within the past two years, I think -- is because you mentioned it. I just don't know where.

[james_davis_nicoll]

The first novella, Unwillingly to School, was in 2019’s Rediscovery Vol 1: SF by Women 1958 – 1963.

[carbonel]

I definitely bought a copy of this because James recommended it at least twice in ways that made me think I'd like it. I read (and enjoyed) the first two stories, but I kept bogging down in Lizzie's idiolect, which I found very hard to read, and didn't go on to the third story. Though, to be fair, if I had an ebook version instead of the small-print paperback, the reading issue wouldn't be as much of a deal. My eyes don't work as well as they used to.

[spiralsheep]

One of the stories, The Lost Kafoozalum, is on project gutenberg:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30427

[(Anonymous)]

I did a quick read through of "The Lost Kafoozalum." I enjoyed this much more than I do most late 50s / early 60s spec fiction. A short list of the good and the bad.

Good

1 Good implicit world building. A multi-ethnic future is described by the ethnicities implied by characters' names. Also, this seems to be a future that I wouldn't mind living in. Ships aren't typically armed, space pirates existed only briefly and were quickly overcome, and the entire plot is about preventing potential conflict on a human-settled world.

2 An intelligent and proactive young female protagonist. She even becomes an action hero; not in the unrealistic fashion of being unnaturally good at things she's never done before and Ramboing her way through the plot, but by being determined and using her intelligence to overcome any self-doubts.

3 It easily passes the Bechdel Test.


The bad

1 An early and unfortunate line "At this Ram smiles in an inscrutable Oriental manner" was jarring. But it does seem to be an outlier from the rest of the prose.

2 An unnecessary romance. An icky one at that. Totally unnecessary for character motivations and actions. Their ages are 36 and 23. It fails even the lenient half your age plus seven lower bound. And he's her professor.

3 A pair of ethical issues in the world building. A) I know it's a trope, but "advanced outside forces secretly nudging others' development" is problematic. I like the Culture novels, but this issue is there, too. B) The military and other government agencies have tech beyond what's generally available. I'm not sure where the Goldilocks point is for the powers that be having tech advanced over civilian capabilities versus shadowy government agencies seemingly outside the system of checks and balances.

Despite these reservations, I'd rate this a 4.5 stars out of 5. I'm happy I read it.

wes