"Allamagoosa" assumes a culturally-healthy attitude toward one's own military -- i.e. not hating it but not exactly loving it either. After World War II, in which a huge chunk of the Greatest Generation served, the sf audience was like that. That may be why it doesn't play as well today, among a generation that cherishes the phony heroism of easy rebellion against a ludicrously-humanitarian government, as opposed to the more difficult heroism of actually risking one's life to fight evil.
It has one basic truth to say about bureaucracy, and the potential problems with cutting red tape. I guess it's a simple story, by Hugo standards. I've seen this sort of thing happen in real life, though -- a major flap originating from someone trying to Cover Their Ass and not really understanding what they were doing. The irony in "Allamagoosa" is that the captain truly means well -- he's trying to get around the REMF's, which is why it's a comedy.
"The Star" is by Arthur C. Clarke, not Isaac Asimov. I don't know if it's the first "priest in space" story that's sympathetic to the priest -- Blish did a lot of the same thing. "The Star" works well because it emphasizes the difference between our grasp of the scale of the Cosmos and that of the Ancients -- they could really imagine a "new star" existing for no other purpose than to mark an important Terrestrial event -- Clarke dramatizes what horror that might really mean if it were true.
I didn't even need to re-read these two -- they are among my favorite sf shorts of all time. Especially "The Star."
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"Allamagoosa" and "The Star"
Date: 2008-08-18 03:55 am (UTC)It has one basic truth to say about bureaucracy, and the potential problems with cutting red tape. I guess it's a simple story, by Hugo standards. I've seen this sort of thing happen in real life, though -- a major flap originating from someone trying to Cover Their Ass and not really understanding what they were doing. The irony in "Allamagoosa" is that the captain truly means well -- he's trying to get around the REMF's, which is why it's a comedy.
"The Star" is by Arthur C. Clarke, not Isaac Asimov. I don't know if it's the first "priest in space" story that's sympathetic to the priest -- Blish did a lot of the same thing. "The Star" works well because it emphasizes the difference between our grasp of the scale of the Cosmos and that of the Ancients -- they could really imagine a "new star" existing for no other purpose than to mark an important Terrestrial event -- Clarke dramatizes what horror that might really mean if it were true.
I didn't even need to re-read these two -- they are among my favorite sf shorts of all time. Especially "The Star."
Clarke was a master of short sf with a twist.