THE UNIVERSE DOESN'T CARE

A pilot is on an emergency mission to a planet whose colony is doomed if he doesn't get there fast. He has just enough fuel to reach the planet—then he finds that he has a stowaway, a young girl wanting to be with her brother on the colony. If the pilot spaces the girl, the ship will barely make it to the planet. If he does not, the ship will crash and both of them as well as the colony will die. What will he do This story rocked science fiction when it first appeared.

Also in this volume is Godwin's long-unavailable novel The Survivors, which poses another problem in survival: If hostile aliens have marooned you and hundreds of other people on a nearly uninhabitable planet, how do you not only manage to endure, but to get revenge as well

This is a massive volume by a master of science fiction adventure, with added dimensions of speculation and cold, hard realism.

Publisher's Note: The novel The Survivors has been published separately.

"['The Cold Equations'] is one of the most popular and controversial hard sf stories of the last fifty years. ..."
—David G. Hartwell, The Ascent of Wonder

"The touchstone story for hard-core science fiction is Tom Godwin's 'The Cold Equations'."
—James Gunn, The Road to Science Fiction, Vol. Ill

"[Tom Godwin's SF] exhibited a fine clarity of conception, and considerable narrative verve. ..."
—John Clute, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

"The impact [of 'The Cold Equations' on publication] was immediate .... The impact of the story . . . remains the same now as then."
—Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss,The Astounding-Analog Reader