Hidden Variables

by Charles Sheffield

1982 Locus Poll Award, Best Single Author Collection ( 15). Collects 14 stories with introduction and afterwords by the author, The Man Who Stole the Moon, The Deimos Plague, Forefather Figure, Moment of Inertia (McAndrew series), The New The Speed of Lightness, Curved Space, and Other Heresies, From Natural Causes, Legacy (later incorporated into the novel Proteus), The Softest Hammer (1982 Locus Poll Award, Best Short Story ( 19)), Hidden Variable, A Certain Place in History, All the Colors of the Vacuum (McAndrew series), Perfectly Safe, Nothing To Worry About, Summertide (later incorporated into the novel Summertide), The Marriage of True Minds.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

359 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Charles A. Sheffield (June 25, 1935 – November 2, 2002), was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science fiction author. He had been a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronomical Society.

His novel The Web Between the Worlds, featuring the construction of a space elevator, was published almost simultaneously with Arthur C. Clarke's novel about that very same subject, The Fountains of Paradise, a coincidence that amused them both.

For some years he was the chief scientist of Earth Satellite Corporation, a company analysing remote sensing satellite data. This resulted in many technical papers and two popular non-fiction books, Earthwatch and Man on Earth, both collections of false colour and enhanced images of Earth from space.

He won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his novelette "Georgia on My Mind" and the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel Brother to Dragons.

Sheffield was Toastmaster at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore.

He had been writing a column for the Baen Books web site; his last column concerned the discovery of the brain tumour that led to his death.

He was married to writer Nancy Kress.

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another strong collection of short fiction from the late, lamented Sheffield (1935-2002). This would be another good entry point, if you've never tried him. For Wodehouse fans, this collection includes his "The Marriage of True Minds" (1980, novelette), a delicious Empress of Blandings pastiche. Pretty much worth buying the collection just for that one!

Full TOC and reprint history: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?1...
Intro and sample stories, from Baen: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781618...
The second sample story, "THE DEIMOS PLAGUE," would be a fine intro to Sheffield's Henry Carver slapstick comedies -- which I like a lot! I'm pretty sure I have paper reprints of all of them in my personal library -- but it would be nice if someone collected them into a single reprint volume!

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hidden Variables was Sheffield's second collection of stories (following Vectors) and contains fourteen stories that range from original appearances in 1977 to 1981. It's a very good sampling of his work, with some very funny stuff and some very traditional hard-science and some interesting characters (P.G. Wodehouse is cited as an influence!) sometimes utilizing both. My favorites are The Man Who Stole the Moon (Bowie or Heinlein?), and The Deimos Plague.

[Jon Pennycook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of stories

[Paul Nunes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author is not one for subtlety or metaphor. I did like one of the short stories.