My Love/Hate Relationship With “The Cold Equations”

7 min readJun 2, 2023

The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin is an influential and controversial SF story published 69 years ago. Fans are still divided over it. I’m torn by it.

The cover art for the August 1954 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, showing the cover price of 35 cents in the far right corner. The cover image illustrates “They’d Rather Bye Right” by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley, and it shows a woman with bright red hair sitting in a futuristic chair. The right side of her face is aged, and the left side is still young. She is wearing dark green earrings and a lighter green top. — The August 1954 Issue of Astounding; cover art by Frank Kelly Freas. (Source: Galactic Central.)

Note: This article includes huge spoilers!

In August 1954, Tom Godwin published The Cold Equations in the influential Astounding Magazine (now published as Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine). The…

My Love/Hate Relationship With “The Cold Equations”

Written by Anne Marble