astronomy

The Survivors (Godwin novel)

The Survivors (Godwin novel) is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Survivors (Godwin novel) rather than just read about it. In short: The Survivors is a science fiction novel by American writer Tom Godwin. It was published in 1958 by Gnome Press in an edition of 5,000 copies, of which 1,084 were never bound.

Key takeaways

The Survivors (Godwin novel) belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Survivors (Godwin novel) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Survivors (Godwin novel) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Survivors is a science fiction novel by American writer Tom Godwin. It was published in 1958 by Gnome Press in an edition of 5,000 copies, of which 1,084 were never bound. The novel was published in paperback by Pyramid Books in 1960 under the title Space Prison. The novel is an expansion of Godwin's story "Too Soon to Die" which first appeared in the magazine Venture. Godwin wrote a sequel, entitled The Space Barbarians and published in 1964.

Plot summary A ship heading from Earth to Athena, a planet 500 light years away, is suddenly attacked by the Gerns, an alien empire in its expansion phase. People aboard are divided by the invaders into Acceptables and Rejects. The Acceptables would become slave labor for the Gerns on Athena, and the Rejects are forced ashore on the nearest 'Earth-like' planet, called Ragnarok. The Gerns say they will return for the Rejects, but the Rejects quickly realise that that isn't going to happen. Ragnarok has a gravity 1.5 times that of Earth, and is populated by deadly, aggressive creatures and it contains little in the way of usable metal ores. This, combined with a terrible deadly fever that kills in hours, more than decimates the population. The novels follows the stranded humans through several generations as they try to survive there, and their unswerving goal to repay the Gerns for their cruelty.

Reception Floyd C. Gale wrote that he "read this yarn with the same glow of pride in the indestructibility of the human race that I once received from van Vogt's early The Alien". Comic book writer Warren Ellis counts the novel as one of his early favorites, writing, "I must have read that book twenty times. It just rips along (in many senses of the word “rips”), as shamelessly gleeful as a short genre book should be." Retired antiquarian bookseller D. C. Tappin relates, "Countless times in my early bookselling career young men from the nearby naval base would enter our shop and ask me to find this book that they recalled from their boyhood, though often could not recall the title or author (but could recount the plot with high accuracy)."

References

Sources Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd. p. 307. Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 188. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.

External links The Survivors at Standard Ebooks

Space Prison at Project Gutenberg Space Prison public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Survivors (Godwin novel)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Survivors (Godwin novel) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Survivors (Godwin novel) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Survivors (Godwin novel) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Survivors (Godwin novel)

In research: The Survivors (Godwin novel) appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Survivors (Godwin novel) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Survivors (Godwin novel) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950s science fiction novel stubs, 1958 American novels, 1958 English-language novels, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Survivors (Godwin novel) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Survivors (Godwin novel) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Survivors (Godwin novel) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Survivors (Godwin novel) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Survivors (Godwin novel) in simple terms?

The Survivors is a science fiction novel by American writer Tom Godwin. It was published in 1958 by Gnome Press in an edition of 5,000 copies, of which 1,084 were never bound.

Why does The Survivors (Godwin novel) matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Survivors (Godwin novel)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Survivors (Godwin novel).