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Schrödinger's Kitten
In this Hugo & Nebula Award-winning story, an Arab woman confronts the uncertainty principle in both practice and theory as she stands accused of killing a man who might do her harm in the future.
32 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 21, 2012
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.
Jehan is a pretty 12-year-old Islamic girl who sees visions of her own possible futures. These visions suggest that she will be raped in an alley, disowned by her fundamentalist Muslim father, and forced to live as a whore until she dies. Or she could kill her potential rapist first, but if she does that she will be executed, unless somebody saves her by paying the blood price… There are too many “ifs” and too many potential paths and, as a child, Jehan is haunted by all the possibilities and her knowledge that something bad will happen, but not knowing exactly which of those branches her life will take.
Interspersed with these disturbing visions, we see Jehan in a possible future as an assistant and then a colleague to the men who are, during World War II, trying to unravel the secrets of quantum physics. Their findings will enlighten the world, but may also give the Nazis the knowledge they need to design horrific weapons. Does Jehan have the power to influence these sorts of future possible paths, too?
The title of George Alec Effinger’s story, Schrödinger’s Kitten, refers to Erwin Schrödinger’s famous paradoxical thought experiment now known as Schrödinger’s Cat, which he used as an absurd argument to challenge the ideas of Einstein and his colleagues about the role of the observer in the dual state of subatomic particles. The title also refers to his assistant Jehan, whose strange visions of different possible personal futures represent the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics, which Hugh Everett developed to explain Schrödinger’s paradox. Jehan, a spiritual woman who is a faithful Muslim and personally experiences the understanding that her life has many potential branches which could all possibly be real, suggests that quantum physics is God’s game that he plays with humans.
Schrödinger’s Kitten is one of those rare stories that have won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. It’s a well-constructed, mind-expanding story. I enjoyed the discussions of quantum mechanics and the way that Effinger, in such a short space, successfully married quantum mechanics, nuclear war, parallel universes, and spiritualism.
I listened to Infinivox’s audio production, which is 1 hour and 16 minutes long and is available at Audible.com for only $4.95. It was read by Amy Bruce, who did a nice job.
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
Jehan is a pretty 12-year-old Islamic girl who sees visions of her own possible futures. These visions suggest that she will be raped in an alley, disowned by her fundamentalist Muslim father, and forced to live as a whore until she dies. Or she could kill her potential rapist first, but if she does that she will be executed, unless somebody saves her by paying the blood price… There are too many “ifs” and too many potential paths and, as a child, Jehan is haunted by all the possibilities and her knowledge that something bad will happen, but not knowing exactly which of those branches her life will take.
Interspersed with these disturbing visions, we see Jehan in a possible future as an assistant and then a colleague to the men who are, during World War II, trying to unravel the secrets of quantum physics. Their findings will enlighten the world, but may also give the Nazis the knowledge they need to design horrific weapons. Does Jehan have the power to influence these sorts of future possible paths, too?
The title of George Alec Effinger’s story, Schrödinger’s Kitten, refers to Erwin Schrödinger’s famous paradoxical thought experiment now known as Schrödinger’s Cat, which he used as an absurd argument to challenge the ideas of Einstein and his colleagues about the role of the observer in the dual state of subatomic particles. The title also refers to his assistant Jehan, whose strange visions of different possible personal futures represent the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics, which Hugh Everett developed to explain Schrödinger’s paradox. Jehan, a spiritual woman who is a faithful Muslim and personally experiences the understanding that her life has many potential branches which could all possibly be real, suggests that quantum physics is God’s game that he plays with humans.
Schrödinger’s Kitten is one of those rare stories that have won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. It’s a well-constructed, mind-expanding story. I enjoyed the discussions of quantum mechanics and the way that Effinger, in such a short space, successfully married quantum mechanics, nuclear war, parallel universes, and spiritualism.
I listened to Infinivox’s audio production, which is 1 hour and 16 minutes long and is available at Audible.com for only $4.95. It was read by Amy Bruce, who did a nice job.
Originally posted at Fantasy Literature.
October 11, 2010
4.5 stars. Excellent, award winning short story (actually a novelette) dealing with quantum physics, multiple time streams and the Muslim world. The plot revolves around a Muslim woman named Jehan Fatima Ashufi who is able to experience, through visions, various realities branching off from an episode in which she either is raped as a young girl or kills her future attacker before the rape can be committed. The result of her decision has far reaching implications on both her life and the world in general, including affecting the outcome of World War II. This is an excellent story that makes some of the more difficult concepts of quantum mechanics understandable while telling a gripping story.
Winner: Hugo Award for Best Novelette
Winner: Nebula Award for Best Novelette
Winner: Hugo Award for Best Novelette
Winner: Nebula Award for Best Novelette
February 1, 2019
Multiple award-winning novelette about, well, you read the head blurb, right? I think this is Effingers best short, and if you haven't read it, you have a treat waiting. Here's where to find a copy: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...
It would be surprising if your local library doesn't have one or more of these anthologies. I would particularly recommend "The New Hugo Winners, Volume III " http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?4...
For something this short, I think you are better off going in pretty much cold. Then, you can come back and read Kat Hooper's excellent review, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Opinions differ, of course.....
It would be surprising if your local library doesn't have one or more of these anthologies. I would particularly recommend "The New Hugo Winners, Volume III " http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?4...
For something this short, I think you are better off going in pretty much cold. Then, you can come back and read Kat Hooper's excellent review, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Opinions differ, of course.....
December 25, 2021
Very short story that won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. A young Muslim girl has visions of two possible futures, be raped leading to being disowned by her family or kill the potential rapist and be executed for the crime. The story links events with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and Schrodinger’s cat theory. A quick read at less than 50 pages. OK, but not particularly inspiring.
January 16, 2019
Excellent Hugo and Nebula award winning novella about a young Arab girl as she considers, with fear and trepidation, the divergent futures she's seen for herself through a series of visions giving her a peak into an array of vastly different parallel worlds that might or might not come to be.
August 21, 2016
Convoluted, thought provoking sci-fi that now has made me want to learn more about quantum physics and Schrodinger's cat theory, so I have just ordered a used copy of In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality. So which version of reality is real? Or are they all?
January 13, 2023
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/schrodingers-kitten-by-george-alec-effinger-the-last-of-the-winnebagos-by-connie-willis-and-the-art-illustrating-both-stories/
“Schrödinger’s Kitten” is about a young Arab woman, Jehan Fatima Ashûfi, living in the 1930s, who is conscious of numerous diverging realities a la Everett’s “many worlds” hypothesis. Maybe she is raped by a neighbour and disowned by her family; maybe she kills her future rapist and is sentenced to death; maybe she is rescued from the scaffold by a passing German physicist, becomes a lab assistant to Heisenberg and Schrödinger and single-handedly stops the Nazis developing nuclear weapons.
The story’s heart is in the right place – woman of colour defeats fascism! – but I don’t think it really works for today. The Arab world is depicted as barbarous and uncivilised, compared to the sophisticated German scientists; but which of them was planning to exterminate their Jews at the time? Indeed, which country makes a rape victim who killed her attacker pay his family $150,000 in compensation? Much less important, Jehan prevents the Nazi bomb by sending boring scientific papers to the political leadership to make them lose interest; if only life was that easy! The layering of narratives is intricately done, I’ll give it that.
“Schrödinger’s Kitten” is about a young Arab woman, Jehan Fatima Ashûfi, living in the 1930s, who is conscious of numerous diverging realities a la Everett’s “many worlds” hypothesis. Maybe she is raped by a neighbour and disowned by her family; maybe she kills her future rapist and is sentenced to death; maybe she is rescued from the scaffold by a passing German physicist, becomes a lab assistant to Heisenberg and Schrödinger and single-handedly stops the Nazis developing nuclear weapons.
The story’s heart is in the right place – woman of colour defeats fascism! – but I don’t think it really works for today. The Arab world is depicted as barbarous and uncivilised, compared to the sophisticated German scientists; but which of them was planning to exterminate their Jews at the time? Indeed, which country makes a rape victim who killed her attacker pay his family $150,000 in compensation? Much less important, Jehan prevents the Nazi bomb by sending boring scientific papers to the political leadership to make them lose interest; if only life was that easy! The layering of narratives is intricately done, I’ll give it that.
November 14, 2017
Great little "novelette". Beautifully written and it's nice to see a setting that's not Eurocentric. Overall, very good but not memorable.
March 19, 2017
Meh. Fine. This won both the Hugo and Nebula (wooo). I like, but don't love, George Alec Effinger's schtick: that is, I get embarrassed by gimmicky Orientalist spec fic written by white people since I used to ply that trade myself and am still in recovery. Like, I have a half-written short story on my machine about a Delhi doctor lady going to be a frontier doctor on a literal planet of slums. I mean, it's fine - white people can write POC protagonists, that's fine. It just feels like Effinger's stories (both this, and When Gravity Fails) are fairly run of the mill once you remove the diversity thing - making the latter feel a bit gimmicky.
I'm being too hard on this. It's fine. It's enjoyable. I got choked up, even. It's about the multiple worlds theory (recommended reading on this topic), as told via a young Arab girl facing her spaghetti world-lines: does she kill or not kill the evil rapey boy? Does the Imam punish her or forgive her? Does she work with Herr Doctor Heisenberg or Herr Doctor Schrodinger? It feels super elliptical, with repeated fragments, with initial confusion that all comes together, with evocative "troubles in the souk" scenes, and there are some pretty glorious set piece scenes. I also, like all SF fans, worship at the altar of early 20th century physics, so seeing the big hits from that era - Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Einstein, Bohr - is always fun.
Buttt mehh. I look for ~scintillating~ SF, stuff that makes me get goosebumps or makes me question my existence. OR, failing that, has much drama and adventure in space (pew! pew!). This short story is like a 4/10 on the mind-blown scale, and maybe a 5/10 on the adventure scale.
It also is another entry into my Personal Law Of Science Fiction: that is, for every sci-fi idea you have, they already made a (better) version of it on Star Trek.
I'm being too hard on this. It's fine. It's enjoyable. I got choked up, even. It's about the multiple worlds theory (recommended reading on this topic), as told via a young Arab girl facing her spaghetti world-lines: does she kill or not kill the evil rapey boy? Does the Imam punish her or forgive her? Does she work with Herr Doctor Heisenberg or Herr Doctor Schrodinger? It feels super elliptical, with repeated fragments, with initial confusion that all comes together, with evocative "troubles in the souk" scenes, and there are some pretty glorious set piece scenes. I also, like all SF fans, worship at the altar of early 20th century physics, so seeing the big hits from that era - Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Einstein, Bohr - is always fun.
Buttt mehh. I look for ~scintillating~ SF, stuff that makes me get goosebumps or makes me question my existence. OR, failing that, has much drama and adventure in space (pew! pew!). This short story is like a 4/10 on the mind-blown scale, and maybe a 5/10 on the adventure scale.
It also is another entry into my Personal Law Of Science Fiction: that is, for every sci-fi idea you have, they already made a (better) version of it on Star Trek.
February 13, 2018
This audio edition was available through Audible channels... I really didn't know if it would be palpable as it was done by the same publisher that did Robert Silverberg's House of Bones... In this case, it's much, much better. The narrator Amy Bruce is great! Unfortunately they still included the awful intermission noise, I guess for consistency(?)... The story though is great... Exploring possible futures/lives the protagonist Jehan could experience, based on decisions made during single pivotal moments in her life...
★★★★★ for storytelling and narration...
★★★★ for production...
★★★★★ for storytelling and narration...
★★★★ for production...
January 6, 2013
I thought the concept for this book was inspired. That said, I wish the author had done more with the story. The story itself was pretty flat, which is ironic given the complexities and mind bending possibilities which the underlying premise of the book affords the author. A great idea, but with average execution.
December 28, 2008
One of George Alec Effinger's most famous stories. From Pulphouse Publishing. Very fine story.
April 10, 2011
I liked the complexity of the story and the depth of the main character. It really got my mind working about possible futures and the events that lead up to them.
August 5, 2010
Quantum entanglement, nonlinear timeline and the muslim world.
Great novelette.
Great novelette.
March 11, 2018
it's never easy to mix religion and science in a story but some do excellent job, playing in the exact gray area where we must keep faith to push the frontier of science.
multiple parallel timeline the character lives through, experiencing different lives of her own. written long before Hollywood picked up on such a plot, definitely recommended short novela
multiple parallel timeline the character lives through, experiencing different lives of her own. written long before Hollywood picked up on such a plot, definitely recommended short novela
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews