"Georgia on My Mind" (1993) is an English language

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

novelette by

Charles Sheffield Charles Sheffield (25 June 1935 – 2 November 2002), an English-born mathematician, physicist and science-fiction writer, served as a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society. ...

. It won both the 1993

Nebula Award for Best Novelette The Nebula Award for Best Novelette is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) to a science fiction or fantasy novelette. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novelette if it is between 7,50 ...

1993 - The Nebula Awards
at

Science Fiction Writers of America The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, doing business as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, commonly known as SFWA ( or ) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. Whil ...

; retrieved June 2, 2017 and the 1994

Hugo Award for Best Novelette The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novelette award is available for works of fiction of ...

.1994 Hugo Awards
at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved June 2, 2017 The novelette involves two major themes: being widowed and the quest for a legendary Babbage computer. The "Georgia" of the title is the remote

South Georgia Island South Georgia ( es, Isla San Pedro) is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around east of the Falkland Islands. Stretching in the east� ...

which lies just north of

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

Plot

The narrator, a computer scientist, gets a letter from former colleague Bill Rigley indicating that he has discovered components of an analytical engine which was apparently built in rural New Zealand in the mid 19th century. Traveling to New Zealand, the narrator is shown the machinery, which was discovered under a farm house near

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

as well as a book of scientific drawings and a journal. The journal contains entries written by someone with the initials L.D. who is in a romantic relationship with someone else, also with the initials L.D. One of them, a woman, built the analytical engine, the other drew the nature drawings. The narrator begins reading the journal. It is an account written by Luke Derwent who had fled to New Zealand with his half sister Louisa Derwent after the two fell in love and married. While Louisa builds her analytical engine, Luke explores the southern ocean with the help of Maori guides. On one of these explorations, Luke meets beings who the Maori call "the cold loving people". While these beings lack the "outward aspect" of humans, they are clearly intelligent and have amazing machines, including powerful medicine. Louisa takes sick and Luke determines to travel with her to the base of the "cold loving people" so that they may heal her. Bill shows the narrator a picture which Luke drew of the beings, which Louisa had named "Heteromorphs", showing them to be spider-like creatures about three feet tall. The narrator and Bill use information provided in Luke's journal to calculate that the Heteromorphs' base was on

. They begin planning a mission to South Georgia, hoping to beat several other groups which, having heard of the discovery, are planning to make their way to the island.

References

External links

* 1993 short stories Science fiction short stories Short stories by Charles Sheffield Hugo Award for Best Novelette winning works Works originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact Nebula Award for Best Novelette-winning works {{1990s-sf-story-stub