"Rule 18" is a 1938

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 unive ...

novelette by American writer

Clifford D. Simak Clifford Donald Simak (; August 3, 1904 – April 25, 1988) was an American science fiction writer. He won three Hugo Awards and one Nebula Award. The Science Fiction Writers of America made him its third SFWA Grand Master, and the Horror Wr ...

, credited as launching Simak's career and helping inspire the writing style of

Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...

. It won a Retrospective

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 ...

in 2014.

Plot summary

Because Earthmen in the year 2479 have been made soft by widespread automation and easy living, the coach of Earth's football team uses

time travel Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...

to build an all-star roster for the annual

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

match against the normally dominant team from

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

. Rule 18 of this Earth vs Mars contest specifies that players for a team must be natives of the planet for which they play and that his 9 preceding generations must also be natives of that planet.

Publication history

"Rule 18" was originally published in the July 1938 issue of ''

Astounding Science Fiction ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William C ...

'', and is credited as "the true beginning of his career". The story has been reprinted only once, in a February 1990 British anthology of Simak works titled ''The Autumn Land and Other Stories'' from

Mandarin Publishing Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

Cultural impact

An 18-year-old

wrote a letter to ''Astounding'' criticizing the story as "incoherent". Simak wrote back to Asimov for details on how he thought the story might be improved and, on second reading, Asimov discovered that the story was "not in the least incoherent". Asimov wrote a letter of apology to Simak and began using a similar scene transition method in his own stories, later writing that "among the major influences on my style was Cliff Simak." He named the narrator in " Trends" after Simak.

Awards and honors

In 2014, members of

Loncon 3 The 72nd World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as Loncon 3, was held on 14–18 August 2014 at the ExCeL London in London, United Kingdom. The convention committee was co-chaired by Alice Lawson and Steve Cooper and organize ...

, the 72nd

World Science Fiction Convention Worldcon, or more formally the World Science Fiction Convention, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), is a science fiction convention. It has been held each year since 1939 (except for the years 1942 to 1945, during ...

, awarded "Rule 18" a Retro Hugo Award for Best Novelette. The novelette would have been eligible for a Hugo Award at the 1939 Worldcon, had the awards existed at the time, and this Retrospective Hugo was presented on the 75th anniversary of that convention.

References

External links

* {{Hugo Award Best Novelette Science fiction short stories Hugo Award for Best Novelette winning works 1938 short stories Works originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact