"Bookworm, Run!" is a

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

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

by American writer

Vernor Vinge Vernor Steffen Vinge (; born October 2, 1944) is an American science fiction author and retired professor. He taught mathematics and computer science at San Diego State University. He is the first wide-scale popularizer of the technological singu ...

. His second published work of fiction, it appeared in ''

Analog Science Fiction Science Fact ''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 ...

'' in 1966, and was reprinted in '' True Names... and Other Dangers'' in 1987, and in 2001's '' The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge''. As with many of Vinge's later works, "Bookworm, Run!" deals with intelligence amplification: Norman Simmons, the bookworm of the title, is a surgically altered chimpanzee with human-equivalent intelligence.

Plot summary

As part of an experiment, Norman's brain has been given a wireless link to an enormous

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

. By accident, he is given access to the United States Government's main database. Seeking knowledge for its own sake, Norman asks for ''all'' the data stored within; one of the first facts he consciously realizes from his direct-brain download is that, by accessing classified data, he has just committed a federal crime with severe penalties. Norman uses his new knowledge of the layout of the facility he inhabits to escape, and then correlates several seemingly unrelated facts to (correctly) deduce not only that there must be

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

spies living in town, but who they are; he makes his way to the agents, hoping that they will help him reach Canada and escape the US Army. As Norman nears the limit of the wireless link's range, he and the agents are captured; the Soviets' memories are surgically read and erased. Within the agents' memories is the revelation that the Soviet Union has performed similar intelligence-amplification experiments, but on a dog instead of a chimpanzee, foreshadowing a new arms race.

Reception

Algis Budrys Algirdas Jonas "Algis" Budrys (January 9, 1931 – June 9, 2008) was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen names Frank Mason, Alger Rome (in collaboration with Jerome Bixby), John ...

said that despite being a "collection of mismatched plot cliches ... it's a memorable story", comparing its protagonist to that of "

Flowers for Algernon ''Flowers for Algernon'' is a short story by American author Daniel Keyes, later expanded by him into a novel and subsequently adapted for film and other media. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of '' ...

". ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'', assessing the 2001 reprint, declared the story to be "quite dated";THE COLLECTED STORIES OF VERNOR VINGE (review)
in ''

''; published December 17, 2001; retrieved November 24, 2015 similarly, the 1988 ''Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review Annual'', assessing the 1987 reprint, stated that it was "an early story that reads like one".Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review Annual
edited by Robert A. Collins and Robert Latham; published 1988 by

Greenwood Publishing Group Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher ( middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as ...

Sequel

Vinge has said that the "important"

sequel A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the sam ...

to ''Bookworm'' would have featured the first

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

with amplified intelligence; however, when he attempted to sell such a story to John W. Campbell, Campbell rejected it with the explanation "You can't write this story. Neither can anyone else."

Footnotes

External links

*{{isfdb title, id=44131 1966 short stories Short stories by Vernor Vinge Works originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact