The Ugly Little Boy

"The Ugly Little Boy"
Author	Isaac Asimov
Original title	"Lastborn"
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	science fiction short story
Published in	Galaxy Science Fiction
Publisher	Galaxy Publishing
Media type	Magazine
Publication date	September 1958

The Ugly Little Boy (novel)
Author(s)	Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg
Country	USA
Language	English
Genre(s)	science fiction novel
Publisher	Doubleday
Publication date	September 1992
Media type	Print (hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	290
ISBN	0-385-26343-0
OCLC Number	27187588
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 20
LC Classification	PS3551.S5 U45 1992

"The Ugly Little Boy" is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. The story first appeared in the September 1958 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction under the title "Lastborn", and was reprinted under its current title in the 1959 collection Nine Tomorrows. The story deals with a Homo neanderthalensis child which is brought to the future by means of time travel. Robert Silverberg later expanded it into a novel with the same title published in 1992 (also published as Child of Time in the UK).

Asimov said that this was his second^[1] or third^[2] favorite of his own stories.

Plot summary

A Neanderthal child is brought to the present day as a result of time travel experiments by a research organization, Stasis Inc. He cannot be removed from his immediate area because of the vast energy loss and time paradoxes that would result. To take care of him, Edith Fellowes, a children's nurse, is engaged.

She is initially repelled by his appearance, but soon begins to regard him as her own child, learns to love him and realizes that he is far more intelligent than she at first imagined. She names him 'Timmie' and attempts to ensure that he has the best possible childhood despite his circumstance. She is enraged when the newspapers refer to him as an "ape-boy". Edith's love for Timmie brings her into conflict with her employer, for whom he is more of an experimental animal than a human being.

Eventually, her employer comes to the conclusion that his organization has exacted all the knowledge and publicity which could be gotten from Timmie, and that the time has come to move on to the next project. This involves bringing a Medieval peasant into the present, which necessitates the return of Timmie to his own time. Miss Fellowes fights the decision, knowing that he could not now survive, having acquired modern dependencies and speech. She decides to smuggle the boy out of the facilities, but when that plan fails, she returns to the ancient past with Timmie.

Television adaptation

In 1977, "The Ugly Little Boy" was made into a 26-minute telefilm in Canada, directed by and starring Barry Morse. London-born actress Kate Reid played the role of Nurse Fellowes. The film is noteworthy for its fidelity to the short story, as well as the pathos between Timmy and Nurse Fellowes which has gained the film praise from both fans and reviewers.

Novelization

The 1991 novel, Child In Time, expands on the short story by introducing a subplot detailing Timmie's original Neanderthal tribe, and introduces another subplot dealing with a children's advocacy group that seeks to liberate Timmie. The Neanderthals are shown sympathetically as a highly articulate people whose tribal society and culture is complex and sophisticated, a far cry from the "primitive brutes" which the future scientists consider them to have been - having only the fragmentary information derived from a little Neanderthal child. The Neanderthal society - shown mainly from the point of view of an assertive tribal woman determined to prove herself the equal of the male hunters/warriors - is faced with the existential crisis of the appearance of a completely different, competing kind of human beings - the Cro-Magnons. The reader knows that this would end with the extinction of the Neanderthals - which the sympathetic Neanderthal characters don't know, though they are full of foreboding.

The two story lines merge with Edith Fellowes taking the irrevocable decision to go back to the past with Timmie, care for him and share his fate. Her appearance coincides with the crisis point in the confrontation between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon; both groups regard her as goddess to be worshiped. As she is clearly akin to the Cro-Magnon but has adopted a Neanderthal child, her appearance deflects the two groups from what seemed an inevitable conflict.

The ending suggests that in the modified past Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon would cooperate and come closer to each other in the common worship of the "Goddess" - with Timmie growing up to be her acolyte and a "demigod" himself; that the Neanderthals would not become extinct but coexist with the Cro-Magnon and possibly eventually interbreed with them; and that thus, the whole of subsequent human history would be completely changed, producing an utterly different and unrecognizable future. Or, possibly, due to the "convergent series", human history might not change at all.

See also

Novels portal

• Neanderthals in popular culture

External links

• The Ugly Little Boy publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

References

1. ^ Introduction to Robot Visions
2. ^ http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_FAQ.html#literary5, retrieved 2 January 2010.