Synopsis
Wayne’s son, and all of the other children who had been born, all showed varying types and degrees of mutation from the radiation of the war. What’s more is people seem to be becoming sterile. A roaming gang comes to Wayne’s town with intentions of taking over.
History
First publication: Astounding Science Fiction, July 1947
Review
I think this story is better than the first in the Tomorrow’s Children series. It raises a lot of interesting ideas about the nature of genius and how intellect might develop from where we are now at. It does so using the device of a radiation mutation. We are now pretty sure that high radiation only prduces cancer and destructive mutations, not anything useful. But there is still the what if? of a case where the mutation is something that produces a more advanced human being. Not the kind of superpowers that popular ideas have spawned, but still something more advanced than we are today. Would we even recognize the difference? How would we take it if we did?
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson Volume 1: Call Me Joe, hardcover, NESFA Press, 2009-03-11
Twilight World, hardcover, Dodd, Mead / Torquil / SFBC, 1961-02-00
All of the stories in the Tomorrow’s Children series:
1 Tomorrow’s Children
2 Chain of Logic
3 Children of Fortune
