Subject: TESTING by Charles Oberndorf

From: [email-masked]
Date: 06 Dec 93 14:10:55 GMT

TESTING by Charles Oberndorf
                     A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		      Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper

     This is yet another in Bantam Spectra's excellent series of novellas.
In a future after the "Great Fall" (apparently an economic *and* social
collapse), students undergo morality training and testing.  The training
reminded me of the classes in Robert A. Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS; the
testing reminded me of the old Isaac Asimov story (at least I think it was
Asimov) about a driving test.  This is not a bad thing--science fiction has
a grand tradition of building on and responding to what came before.  One
thing that doesn't seem to have changed with the Great Fall is that high
school classes concentrate more on rote learning than on thinking, more on
having the "right" answer, even when they pay lip service to independent
thought.  If Oberndorf has a moral to his story, it's that ethics and
morality have to come from within through self-examination; they can't be
"taught" like geometry or Latin.  (Of course, that's just the moral I
concluded through my reasoning that he was proposing; your mileage may vary,
and that's probably the point as well.)

     One touch I liked which may not have been intentional: The headmaster
if the school says, "... our Great Fall had deeper meaning than a simple
economic collapse.  Although many in this country are not Christian and
worship God in their own way, our tradition is Judeo-Christian.  When we say
'fall,' we think of Adam and Eve and their fall from grace.  And the Great
Fall was our nation's fall from grace."  The seeming afterthought to make
"Christian" into "Judeo-Christian," especially since Judaic tradition does
not have the concept of the "fall from grace" that Christianity has or the
headmaster claims, is precisely typical of using formulae instead of
thinking about what is being said.  I hear it now, and it seems likely to
continue, even after the "Great Fall."

     Oberndorf also postulates an interesting new family structure.  I don't
think it particularly likely--especially in a society still waving the flag
of "Judeo-Christian tradition"--but I'm willing to grant the possibility for
the sake of the story.  As in his first work, SHELTERED LIVES, Oberndorf is
examining society and morality in a more direct way than one usually finds
in science fiction, and I recommend TESTING.

%T      Testing
%A      Charles Oberndorf
%C      New York
%D      September 1993
%I      Bantam Spectra
%O      paperback, US$3.99
%G      ISBN 0-553-56181-2
%P      134pp

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked] / [email-masked]