Budayeen Nights: Stories

Introduction to Schrödinger’s Kitten

This is probably the best known of George’s short Budayeen stories. It won the Hugo, Nebula, and Seiun Awards, and touches deep chords in nearly every reader, for it deals with — and conquers — deep and universal fears.

Fear of death; fear of change; fear of somehow doing something wrong that will condemn one’s self to a horrible fate. In a way it is every child’s fear. It reconstructs Schrödinger’s philosophical image of the cat in the box — dead or saved only by the opening of the box by an observer — into an infinity of paths and variations of hope and destiny. Others have done this — notably Larry Niven in his story “All the Myriad Ways” — but to different effect.

I think it’s what goes on in nearly every writer’s mind when they construct a story. It’s certainly how writers look at their own lives, with a dispassionate infinity of equal possibilities.

In some worlds George became a doctor.

In some worlds George became a ballplayer.

In some worlds it was possible for George to live happily ever after, as we all hope we will and wish we could.

— Barbara Hambly