UGLY LITTLE BOY, THE

Rating:
Summary: What a Sci Fi literary Duo!
Review: "A remarkably moving and chilling tale of what happens when past and present collide..." A charming and nostalgic trip into the past when SciFi really had a plot...

Rating:
Summary: A tearjerker any time...
Review: Asimov in his introduction to the short story, put it as a "tear-jerker" and his second favoutite story. It is my all-time favourite though - a wonderful read. The novel is good - there is some expansion on the Neanderthal times from where the boy is brought as a specimen to today's world. But what is truly relevant here is the way the maternal feelings grow in Nurse ???(whats her name) and how mutual love develops between the two. The finale is brilliant. I would recomment all to read this one. There is nothing special in the "Silververg" part as I see it. The short story of Asimov is what carries the thing through - and so, you may as well read the short story. Its his finest tale.

Rating:
Summary: What a Sci Fi literary Duo!
Review: Asimov in his introduction to the short story, put it as a "tear-jerker" and his second favoutite story. It is my all-time favourite though - a wonderful read. The novel is good - there is some expansion on the Neanderthal times from where the boy is brought as a specimen to today's world. But what is truly relevant here is the way the maternal feelings grow in Nurse ???(whats her name) and how mutual love develops between the two. The finale is brilliant. I would recomment all to read this one. There is nothing special in the "Silververg" part as I see it. The short story of Asimov is what carries the thing through - and so, you may as well read the short story. Its his finest tale.

Rating:
Summary: A rather heart-rending story about a boy from another time.
Review: Two of our most famous sci-fi authors, Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg got together to produce a great "what if" story exploring how technology of a make-believe 21st-century lab could go far enough to bring right back a child from 40,000 years ago to live with a caregiver in a bubble.

Miss Fellowes, who had been hired under very strict regulations to watch the prehistoric boy, had a kind of a sharp tongue and sometimes acted like a demented soccer mom, especially when nosey scientists and the media eagerly flocked over to gawk at the kid and make a big fuss over him. But she had fallen into love with the strange-looking Neandertal child and thus would never want to part with him.

The little boy named "Timmie" had turned out to be such a charming little angel in spite of his "unsightly" prehistoric appearance. And he had also ended up facing a very uncertain fate, especially with a scientist who brought him over, yet didn't intend to keep him forever, an overzealous child advocate who screamed bloody "child abuse", and a worried nurse who feared that he wouldn't survive in a prehistoric environment after a few years of learning to read and eat with a fork.

In addition to Timmie's heartwarming adventure in the modern times, we also get glimpses of the prehistoric tribe that he had left behind, which was now facing its own dangers forty thousand years back.

Rating:
Summary: great story
Review: Wow, Asimov and Silverberg really know how to tell a story. This is the best sf novel I've read in a long time.