Columbus Was a Dope
{{Short description|Short story by Robert A. Heinlein}}
{{more citations needed|auto=yes|date=December 2009}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox book
| name = Columbus Was a Dope
| author = Robert A. Heinlein
| country = United States
| language = English
| genre = Science fiction
| published = May 1947 (initial publication)
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
| notes = The story takes place in a bar on the Moon, where patrons debate the merits of space exploration in comparison to Columbus's discovery of the New World.
| image = File:Columbus_Was_a_Dope_book_cover.png
}}
"Columbus Was a Dope" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was first published in the May 1947 issue of Startling Stories. It later appeared in two of Heinlein's collections, The Menace from Earth (1959),{{cite web|title= Robert A. Heinlein's Fiction|url=https://www.math.wisc.edu/~mstemper2/SpecFic/Heinlein/|first=Michael F.|last=Stemper|date=2004|access-date=2018-10-09}} and Off the Main Sequence: The Other Science Fiction Stories of Robert A. Heinlein (2005).
Plot summary
Two bar patrons and a bartender debate building a generation ship to Proxima Centauri. One favors space exploration as benefiting society like Christopher Columbus's discovery of the New World; the other insists that "Columbus was a dope" and should have stayed home. At the end of the story, it is revealed that the bar is on the Moon.
Release
"Columbus Was a Dope" was first published in the May 1947 issue of Startling Stories. It was subsequently released in the anthology collection Travelers of Space in 1951, through Gnome Press.{{Cite book|last1=Greenberg|first1=Martin|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1371200|title=Travelers of space.|last2=Cartier|first2=Edd|date=1951|publisher=Gnome Press|location=New York|language=English|oclc=1371200}}
Reception
William H. Patterson Jr. claimed that "Columbus Was a Dope," along with other stories collected in The Menace from Earth, occurs within Heinlein's World as Myth framework, stating that they "are happening somewhere else in the Multiverse, somewhere quite close by the Future History."{{cite book|title=The Green Hills of Earth and The Menace from Earth|url=https://www.baen.com/Chapters/1439133417/1439133417.htm|chapter=Futures, Histories|chapter-url=https://www.baen.com/Chapters/1439133417/1439133417.htm|first=William H.|last=Patterson Jr.|publisher=Baen|isbn=978-1439133415|date=March 2, 2010|access-date=October 9, 2018}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{ISFDB title|id=58500|short=y}}
- "[https://archive.org/stream/Startling_Stories_v15n02_1947-05#page/n65/mode/2up Columbus Was a Dope]" at the Internet Archive
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Category:Short stories by Robert A. Heinlein
Category:Works originally published in Startling Stories
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