"Baby, You Were Great" is a 1968 science fiction short story by American writer Kate Wilhelm. It was first published in Orbit 2.
Damon Knight—Wilhelm's husband—stated that "Baby, You Were Great" was inspired by his 1964 story, "Semper Fi", "with whose point of view Wilhelm disagreed", and that it is "in a sense, the same story [as 'Semper Fi', but] with an entirely different plot, setting, and cast of characters."Introduction to "Baby, You Were Great", by Damon Knight, in Best Stories from Orbit, Volumes 1-10; published 1975; via Google Books
Synopsis
In a world where technology allows the direct recording and replaying of emotional states and subjective physical sensory experiences, a casting director holds auditions to find a woman who will have a suitable reaction to being raped.
Reception
"Baby, You Were Great" was a finalist for the 1968 Nebula Award for Best Short Story.Baby, You Were Great at Science Fiction Writers of America; retrieved January 19, 2017 It has been described as "an indictment of men's exercising technological control over women's bodies",Cold War Masculinity in the Work of Kate Wilhelm, by Josh Lukin, in Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century; edited by Justine Larbalestier; published May 22, 2006, by Wesleyan University Press; via Google Books while Strange Horizons emphasizes that the story "does not suffer in quality simply because the technology [for recording and transmitting emotions] it imagined shows no signs of arriving soon."Future Media, edited by Rick Wilber, reviewed by T.S. Miller; published November 14, 2011; retrieved January 19, 2017 Algis Budrys considered it to be "pretty good" with "some inventive thinking, but not in places that will reach the reader".Galaxy Bookshelf, by Algis Budrys, in Galaxy Science Fiction; December 1967; p. 193
References
External links "Baby, You Were Great" by Kate Wilhelm