(Found) Requesting help with story search--dealing with overpopulation and miniaturization

[pwalsh]

Hello all,

My first post here...

I remember reading a story in which the problem of resource scarcity was resolved by shrinking people or preventing them from growing to their usual height. This practice led to discrimination against those who permitted themselves or their children to grow to full height.

I also remember there being a fantasy element and space travel element involved, but I might be mixing up two or three stories (so I'll leave those specifics out for now). This story or story was published in an anthology or a magazine sometime between the late 60s or early 80s.

I know, I know...I'm not asking for much!

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Philip

 

[chrispenycate]

Might be Manalone, by Colin Kapp (1977)? Continuous urban renewal, replacement of old buildings with new, lower ceilinged blocks, attempts to keep the general public ignorant of the midgetisation?

 

[pwalsh]

Thank you, chrispenycate. That sounds like it's in the ballpark, but I'm remembering a short story, not a novel. And it was less of a detective type narrative.

 

[BAYLOR]

Thank you, chrispenycate. That sounds like it's in the ballpark, but I'm remembering a short story, not a novel. And it was less of a detective type narrative.

Though this is not the story you looking for , you might it of interest Non Stop by Brain Aldiss Theres a very very good reason Im recommending.

 

[otistdog]

Did this by any chance follow a normal-sized person who ends up being one of the last such people in the world, and who then helps the stunted people (who have decided that the world population has shrunk so drastically that full-size would be OK again) by explaining the idea of a caesarian section?

 

[pwalsh]

Did this by any chance follow a normal-sized person who ends up being one of the last such people in the world, and who then helps the stunted people (who have decided that the world population has shrunk so drastically that full-size would be OK again) by explaining the idea of a caesarian section?

No, that really doesn't ring any bells!

 

[BAYLOR]

No, that really doesn't ring any bells!

Between the 60's and the 80's that's a lot of ground . The author you looking for may have published one story and nothing else , there are lots and lots of those kind of one and done authors.

 

[ArmofLugh]

This sounds like the plot to the 2017 movie "Downsizing" with Matt Damon. But i cant find any reference to any book it may have been based on.

 

[pwalsh]

I had no idea Alexander Payne made a film like that! but no, that doesn't sound like the story I remember, which wasn't the slightest bit amusing. But thank you!

 

[Danny McG]

Possibly the same as this old (answered) question

Dystopian future where humans are smaller

Hi, Read this sometime between 1972 and 1977, possibly a short story in a collection, possibly a novel. Set in a future England(?) the protagonist eventually discovers that the constant changing from one measurement system to another (starting with decimalisation in 1972, metric in early...

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[PaulMmn]

A series of books called "The Micronauts..." not the marvel comic books! People were shrunk...

 

[Danny McG]

Maybe the Matthew Dilke series by Lindsay Gutteridge?

A quote from the blurb for one of them in Fantastic Fiction:-

"far-fetched tales of a government agent, miniaturized with some companions to test the chances of counteracting overpopulation, by resettling the world with a miniaturized mankind"

 

[otistdog]

For anyone happening across this thread: The one I was thinking of was This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch, as mentioned by Danny McG on another thread. See that thread for more details.

 

[pwalsh]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I finally figured out what the story was called--it was "Teddi" by Andre Norton, in -Science Fiction Adventures from Way Out-, ed. Roger Elwood, published by Whitman in 1973. I'm looking forward to reading it again!

 

[Danny McG]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I finally figured out what the story was called--it was "Teddi" by Andre Norton, in -Science Fiction Adventures from Way Out-, ed. Roger Elwood, published by Whitman in 1973. I'm looking forward to reading it again!

Thanks for answering your own question, it helps a lot with these.
I'd never heard of that story - I've had a look at it now.

Synopsis ~

The narrator and his little brother Joboy, two of the ever-rarer 'Nats' in a world of Littles, have been trapped, as Joboy dropped Teddi in a field during a scavenging trip out in the fields, and went back at the wrong moment to get him.

The 'Nats' (naturals) are the original unaltered human stock; after laws were passed that everyone had to go through genetic alteration to become 'Littles' (a draconian solution that helped ease some of the problems of limited living space and resources).

The Littles, it turns out, want slave labour - Nat children being easier to transport and direct than heavy machinery on the new planet they're colonizing. The Littles failed to take all the facts into account, though.