Books reading recommendations Five SF Stories Built Around Specific, Context-Dependent Disabilities Some characteristics are disadvantageous in highly specific SFF circumstances… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on September 10, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share There must exist in some relevant field the concept of context-dependent disability. Which is to say, characteristics that are indisputably disadvantageous in the very specific circumstances in which the person with those characteristics finds themself, characteristics that in other circumstances would be irrelevant or even a strength. Perhaps real-world examples would help: a cognitive issue that makes reading harder was somewhat less disadvantageous when most people were illiterate and significantly less disadvantageous during the two million years or so between the first appearance of Homo and the invention of writing. Being discomforted by the high-pitched whine of a CRT monitor really only mattered when CRT monitors were still a thing. Breaking out in hives whenever one wore polyester clothes was extremely inconvenient in the 1970s, but not so much prior to the invention of polyester. What made me ponder this was encountering three works in quick succession. Don’t worry, I will add two more examples to reach the magic number five. Unwillingly to Earth by Pauline Ashwell (1992) Having unwittingly demonstrated her talent for manipulating other people, Lizzie Lee is reluctantly pried off the only farm on her rustic, backwater world Excenus 23 and sent off to school on Earth. There, she is to hone her social engineering skills, to better guide societies away from folly. There is, however, a significant impediment: Lizzie can’t read. More accurately, Lizzie cannot use the high-speed Reading Machines that cram text into people’s heads. She can read words on paper just fine, but being limited to that slow form of ingesting text puts Lizzie at a considerable disadvantage with respect to her classmates. Whatever the root cause of her inability to use Reading Machines, it is (likely) inheritable because her father has it too. Perhaps the trait has been passed down for millennia… invisible until the Reading Machine was invented. Luckily for Lizzie, Ashwell was in many ways an unconventional Astounding/Analog author, so the solution for Lizzie’s condition is not to cram her into the nearest disintegration chamber in the name of eugenic hygiene, but to find a workaround. Project Farcry by Pauline Ashwell (1995) Young Richard Jordan accompanies his father Dr. Jordan to the exoplanet Lambda. This isn’t because Dr. Jordan subconsciously senses that he is in a juvenile SF novel in dire need of a youthful protagonist. Rather, it’s a bid to keep Dr. Jordan’s reprehensible ex-wife Cora from institutionalizing Richard. Why does Cora want to rid herself of her son?1 Because she thinks Richard is a creepy snoop. Why does she think that? Because Richard is a telepath in a society where telepathy is almost unknown; he can’t help sensing other people’s secrets. Richard’s challenge is actually twofold: Cora isn’t inclined to tolerate inconvenience2, and there are so few telepaths around that each one is forced to develop their own protocols for managing their knack. Richard does finally find a socially acceptable outlet for his talent. Normally I would not feature two books by the same author in one of these essays unless all of the books were by the same author. However, it was reading both Ashwells plus the next book that set my mind on this course. Steel of the Celestial Shadows by Daruma Matsuura, translated by Caleb D. Cook (2020-onward) Ryudo Konosuke is a pitiful figure, neither able to live up to the ideals of a samurai, nor able to embrace some suitable exit from a life for which he is manifestly unsuited. Thus, he is impoverished and viewed with contempt by fellow samurai… contempt based on misapprehension. Others believe Ryudo is afraid of sharp objects, thus his poor grooming and refusal to wear a proper sword. In fact, Ryudo violently repels metal—he doesn’t shave with a metal razor because no razor can touch him, and he does not carry a sword because he can’t. Another way to look at Ryudo’s situation is that he’s completely invulnerable to swords and arrows. Indeed, someone striking at him with a sword could find fragments of the sword buried in their own forehead. In fact, there are any number of useful applications of his knack, none of which he explored3… because Ryudo’s judgemental father was completely fixated on the idea that a samurai has to carry a metal sword or they are worthless. Norstrilia by Cordwainer Smith (1975) Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William MacArthur McBan is the 151st of his line. There may well not be a 152nd. Beneficiaries of extended lifespans, Norstrilians keep their planet’s population acceptably low with a draconian Adulthood test Rod cannot pass. In the not-too-distant future, Rod will be euthanized, and that will be that for the McBans. The nature of Rod’s problem? He’s telepathically inept. His ability to receive telepathic communication is intermittent, and on those rare occasions when he can project, he can only produce a psychic scream. In a society with few or no telepaths, this would not matter. Surrounded as he is by telepaths, it does. Luckily for Rod, former schoolmate the Honorable Secretary Houghton Syme launches a series of assassination bids, the net result of which is to set Rod on a path to ownership of the planet Earth. This might not increase Rod’s life expectancy much—Earth is filled with hazards for which a space hick is poorly prepared—but at least his remaining life will be event-filled. Islands by Marta Randall (1976) Modern medicine promises Tia Hamley at least a century of life, perhaps even two. Alas, that’s all poor mayfly Tia can expect before her inevitable demise. Best for Tia to use her scant years as productively as she can. Tia’s issue is that she is immune to the Immortality Treatment. She will age and die, while the vast majority of people around her remain youthful. A mortal on a planet of immortals, her specific medical issues will be increasingly unfamiliar to doctors, which will no doubt make her advanced old age more interesting. Obviously, being immune to the Treatment wasn’t so bad before the Treatment was invented4. Tia also struggles with a social challenge: of course, the ageless aren’t really immortal. Given enough time, everyone falls prey to some mishap or other. Tia is a reminder of inevitable mortality, which is why one of her acquaintances decides to murder her. Of course, these are hardly the only examples of context-driven disabilities. I could have mentioned Usotoki Rhetoric (whose protagonist can sense deliberate lies, terribly inconvenient in a society reliant on polite lies5), or Always Human (whose protagonist cannot use futuristic body mods), except I have mentioned them here before. Feel free to mention other examples in comments below6.[end-mark] Aside from being a terrible person, I mean. ︎In Cora’s defense, she may not be an ideal mother, but Dr. Jordan wasn’t around at all. Dr. Jordan had convinced himself that the course of action most convenient for Dr. Jordan—leaving Richard to Cora to raise while Dr. Jordan conducts interstellar research—was what was best for Richard. ︎As of volume one, the only volume I’ve read. ︎Norstrilia’s Syme has the same disability. It’s not severe enough for him to fail the Adulthood test, but it is one that the not entirely lovable Norstrilians are content to leave Syme to manage alone. ︎Coupled with an inability to resist commenting whenever she noticed people lying, which may be the real disability. See also the TV show Poker Face. ︎Although I expect what will actually happen is a long discussion of how what I call “context-dependent disability” has a well-known, widely discussed, more succinct name, which everyone but me knows. Well, me and my cognitive assessment crew, whose lives I greatly enhanced, I assume, by taking the time to ask if the concept came up in their training. Nope. On an unrelated note, if you want to suddenly ramble about literacy in the context of anatomically modern humans, do it after the cognitive assessment. One of my editors suggests “maladaptive traits following environmental change” but I don’t think that’s quite right. ︎The post Five SF Stories Built Around Specific, Context-Dependent Disabilities appeared first on Reactor.