# Sci-Fi story ID? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 5, 2008, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-story-id/458869 "2008-08-05T01:49:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2008, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-story-id/458869/1 "2008-08-05T01:49:45Z")
Question mark, because I don’t remember if it’s really science fiction. What I remember is that a woman gives birth in a hospital. She doesn’t have any money to pay her bill. The hospital will not release her daughter until the bill is paid. The girl grows up in the hospital, gaining a very good medical education. (ISTR her parents had above-average IQs, which she inherited.) I think that something happened that put her unique situation to good use; but I don’t remember what, nor the outcome. I don’t think it’s a full-length story (but I could be wrong), and it may have appeared in _Omni_ or an anthology. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2008, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-story-id/458869/2 "2008-08-05T01:52:37Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] Question mark, because I don’t remember if it’s really science fiction. What I remember is that a woman gives birth in a hospital. She doesn’t have any money to pay her bill. The hospital will not release her daughter until the bill is paid. The girl grows up in the hospital, gaining a very good medical education. (ISTR her parents had above-average IQs, which she inherited.) I think that something happened that put her unique situation to good use; but I don’t remember what, nor the outcome. I don’t think it’s a full-length story (but I could be wrong), and it may have appeared in _Omni_ or an anthology. [/QUOTE] That would be “For Value Received” by Andrew J. Offutt, published in the anthology “Again, Dangerous Visions.” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2008, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-story-id/458869/3 "2008-08-05T01:57:14Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] That would be “For Value Received” by Andrew J. Offutt, published in the anthology “Again, Dangerous Visions.” [/QUOTE] The title does sound familiar, and I was big-into Ellison in the '70s and '80s. ETA: Quick work! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2008, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-story-id/458869/4 "2008-08-05T02:46:30Z")
But it was “In The Barn” that you read over and over, wasn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Dijon\_Warlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2008, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-story-id/458869/5 "2008-08-05T07:07:08Z")
[QUOTE=susan] But it was “In The Barn” that you read over and over, wasn’t it? [/QUOTE] That’s the one that _I_ read over and over… Faster, then slower, then faster, then slower… I talked my mother into buying me that book when I was about 13 years old. She would have been fatally mortified had she known about that story. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2008, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-story-id/458869/6 "2008-08-05T14:09:02Z")
[QUOTE=susan] But it was “In The Barn” that you read over and over, wasn’t it? [/QUOTE] I think that’s the only story in the anthology anyone remembers. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2008, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-story-id/458869/7 "2008-08-05T14:16:15Z")
\*\*A,DV \*\* suffered from a bad case of juvenile high-spiritedness, a sophomoric approach to the “lifting of taboos.” **Dangerous Visions** had a number of thought-provoking stories that actually examined societal conventions by going beyond them in an outrageous fashion (although the times have changed, and it is probably difficult for youngsters today to appreciate how iconoclastic and subversive the collection was). **Again, Dangerous Visions** abandoned the insights for gross-out and puerile sex stories. The downward trend is clear enough that I am glad the third collection never was published. In my humble opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sci-fi-story-id/458869/8 "2008-08-05T16:14:00Z")
[QUOTE=Dijon Warlock] That’s the one that _I_ read over and over… Faster, then slower, then faster, then slower… I talked my mother into buying me that book when I was about 13 years old. She would have been fatally mortified had she known about that story. [/QUOTE] If she’d looked over the table of contents, just the title of Kurt Vonnegut’s story “The Big Space Fuck” might have caused a problem. Fortunately, my parents were happy to let me order whatever I could afford from the Science Fiction Book Club; I think they were totally unaware of New Wave stuff.