Humans have always had a fascination with the stars and the unknown that lies beyond Earth’s atmosphere. “The Star”, written in 1897 by H.G. Wells, imagines how the Earth would react if space was brought closer. The hurtling planet, whose contact with Neptune sets it on a trajectory towards Earth, brings the chance of an apocalyptic scenario to all walks of life. How the world reacts however, contrasts to a similar story written by Federico Schaffler in 1983 called “A Miscalculation”. A young boy’s dream is to be in space, and he is willing to die to be reborn in the stars. When his opportunity finally comes in the form of a falling meteor, he is “rescued” by a firefly and eventually his mother. More than 120 years after Wells wrote “The Star”, and almost 40 years after Schaffler’s “A Miscalculation”, these two stories contain similar messages rooted in the timelessness of space that are applicable today. Both authors use the story’s respective endings and the theme of the mathematician, to highlight how perspective is critical to how a situation is viewed.

Both authors introduce a new perspective for the final scenes of their stories. In the case of “The Star”, Wells transitions his story from an apocalyptic description of life on Earth to the perspective of Mars astronomers. The astronomers, operating on a larger scale, see an Earth that is left relatively unscathed. By changing the vantage point, Wells highlights the differences that perspective can have to the size of the disaster saying, “’The only difference seemed to be a shrinkage of the white discoloration (supposed to be frozen water) round either pole.’ Which shows how small the vastest of human catastrophes may seem, at a distance of a few million miles” (Wells, p. 49). Wells contrasts descriptions of incredible human suffering with the opinions of the astronomers, showing how small humans are in the universe. This same emphasis on perspective can also be seen in Schaffler’s story. Much like Wells, Schaffler uses the ending of the story to introduce the character of the mother and a new angle on the situation. Naturally, the mother sees her son dreaming about the stars and calls him inside. Unbeknownst to her, the son was dreaming to die by meteor in order to be reborn in the stars. Schaffler makes this contrast evident saying, “’Son, it’s so late, come to bed.’ The voice of a woman, full of tenderness and understanding, is heard calling him, bringing him out of his reverie and disappointment with reality” (Schaffler, p. 211). By going from language of dying by meteor to a mother’s tender voice, Schaffler shows the differences in perspective between the mother and the son. This not only returns the story back to a realistic situation but increases the irony of the final meteor miss.

The study of astronomy would be guesswork if it wasn’t for mathematics, so it isn’t surprising that both stories have included themes of mathematics and calculations. By including the character of the mathematician in “The Star”, Wells not only shows the perspective of someone who can see the future developing ahead of average citizens, but also how society reacts to data and science. For example, Wells explains the citizen’s reaction to the news of the inbound star saying, “There was no precedent for such a thing… The master mathematician’s grim warnings were treated by many as so much mere elaborate self-advertisement” (Wells, p.46). From the average citizens viewpoint the concept of an inbound star is beyond belief, but instead of listening to the mathematician they brush him off as being self-interested. Using the perspective of the average citizen and the astronomer, Wells provides commentary on the flaws of society in a time of crisis. This message is timeless, as it is hard not to relate this scene to the COVID-19 pandemic that the world is facing today. In a similar way, Schaffer also uses math with the boy’s calculations for the correct place and time to be killed by a meteor. For example, when the boy can feel the light penetrating his body but fails to be reborn, he thinks, “I miscalculated” (Schaffler, p. 211).  While subtle, the story hinges on that phrase. After the boy realizes that his timing was incorrect, he brushes off the incident as result of the firefly. While less obvious than “The Star”, the perspective of data and math is key to the boy’s decision making, and leads to the scene at the end where we learn that the boy’s calculations were correct on location, just not on time.

Overall, these two stories follow a similar structure, include the same imagery of space, and deal with the possibility of death from the cosmos. However, their message of the importance of perspective is timeless and universally applicable. “The Star” and “A Miscalculation” use perspective to show how small humans are in the universe, what death can look like, and how an individual can be misunderstood. With H.G. Wells being well known as one of the founders of science fiction it is fair to say that “The Star” may have been the inspiration for, or had some influence on Schaffler in his writing of “A Miscalculation”. Regardless, these stories show how universal the message of perspective can be. In my re-read of these stories, it was striking to see how applicable “The Star” was to the current pandemic. The mistrust of scientists and citizens ignoring the threat at hand, followed by destruction hitting every continent one by one felt like a recap of news articles written in the first few months of 2020. It is the perspective that we have on the impeding star, meteor, or COVID that affects how we respond to it.

Works Cited

Schaffler, Federico. “A Miscalculation.” Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain, translated by Andrea L. Bell, edited by Yolanda Molina-Gavilán, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2003, pp. 209-11.

Wells, H.G. “The Star.” The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, edited by Arthur B. Evans, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2010, pp. 39-49.