{"id":22499,"date":"2025-06-06T13:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T17:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=22499"},"modified":"2025-06-06T13:25:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T17:25:17","slug":"isaac-asimov-big-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/isaac-asimov-big-game\/22499\/","title":{"rendered":"Isaac Asimov: Big Game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis<\/strong>: In “Big Game<\/em>,” a short story by Isaac Asimov published in Before the Golden Age<\/em> (1974), a group of friends in a bar discuss a time machine that has sent a mouse into the future without any harmful effects. The conversation takes an unexpected turn when one of them, Hornby, claims to have traveled to the past and discovered the true cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction. With his account, Hornby challenges common theories and proposes a surprising and unconventional explanation for the fate of these prehistoric creatures, leaving his friends intrigued and questioning what they thought they knew about ancient history.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Isaac<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Big Game<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Isaac Asimov
(Full story)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see by the papers,\u201d I said, over my beer, \u201cwhere the new time machine at Stanford has been sent forward in time two days with a white mouse inside. No ill effects.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack Trent nodded gravely and said, \u201cWhat they ought to do with one of those things is to go back a few million years and find out what happened to the dinosaurs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had been watching Hornby at the next table for the last few minutes in a casual fashion, and the fellow looked up and caught my eye at that point. He was alone, and had a bottle\u2014quarter empty\u2014to himself. Maybe that\u2019s why he spoke then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, he grinned and said to Jack, \u201cToo late, old fellow. I did that myself ten years ago and found out. The bigwigs say it was climatic changes. It wasn\u2019t.\u201d He raised his glass to us in a silent toast and tossed it off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We looked at each other. Neither of us knew Hornby, except by sight, but Jack\u2019s right eyelid flickered and his head motioned slightly. I grinned, and we moved over to that next table and ordered two more beers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack looked at Hornby solemnly. \u201cYou invented a time machine, did you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLong ago.\u201d Hornby smiled amiably and filled his glass again. \u201cBetter than the ones those amateurs at Stanford rigged up. I\u2019ve destroyed it, though. Lost interest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTell us about it. You say it wasn\u2019t climate that knocked off the big lizards?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy should it be?\u201d He glanced quickly out of eye corners. \u201cClimate didn\u2019t annoy them for millions of years. Why should a sudden dry spell wipe them out so completely and finally, while other creatures lived on comfortably?\u201d He tried to snap his fingers derisively, but didn\u2019t succeed, and ended by muttering, \u201cNot logical!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat did?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hornby hesitated doubtfully, and teetered his bottle. Then he said, \u201cSame thing that knocked off the bison. Intelligent life!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMen from Mars?\u201d I suggested. \u201cIt was a little too early for the inhabitants of Atlantis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hornby grew truculent quite suddenly. He was more than half gone, I imagine. \u201cI saw them, I tell you,\u201d he said violently. \u201cThey were reptiles, and not large, either. They were four feet tall and bipeds. Why not? Those dinosaurs had millions of years to evolve. They crawled and climbed and flew and swam. They were all shapes, sizes, and varieties. Why shouldn\u2019t one develop a brain\u2014and kill off all the rest?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I said, \u201cNo reason, except that no fossil saurian has ever been discovered with a brain-case capable of holding the gray matter of anything more than a kitten.\u201d Jack nudged me\u2014he wanted Hornby to rattle on\u2014but I hate bull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hornby merely gave me a look of contempt. \u201cYou don\u2019t find many fossils of intelligent animals. They don\u2019t fall into mudholes, you know, as a general rule. Besides, it so happens they were<\/em> pinheads, and what of it? How much of your<\/em> brain do you use? Not a fifth, if that, and the rest is waste, or God knows what. Those reptiles had kitten brains, but they used it all.\u201d<\/em> Then he fired up, \u201cAnd don\u2019t ask why we don\u2019t find traces of their cities or machines. I don\u2019t think they built any. Their intelligence was of an entirely different order from ours. They tried to tell me what their life was like, but I couldn\u2019t understand\u2014except that their great amusement was the hunting of big game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow did they try to tell you?\u201d asked Jack. \u201cTelepathy?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think so. They had brains, I tell you. I just looked at them, and they looked at me, and then I knew.<\/em> I knew lots of things. I didn\u2019t hear or feel anything; I just knew.<\/em> I can\u2019t explain, really. Try it someday.\u201d His eyes were brooding, fixed on his glass. \u201cI wish I could have stayed longer. Might have learned more.\u201d He shrugged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t safe,\u201d he said. \u201cI could tell that. I was a freak to them, remember, and they were curious about me. Not about my body, of course; that didn\u2019t bother them. It was my brain.\u201d He smiled crookedly at us. \u201cIt was so big, you know. They wondered what I could use it all for. They were going to dissect me to find out, so I didn\u2019t stay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow did you get away?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have, if they hadn\u2019t sighted a triceratops at that moment. They dropped everything and ran off with their little metal rods in their hands. Those were their weapons, you see. There\u2019s your answer. Those brainy little reptiles killed saurians with all the enthusiasm of a big-game hunter bagging lions. They would rather knock off a tyrannosaurus than eat. Why not? Those huge beasts must have been magnificent prizes. All the rest, too, from the pterodactyl to the ichthyosaurus\u201d (he couldn\u2019t pronounce them very well, but we got his meaning), \u201cnone of them could stand up against the midget beasts that killed them for fun or glory. And they went fast, too. We<\/em> killed off hundreds of millions of bison in thirty years, didn\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He tried to snap his fingers again. Then, with bitterness, \u201cClimatic changes, hell! But who\u2019d believe the truth?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He fell silent, and Jack nudged him. \u201cBut say, old fellow, what killed off those little lizards? Why aren\u2019t they still around, running things?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hornby looked up, and gazed at Jack fixedly, \u201cI never went back to find out, but I know what happened. The only fun they got out of life was this big-game hunting. I told you I found that out when I looked in their eyes. So when they ran out of brontosauri and diplodoci, they turned to the very biggest: themselves! And they did just as good a job at that.\u201d Truculently he added, \u201cWhy not? Aren\u2019t men doing the same thing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE END<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In “Big Game,” a short story by Isaac Asimov published in Before the Golden Age (1974), a group of friends in a bar discuss a time machine that has sent a mouse into the future without any harmful effects. The conversation takes an unexpected turn when one of them, Hornby, claims to have traveled to the past and discovered the true cause of the dinosaurs’ extinction. With his account, Hornby challenges common theories and proposes a surprising and unconventional explanation for the fate of these prehistoric creatures, leaving his friends intrigued and questioning what they thought they knew about ancient history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[589,552,570],"class_list":["post-22499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-stories","tag-isaac-asimov-en","tag-science-fiction","tag-united-states","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":559,"label":"Short stories"}],"post_tag":[{"value":589,"label":"Isaac Asimov"},{"value":552,"label":"Science fiction"},{"value":570,"label":"United States"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Isaac-Asimov-Caza-mayor.jpg",1024,1024,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Juan Pablo Guevara","author_link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/author\/spartakku\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":559,"name":"Short stories","slug":"short-stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":420,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":559,"category_count":420,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Short stories","category_nicename":"short-stories","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":589,"name":"Isaac Asimov","slug":"isaac-asimov-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":589,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":37,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":552,"name":"Science fiction","slug":"science-fiction","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":552,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":121,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":570,"name":"United States","slug":"united-states","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":570,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":294,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}