1drjryan
Twenty years ago (or thirty) I read a short story (or novella, or chapter in a novel) I want to find again. Protagonist is young woman who has grown up in a meritocracy where everyone receives subsistence level food and clothing. She wins a place in university and her agricultural father is annoyed (possibly because she is a girl, possibly because he objects to her not going forward with farming). She has a brother. I don't remember much about him.
She goes to university anyway. Travel is by a parallel succession of moving sidewalks which gradually increase in speed as you move across the "highway."
The girl achieves success in school very quickly, reaching "DA" status (distinguished something... academic maybe) which entitles her to a better class of clothing and food. She does this in some sort of psych or soc class where they have an initial assignment that is very tedious involving transcribing or listening to the recordings of other people's lives and she does it by reaching an insight about humanity.
I cannot remember the title of this book or author. I thought it might be Orson Scott Card and I thought I owned a book with this story in it, but I cannot find it.
The tone of the book was very old sci-fi, not quite utopia... dark but not despairing.
She goes to university anyway. Travel is by a parallel succession of moving sidewalks which gradually increase in speed as you move across the "highway."
The girl achieves success in school very quickly, reaching "DA" status (distinguished something... academic maybe) which entitles her to a better class of clothing and food. She does this in some sort of psych or soc class where they have an initial assignment that is very tedious involving transcribing or listening to the recordings of other people's lives and she does it by reaching an insight about humanity.
I cannot remember the title of this book or author. I thought it might be Orson Scott Card and I thought I owned a book with this story in it, but I cannot find it.
The tone of the book was very old sci-fi, not quite utopia... dark but not despairing.
3Nerilka
Sounds like Daughter and Dull Drums two related short stories by Anne McCaffrey. I read them in Get Off the Unicorn but may have been published elsewhere.
