Richard D. Erlich

711 Island View Circle

Port Hueneme, CA 93041

(ErlichRD@MUOhio.edu)

 

 

CLOCKWORKS 2: An Annotated List of Works Useful for the Study of the Human/Machine Interface in SF

 

CLOCKWORKS 2, 1-4

                                                                                                2006

(Run off 22 August 2006)

 

 

THIS MATERIAL IS © 2005 BY RICHARD D. ERLICH AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY WAY WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONS FROM RICHARD D. ERLICH OR THE PERMISSION OF GREENWOOD PRESS AND GREENWOOD PUBLISHING GROUP (EXPRESS PERMISSION, IN WRITING FROM GREENWOOD).

RFS = Robert Shelton, Lyman Briggs School, Michigan State U.

 

CLOCKWORKS 2:

Clockworks OUTTAKES + Supplemental

 

 

CORRECT ON ABBREVIATIONS:

SF Ency.                                              The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1979)

Ency. of SF (1993)                   The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993)

 

 

 

ADD TO ABBREVIATIONS:

CGI                                    Computer-Generated Images/Imagery

IMDb The Internet Movie Database

IRL                                     "In Real Life," the everyday, noncybernetic areas outside Cyberspace and the Internet, without getting into ontological issues of what is real. 

JFA                                    Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts

po-mo                                Postmodern, Postmodernism, Postmodernist

Psi, Psi-powers                 Paranormal psychological powers: telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, precognition

SFRA Review                    Science Fiction Research Association Review

VR                                      Virtual Reality

WWW                                       World Wide Web, the Internet

 

 

1. REF, 9/IX/92            Altman, Mark A., compiler.  See below, this section, under STAR TREK.

 

 

1.  Ref., RDE, 00/XII/00           Anatomy of Wonder 4.  Neil Barron, ed.  New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bowker, 1995.  **¢+Fourth edn. of the indispensable Anatomy of Wonder texts, which we have consulted for the annotated biblio.s of primary and secondary literature in SF. 

 

 

1. REF, RDE, 07/I/93   Bleiler, Everett F.  Science Fiction: The Early Years.  Kent, OH: Kent State UP, 1991.  **¢+Starting with Johannes Kepler's Somnium (publ. 1634), "a full description of more than 3,000 science-fiction stories from earliest times to the appearance of the genre magazines in 1930"—EFB quoted by Ray B. Browne, rev. in JPC 26.1 (Summer 1992): 197, our source for this entry. 

 

 

1. REF, RDE, 08/II/93  Broderick, Mich.  Nuclear Movies: A Critical Analysis and Filmography of International Feature Length Films Dealing with Experimentation, Aliens, Terrorism, Holocaust and Other Disaster Scenarios, 1914-1989.  Jefferson NC: McFarland, 1991.  **¢+Covers "854 films, made-for-TV movies[,] and mini-series dramas . . . [released] between 1914 and 1989, with some mentions of films released as late as mid-1991."  The plot synopses are very brief summaries with limited cross-references.  Covers a very broad range film.  Rev. Paul Brians, SFRA Review #198 (June 1992): 27-28, our source for this entry and whom we quote. 

 

 

1.  Ref., Maly, 27/VI/02            Gilzinger, Donald.  "Approaching Neuromancer: Secondary Sources."  SFRA Review #238 (February 1999):17-18.

 

 

1.  Ref., Maly, 01/VII/02           Hall, Hal.  "Approaching Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner: Bibliographies."  SFRA Review #240 (June 1999): 9-23.

 

 

 

1.  Ref., Maly, 27/VI/02            Hall, Hal. "Approaching Neuromancer: More Secondary Sources." SFRA Review #238 (February 1999): 19-24.

 

 

1.  Ref., Maly, 01/VII/02           Kolb, W.M. "Blade Runner: An Annotated Bibliography." Literature/Film Quarterly 18 (1990): 19-64.  **+ Cited in Hal Hall's "Approaching Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner Bibliographies," q.v. under Reference. 

 

 

1.  Ref, TW, 13/I/95      Spector, Robert Donald.  The English Gothic: A Bibliographic Guide to Writers from Horace Walpole to Mary Shelley.  Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1984.  **¢+An impressively careful piece of work.  Covers the definitions of "gothic," and then continues with a discussion of the contribution of the major writers in the field.  Less a biblio. guide than a research guide, directed more toward advanced students than scholars.  Excellent historical breadth, making this a useful reference for historicizing the theme of the human/machine interface and locating it within a tradition of other confrontations between human and Other. 

 

 

STAR TREK REFERENCE WORKS

 

 

1. REF, 9/IX/92            "Episode Guide [to Star Trek: The Next Generation]."  Mark A. Altman, compiler.  Cinefantastique 23.2/3 (Oct. 1992): 35 f.  **¢+Covers the 26 episodes from 23 September 1991 to 15 June 1992. 

 

 

1. REF, 29/I/93            Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  Altman, Mark A. et al., compilers  Cinefantastique 23.6 (April 1993): 16 f.  **¢+Basic information on the Deep Space Nine cast, "bible, production staff, and opening episode ("Emissary," week of 4 Jan. 1993 [q.v. under Drama]). 

 

 

1.  Ref., RDE, 12/XII/95           "Third Season Guide" to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 1994-95 season.  Dale Kutzera, compiler.  Cinefantastique 27.4/5 (Jan. 1996): 90 f.  **¢+Citations, annotations, and evaluations of Deep Space Nine from 24 Sept. 1994-17 June 1995, Episode 47-Production Number 72 (sic: "Episode" up to 51, thereafter "Production Number").  Abbreviated below as "3rd Season Guide: DS9." 

 

 

1.  Ref., RDE, 12/XII/95           "Voyager Guide" 1995.  Dale Kutzera, compiler.  Cinefantastique 27.4/5 (Jan. 1996): 34 f.  **¢+Citations, annotations, and evaluations of Star Trek: Voyager from 16 Jan.-2 Oct. 1995, Production Numbers 101/102-119, aired as 206. 

 

 

1.  Ref., RDE, 18/XII/96           "[Star Trek]: Deep Space Nine Episode Guide."  Cinefantastique 28.4/5 (Nov. 1996): 26 f.  **¢+Covers the episodes from 30 Sept. 1995 to 6 Jan. 1996. 

 

 

1.  Ref., RDE, 18/XII/96           "[Star Trek] Voyager Episode Guide."  Cinefantastique 28.4/5 (Nov. 1996): 76 f.  **¢+Covers the episodes from 28 Aug. 1995 to 20 May 1996. 

 

 

1.  REF, RDE, 20/I/95  Trek: The Unauthorized A-Z.  Hal Schuster and Wendy Rathbone, compilers (with WR doing the research).  New York: HarperPrism-HarperPaperbacks (HarperCollins), 1994.  **¢+"This encyclopedia covers all the Star Trek series: Classic, The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, the films, and the animated series" but not the 1995 Voyager series.  Includes "names of actors, writers, and other people involved with Star Trek," plus "characres, ships, events, locations, and terminology."  Covers "material through the sixth season" of Next Generation "but not beyond.  DS9 is covered for its first, short season only" (WR's Foreword quoted). 

 

 

1.  Ref., RDE, 03/VI/96            Uram, Sue.  "Classic Star Trek Episode Guide."  Cinefantastique 27.11-12 (July 1996): 26 f. **¢+In honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Trek, a complete, annotated videography of the classic Star Trek canon, "listed in the order in which they were filmed.

 

 

1.  Ref., RDE, 10/IX/95            Video Hound's Golden Movie Retriever: 1995.  Detroit: Visible Ink P-Gale Research, 1995.  And other years.  **¢+Indispensable tool for older as well as recent films.  Cited in our text as Video Hound (year). 

 

 

1.  REF, RDE, 00/III/95            Willingham, Ralph.  Science Fiction and the Theatre.  Cited under Drama.  *¢+Includes an appendix with an annotated list of 328 S. F. plays, theatre pieces, performance art pieces, etc.. 

 

 

2.  ANTH., Maly, 27/VI/02         Alien Zone II: The Spaces of Science Fiction Cinema.  Annette Kuhn, ed.  New York: Verso, 1999. **¢+ Cited in Brooks Landon's "Bodies in Cyberspace," q.v. under Literary Criticism. 

 

 

2.  ANTH., Maly, 01/VII/02        Cybersexualities: A Reader on Feminist Theory, Cyborgs, and Cyberspace.  Jenny Wolmark, ed.  Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1999.  **+ contains essays divided into three parts discussing "Technology, Embodiment, and Cyberspace, Cybersubjects: Cyborgsand Cyberpunks, and Cyborg Futures."  Emphasizes femininity in cyberlit—particularly in cyberspace and VR. Rev. Cynthia Davidson, SFRA Review #249 (November/December 2000): 19.

 

 

2. ANTH, RDE, 27/VI/94           Dowling, Terry.  Rynosseros.  N.p.: Guild America, n.d.  "Only North American Edition."  (c) 1990.  Available through the S. F. Book Club.  "Ditmar Winner / 1991 Australian SF Achievement Award."  **¢+Linked coll. of SF stories about Tom Tyson, captain of the sand- and road-sailing ship Rynosseros, in a future Australia around the time of the (next?) return of Halley's Comet ([155])—an Australia in which true AI has been developed, and in which the Dreamtime exists and is effective (cf. Egyptian myth in Norman Mailer's Ancient Evenings (1983).  Relevant stories: "Colouring the Captains," "The Robot Is Running Away from the Trees," and "Spinners"—all unacknowledged, so may be printed here for the first time. 

 

 

2. ANTH, RDE, 09/II/93            Grand Master's Choice.  Andre Norton, ed.  New York: Tor, 1991.  **¢+See for recent rpt. of I. Asimov's "The Last Question" and J. Williamson's "With Folded Hands."  See also for L. Sprague de Camp's time-travel story, "A Gun for Dinosaur" (1956).  Rev. Tanya Gardener-Scott, SFRA Review #202 (Dec. 1992): 44-45, our source for most of this entry. 

 

 

2.  ANTH., RDE, 17/V/01          New Worlds vol. 64, no. 222.  David Garnett, ed.  Michael Moorcock, consulting ed.  Clarkston, GA: White Wolf, 1997.  **¢+Relevant contents: Pat Cadigan, "The Emperor's New Reality"; Eric Brown, "Ferryman"; Peter F. Hamilton and Graham Joyce, "The White Stuff"; Noel K. Hannan, "A Night on the Town"; Ian Watson, "A Day Without Dad"; Graham Charnock, "A Night on Bare Mountain"—cited under Fiction. 

 

 

2.  ANTH., RDE, 07/V/01          Laumer, Keith.  Nine By Laumer.  Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967.  **¢+Coll. including "Cocoon," "Dinochrome," "End as a Hero," "Placement Test," "The Long Remembered Thunder," "The Walls" (q.v. under Fiction) and Harlan Ellison's "Introduction: The Universe According to Laumer" (q.v. under Literary Criticism). 

 

 

2.  ANTH., RDE, 07/VII/95        The Science Fiction Stories of Rudyard Kipling.  John Brunner, ed.  Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Twilight-Carol, 1994.  **+Collects among other stories "The Ship That Found Herself," "Wireless," "With the Night Mail," "As Easy as A.B.C.," and "The Eye of Allah"—all cited under Fiction.  Also collects ".007" (1898): a kind of adolescent-male initiation story of an .007 locomotive that Brunner finds "a story featuring intelligent machines" (30); we find it a story featuring locomotives that talk. 

 

 

2. ANTH, RDE, 13/V/94            The Year's Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection.  Gardner Dozois, ed.  New York: St. Martin's, 1993.  ISSN 0743-1740**¢+SENT TO DAN BARNHIZER, 13/V/94

 

 

2.  ANTH., RDE, 15/VII/01        Zelazny, Roger.  The Last Defender of Camelot.  New York: Pocket Books, 1980.  Coll. including "Passion Play," **¢+

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 20/VI/01, REVISED:

3.004     Adams, Douglas.  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. © 1979. New York: Harmony, n.d.  Rpt. by Harmony for [S.F.] Book Club Edition. 

 

                     Novelization of radio series.  Satire that includes a descent motif and comic machines: a melancholic robot (a mechanical/cybernetic version of A. A. Milne's Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh) , an overly cheerful computer, and two AI super computers.  Explicit satire on bureaucracy: even as Arthur Dent's house is bulldozed for a by-pass, the Earth is obliterated for a hyperspace highway.  See below for sequels; see Drama for TV series and audiocassettes.

 

 

3. FICTION, RDE, 29/I/93         Adams, Douglas.  Mostly Harmless.  New York: Harmony Books, 1992.  **¢+Specifically handles the literal clockwork of a Swiss-made watch and its problems on planets many light-years from Earth (173), plus a godlike (and birdlike) version of the new Hitchhikers's Guide to the Galaxy Mark II (140; see also chs. 17-18). 

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 29/XI/99     Adams, Scott.  The Dilbert Future.  1997.  Read by SA.  Audiocassette.  Harper Audio 1997.  **¢+One "prediction" contradicts the negative view of STNG Borg et al. and takes a positive comic view of becoming a cyborg, including noting the handiness of built-in modular tools. 

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 11/VII/01    Aldiss, Brian W.  "Supertoys In Other Seasons."  First published Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of the Future.  New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2001.  For publication updates, see <http://www.brianwaldiss.com>.**¢+Sequel to "Supertoys Last All Summer Long," and "Supertoys When Winter Comes" (both of which see, this section).  The story starts in "Throwaway Town," with David "led by a large Fixer-Mixer; cf. and contrast B.A.'s "Who Can Replace a Man?" (below, this section).  David is repaired, declares "The world has been big since my Mummy died," and asserts that he had a Mummy and wishes it be known that he is "not a machine" (23).  The robots of Throwaway Town are developed briefly in this section, and with wry sympathy; there is a reference to "The chief computer" that scraps robots—perhaps with less sympathy (30).  David's "Daddy," now much poorer, retrieves him from Throwaway Town; David asks him, "How can I not be human, Daddy?  I'm not like the Dancing Devlins or other people I met in Throwaway.  I feel happy or sad.  I love people.  Therefore I am human" (31).  Henry takes David to the production floor where "He confronted a thousand Davids.  All looking alike.  All dressed alike.  All standing alert and alike.  All silent, staring ahead.  A thousand replicants of himself.  Unliving" (33-34).  The Narrator tells us, "For the first time David really understood" that "This was what he was.  A product.  Only a product," a thought that, so to speak, kills David (34).  His father and a friend give David a new and better brain and, after "He had been dead," they charge him up, give him a new Teddy, and see "if he would live again": after summer and winter, "Well, it's spring now," and David arises and tells of "a strange dream," his first.  In the last line of the story, we're told "It"—and a richly ambiguous "It" this is—was almost human" (34-35).  Note very well for questions of humanity and identity in the age of cybernetic reproduction.  Cf. and contrast the "Throwaway Town" sequence in A.I., q.v. under Drama.  For "product," see RoboCop under Drama. 

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 19/VI/00, 07/VII/01 Aldiss, Brian W.  "Supertoys Last All Summer Long."  Harper's Bazaar Dec. 1969.  Coll. The Moment of Eclipse.  London: Faber & Faber, 1970.  Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of the Future.  New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2001.  For publication updates, see <http://www.brianwaldiss.com>.**¢+In an overpopulated near-future world, a small number eat well, but many of them still suffer from loneliness.  We learn about a day in the life of Monica and Henry Swinton, their son David, and David's toy, Teddy.  Monica spends the day in their apartment "in one of the ritziest city-block, half a kilometre [sic: British spelling] above the ground": "Embedded in other apartments, their apartment had no windows on to the outside; nobody wanted to see the overcrowded external world," and their "Whologram" (sic) could provide the illusion of a Georgian mansion surrounded by plantlife.  It's a big day for the family.  As Managing Director of Synthank, Henry has just released "an intelligent" (but not too intelligent) "synthetic life-form" in the form of "a full-size serving man."  This model goes beyond the "mechanicals on the market with minicomputers for brains—plastic things without life, supertoys" and links "computer circuitry with synthetic flesh."  The new model is "a product of the computer.  Without computers, we could never have worked through the sophisticated biochemics that go into synthetic flesh"; it is also "an extension of the computer—for he will contain a computer in his own head," and later models will be "linked to the World Data Network" and may come fully male or female (with the promise of something like android/robot sex).  "Personal isolation will be banished forever."  Monica's news is that she and Henry have won the lottery and will be allowed by the government to conceive a child.  Teddy and David discuss what is real and what is not, and whether Mummy loves David.  Mummy doesn't (though she had tried), but she'll definitely keep on Teddy, and they'll have David checked at the factory to have his "verbal communication-centre" fixed—and then they'll see.  David asks Teddy, "Mummy and Daddy are real, aren't they," and Teddy tells him that it's a silly question: "Nobody knows what 'real' really means."  Indeed; even Teddy comes across only a little less real than Henry and Monica.  Source story for Kubrick/Spielberg's A.I., q.v. under Drama. 

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 11/VII/01    Aldiss, Brian W.  "Supertoys When Winter Comes."  First published Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of the Future.  New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2001.  For publication updates, see <http://www.brianwaldiss.com>.**¢+Sequel to "Supertoys Last All Summer Long," second in a trilogy (so far) ending with "Supertoys in Other Seasons" (both of which see, this section).  See for the "Ambient" as a kind of Internet system, with hints of E.M. Forster's communications devices in "The Machine Stops."  Note "Mummy's" saying explicitly of the robot boy (David) and supertoy Teddy, "You'll never grow up" (16); cf. and contrast Harlan Ellison's "Jeffty Is Five" (1977; coll. Dick Allen, Science Fiction: The Future, 2nd edn.).  Most centrally "SYWC" develops the question of the "reality" of David and Teddy: with the "death" of the serving-man robot Jules, David's taking apart much of Teddy, David's cracking his own face, and David attacking "the house's control centre," causing much of the hologram house to disappear (19-21).  Holding "a sickly rose" (unlike Mummy's perfect roses [9]), David stands "Over her [dead] body" and says, to end the story, "I am human, Mummy.  I love you and I feel sad just like real people, so I must be human . . .  Mustn't I?" (22).  Cf. and definitely contrast ending of Ellison's "Jeffty," where what spin-doctors might call an electrical event leaves the child dead and the parents, in one sense, free. 

 

 

3. CLOCKWORKS OUTTAKES            Alexander, Marc.  The Mist Lizard.  London: Frederick Muller Ltd., 1977; rpt. Pan Books, 1980.  **¢+Children's literature.  Features a robot.

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 30/V/97      Allen, Roger MacBride.  Isaac Asimov's Caliban (vt. Caliban?).  New York: Ace, 1993.  "An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc." ("'Isaac Asimov's Caliban' is a trademark of Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc."; and "Ace Books are published by the Berkley Publishing Group . . . ."**¢+An addition to I. Asimov's Spacer/Settler series, in the tradition of the robot/detective stories "Caves of Steel" and "Naked Sun."  Balances fairly Spacer vs. Settler approaches to technology—with Spacers dependent upon AI robots—and examines the possibility that Spacer society is becoming decadent from a master/slave relationship with robots.  Interesting for the relationship between the local Sheriff and his robot assistant, the question of the uses and limits of robots for police work, the continuing of Asimov's examination of the Three Laws of Robotics, and the introduction into Asimov space of New Law and No Law gravitonic-brain robots.  The New Laws are (1) "A robot may not injure a human being" eliminating old First Law prohibition against allowing a human to be hurt through inaction; (2) A robot must cooperate with"—not "obey"—human beings except where such cooperation would conflict with the First Law"; (3) A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First Law," eliminating reference here to the Second Law, hence "Robotic self-preservation is made as important as utility."  Plus the New Fourth Law, "A robot may do anything it likes except where such action would violate the First, Second, or Third Law" (214-15).  The No Law robots must work out morality for himself and herself (these robots have no sex, but they are gendered).  See below, this section, RMA's Inferno.  (Note: The robot called Donald is supposed to be in a series named for Shakespearean characters.  "Donald" does not appear in The Harvard Concordance to Shakespeare.  I suspect it's a joke—that in the far future a character of Walt Disney's creation [Donald Duck] would be remembered as by Shakespeare.)

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 30/V/97      Allen, Roger MacBride.  Isaac Asimov's Inferno (vt. Inferno?).  New York: Ace, 1994.  "An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc." ("'Isaac Asimov's Caliban' is a trademark of Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc."; and "Ace Books are published by the Berkley Publishing Group . . . ."**¢+Sequel to Caliban (q.v. above), and another addition to I. Asimov's Spacer/Settler series and robot-detective stories.  Omitable if one has read Caliban, but introduces a potentially interesting character: Prospero, a New Law robot who combines philosophy and pro-robot political action (cf. and contrast "his" namesake in Shakespeare's The Tempest). 

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 13/V/94      Allen, Roger MacBride.  The Ring of Charon.  New York: Tor-Tom Doherty Associates, 1990.  [S. F. Book Club], no ISBN**¢+"First Book of the Hunted Earth."  Larry Chao, "an innovative thinker involved in Pluto's gravity control program," performs an unauthorized experiment in which he "activates the human-created mecahnical ring around" Charon, which results in a gravity beam "detected by an alien spy—a half-organic, half-mechanical being who has been waiting for eons" in the Terran Moon.  The Earth disappears (cover notes).  SENT TO DAVID G. SCHAPPERT AT WORK ADDRESS: KEMP LIBRARY / E. STROUDLSBURG U.

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 11/VII/93    Allen, Roger MacBride.  The Modular Man.  New York: Bantam, [1992].  (Bantam is part of Bantam Doubleday Dell [sic] Publishing Group, Inc.).  With an essay by Isaac Asimov, "Intelligent Robots and Cybernetic Organisms" (cited under Literary Criticism).  "The Next Wave / Book 4."  **¢+Perhaps too philosophically rigorous for its esthetic good, MM is an important S. F. thought-experiment on cyborgs, total prosthesis, and the mind/body problem.  A robotics experts transfers his mind into a house maintenance unit (a very fancy vacuum cleaner—now a robot), in the process killing his body; when the robot is charged with murdering the man, the man's wife (a quadriplegic attorney who operates a remote body) defends the robot in court.  Insightfully raises philosophical, legal, economic, and ethical questions.  Cf. and contrast the following works.  For when a machine becomes human: I. Asimov's "Bicentennial Man," R. Zelazny's "For a Breath I Tarry"; for a woman operating a highly advanced waldo version of herself: T. Lee's Electric Forest and J. Tiptree, Jr.'s "The Girl Who Was Plugged In"; for human minds inside machines: J. McElroy's Plus, K. O'Donnell's Mayflies, J. Sladek's The MŸller-Fokker Effect (and the works crosslisted with those entries); for total prosthesis: D. Knight's "Masks," C. L. Moore's "No Woman Born," and F. Pohl's Man Plus—all cited under Fiction.  For economic issues, note J. Swift's Struldbrugs in ch. 10 of "A Voyage to Laputa" in Gulliver's Travels (cited by its more formal vt in this section), and the Struldbrugs's more immediately relevant S. F. incarnation in Frederik Pohl's and C. M. Kornbluth's Gladiator-at-Law (1955), a novel featuring a pair of obscenely rich people who get richer by technologically extending their lives. 

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 05/XII/98    Amis, Marin.  "The Janitor on Mars (Reflections on the future of the universe)."  New Yorker, 26 Oct. & 2 Nov. 1998): 208 f., to 228.  **¢+The "Janitor" is a very ancient Martian robot, paired in the narrarion with a human janitor on Earth.  The Janitor on Mars tells humankind the history of Mars and Earth and the universes (plural) generally: a story it has waited to tell until we are doomed and in which our insignificance is stressed.  The Janitor likes human art—we excell at art, and only art, even by more than universal standards—otherwise, it is not very nice to us.  From the point of view of the human janitor, "his Martian counterpart" is a soul-brother and hero: "The air of brusque obstructiveness, the grudge-harboring slant of his gaze" plus "something subtler," something "that struck Pop," the human janitor, "as so quintessentially janitorial.  Alertness to the threat of effort . . . .  The day has come, he thought.  The day when at last the janitors ..." (215-16)—the thought isn't completed, but the Janitorial "self-sufficiency" and contempt for humanity (216) may be balanced by something happening to Pop and humankind.  "In this new time, when he, in common with everyone else on Earth, was submitting to an obscure yet disgustingly luminous reaffiliation, Pop Jones found that thing in himself that had never been there before: the necessary species of self-love" (228).  In the ambiguous ending, this new self-love may lead to some moments of goodness, or horror. 

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 30/I/00        Andersen, Hans Christian.  Emperor's Nightingale.  **¢+ Cf. W. B. Yeat's  "Sailing to Byzantium," q.v. this section.

 

 

3.  CLOCKWORKS OUTTAKES           Anderson, Poul.  "The Critique of Impure Reason."  If, Nov. 1962.  Coll. Time and Stars.  New York: Doubleday, 1964.  **¢+Robot story using "humour and a relatively gentle irony" (B. Stableford, S. F. Ency., "Robots"). 

 

 

3.  FICTION, DDB, 23/I/95        Anderson, Pohl.  Harvest of Stars.  New York: TOR-Tom Doherty Associates, 1993.  ISBN 0-312-85277-0.  **¢+In a repressive future America, the patriarch/feudal lord/Chief-Executive-Officer of the only corporation exploiting off-Earth reseources imprints his mind into a computer.  A copy of the computer personality is stolen and used by the repressive government to try to seize control of the corporation.  After defeating both his "evil twin" and the government, the personality then leads its corporation and employees off Earth to colonize and terraform the Alpha Centauri system and to flee the advent of AI on Earth.  Other protagonists are also imprinted into computers, one eventually joining the terraforming computer net to become a computerized Gaia.  Eventually, the remnants of the human race are all imprinted and sent off to colonize other worlds prepared for them by copies of the computerized Gaia (Barnhizer).  Deals with the "cutting-edge" motifs of VR, AI, and biotech (cover notes). 

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 21/XII/96    Anderson, Poul.  Tau Zero.  Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970.  New York: Berkley, 1976.  "A short version of this novel appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction for June and August 1967 under the title 'To Outlive Eternity.'"  **¢+Except for the first and last chapters, TZ set upon the Leonora Christine, a very large but not huge exploration/colonizing ship with a Bussard (scoop) star-drive engine.  An accident prevents the ship from reaching its destination, and the crew and explorers continue on, gathering speed.  Our universe operates under the rule that any initial and subsequent times (t [Tau]) within a frame of reference is equal to one's velocity (v) squared divided by the speed of light squared subtracted from 1. 

t = Ã 1- v2/c2

Given the huge value of the speed of light squared, at ordinary velocities t is effectively equal to 1 (1- a very small number): and, in the words of a William Gibson characer, "time be time."  But as velocity increases to signifcant percentages of the speed of light, time within a frame of reference slows, and at the speed of light, v = c and Tau becomes zero: time would stop.  Picking up tremendous speed, with t approaching zero, the ship and its starting inhabitants outlive our universe.  The climactic situation is humans within a mechanized and cybernetic environment, outside the universe, which is collapsing (in the ÇBig CrunchÈ) into a new "monobloc" (a k a cosmic egg), for the next Big Bang.  Cf. and contrast generation starships.

 

 

3.  FICTION, Brian Wolter (English 113), 02/XII/95       Anthony, Piers (Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob).  Apprentice Adept series.  Includes Double Exposure omnibus, Out of Phaze (1987), Robot Adept (1988), Unicorn Point (1989)—q.v. below—and Phaze Doubt (1990).  **¢+Series is significant for juxtaposing SF and fantasy worlds, separated by a curtain (for a portal motif), and mixing sentient machines with werewolves and unicorns, a computer Oracle with a feudal society threatened by environmental degredation through over-mining of a mineral.  Cf. and contrast R. Zelazny's Trumps of Doom (see below, this section). 

 

 

3.  FICTION, RDE, 25/VI/03     Appleton, Victor.  Tom Swift and His Giant Cannon, or The Longest Shots on Record.  New York: Grosset & Dunlop, n.d. (© 1913).  Cloth.  Illus.  Series as of 1913 listed as Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers, Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice, Tom Swift in the City of Gold, Tom Swift in Captivity—plus twelve books of the formula Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle, Motor Boat, Airship, Submarine Boat, Electric Runabout, Wireless Message, Sky Racer, Electric Rifle, Air Glider, Wizard Camera, Giant Search Light (and Giant Cannon).  As of June 2003, several Tom Swifts were on-line at <http://www.classicreader.com/cgi-bin/htsearch?words=tom+swift+and+his>.  **¢+Chapters include III. "Planning a Big Gun," VI. "Testing the Waller Gun," IX. "The New Powder," XII. "A Powerful Blast," XIII. "Casting the Cannon," XVIII. "The Doped Powder," XX. "The Government Accepts," XXIV. "The Longest Shot," XXV [last chapter] "The Long-Shot Mine" (pp. iii-iv).  See for the science and technology of armament and munitions development, sometimes explained directly "for the benefit of you boys who"—for example—"have never seen a big, modern cannon" (53; ch. 6), sometimes worked into dialog as Tom explains things.  Plot, such as it is, has Tom's cannon developed and accepted for defense of the new Panama Canal in spite of dastardly efforts at sabotage by a "German officer of high rank [É who] had been dismissed from the secret service of his country for bad conduct" (211-12; ch. 25).  CAUTION: Koku, Tom's "giant servant" (73; ch. 9) and "Eradicate Sampson, the aged colored man" (7; ch. 1) also on staff, speak in dialect offensive to 21st-c. ears and hardly Mark Twain by far earlier standards; there are also bad-taste attempts at ethnic humor (100; ch. 12). 

 

 

3. FICTION, RDE, 03/IX/94      ADD TO ISAAC ASIMOV'S ROBOT CITY: Audio tapes available from Caedmon. 

 

 

3. FICTION, 16/V/92, rev. RDE 10/VI/93-27/XII/94       Asimov, Isaac.  Foundation and Earth.  Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1986.  **¢+Brings together IA's robot and Foundation series.  Deals briefly with the idea that extreme individualism can become downright patholgoical in a society "riddled with robots" (226-27; ch. 59).  End of novel recounts how the robot Giskard (who could "sense and adjust" human minds) propounded the "Zeroth Law" of Robotics—"A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"—and how the imperative to protect abstract humanity moved the robot Daneel Olivaw to bring about the founding of Gaia" (346-48; ch. 101).  For the continuation of Daneel's existence, and the establishment of "Galaxia" (the galaxy as mostly conscious organism), Daneel will "merge a human brain into" his own to "achieve a two-brain Gaia"  (350-52); the human he chooses is Fallom: "hermaphroditic, transductive, different"—and perhaps a new force in the galaxy (356).  See in this section, IA's Foundation's Edge and Prelude to Foundation.  Rev. Donald M. Hassler, FR, No. 98, 10.1 (Jan.-Feb. 1987): 32.  Audio book listed under Drama. 

 

 

3. FICTION, RDE, Revised 01/VII/93    Asimov, Isaac.  Prelude to Foundation.  New York: Doubleday/Foundation, 1988.  Rpt. [S. F.] Book Club, 1988 (no ISBN).  **¢+Sequel, in a sense, to IA's Robot's and Empire and the first book of the Foundation series in order of Foundation history PtF presents the early history of Hari Seldon and the adventures that helped him develop his theories of psychohistory.  Includes an "Author's Note" giving a list of IA's Robot, Foundation, and Empire books (ix-x).  See PtF for the city-planet Trantor and IA's continuing examination of the motifs of containment, inside/outside, and the City vs. the Garden.  See also for the heroic Dors Venabili (a female robot, who becomes the wife of Hari Seldon) and for R. Daneel Olivaw—who turns out to be quietly controlling Seldon's adventures, the story, and the galaxy.   Rev. Donald M. Hassler, SF&FBR Annual 1989: 174-75.  See in this section, IA's Robots of Dawn, Robots and Empire, Foundation's Edge, and Foundation and Earth. 

 

 

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