Thursday, January 17, 2019
The End of His Service!
Let's try a little change of pace around here for a bit with a timeless futuristic robo tale of man and machine, or man vs. machine... uh, are there actually any stories like this that have a happy ending? From the November 1951 issue of Strange Worlds #5, art credits at GCD list 3 different illustrators on this one: Norman Nodel, John Rosenberger (page 3), and Werner Roth (page 4.)
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ReplyDeleteLike any good story with a robot, this one really makes you feel for X-L, and it only takes a few pages.
ReplyDeleteIt's another little tribute to 2001 that on Page 4, when Jacton said "Open the door," for one second I expected X-L to say "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't do that."
I'm not crying, I have burning metal in my eye ...
ReplyDeleteThis is a great tale with some real emotional weight, but there's a couple oddities that sci-fi usually has. For instance, we've added one sci-fi element -- the robot. Everything else is the same! Regular old guns (instead of lasers or whatever), regular houses instead of something more high tech, etc. At least they have the new hi-tech dress material that *really* clings to Mary! :)
The 3 artists (if true) did a relatively good job of blending in together. Mary on page 3 is a stand-out, though.
Asimov's Three Laws of robotics would have come in handy in this tale.
ReplyDeleteToday, in this day in age, we have robots building cars, the Japanese are working on building robots to care for the infirm and elderly, the military are working on robo-soldiers- the future is here like it or not.
Again, Asimov's Three Laws of robotics would come in real handy in today's robotic programming.
This is a very sad story about a robot who knows what it's supposed to do, yet has the courage to stand up for what it knows is wrong and gets punished for it.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm not mistaken, Adam Link, a robot who becomes self-aware from a series of stories written by Eando Binder may have actually had a happy ending in store for him, unlike most of these stories where the robot is misunderstood. Well, the same happens to Adam at first as well, but things start to look up for him eventually.
Both EC Weird Science-Fantasy and Creepy comics adapted some of the stories to their issues--but eventually discontinued them.
Jacton? More like Jerkton! Poor XL.
ReplyDeleteThere aren't enough plats to equal the pleasure I get from your hard work, Mr.K.