story by SF master, Fritz Leiber, from, The Creature from Cleveland Depth is humorous in tone, but less so in content, It might be best read as a cautionary tale about the dangers of technology, logical advances in design and purpose, and unintended consequences, Not exactly unique themes for those long ago times or for current times, for that matter,
The springboard piece of technology is a device to help people remember important things, The device is called a tickler, after sitelinktickler files,
I couldn't help but think of smart phones the whole time I was reading it, Not half bad for a story written the early sixties, . . I wish Fritz Leiber less obscurity than seems his fate, His writing style is light, but not fluffy, and he grapples honestly with weighty issues,
I choose to think that thiswork is a cautionary tale about the iPhone, sitelinkBadelynge
I used to read a lot of Fritz Leiber's work when I was younger, This one's a sharp little novella with the somewhat prescient speculative warning of the dangers of allowing machines to think for us and organize our lives, What is so clever about that, you might say, as you fiddle with your gadget of the week, or take that fifth call of the hour on your mobile/blackberry/pager.
Very clever indeed if you consider this was first published in a preinternet, Leiber doesn't just throw up an idea and leave it hanging though, He makes the reader ask questions and wonder if some ideas change the world too much, Reading the story today is a much different experience than reading it decades ago because human invention has so radically changed the way we exist from day to day already.
Back then the story was a mildly disturbing speculative piece, with ideas and gimmickry evolving like a virus or a new form of life, Today, in some respects, we are on the brink of doing just what the story warns against, This is not a horror science fiction story, Or is it
Written in, âœThe Creature from Cleveland Heightsâ is a glimpse into the future of social media, smartphones, and brainless social interaction, I was delighted to see the underlyin Fritz Leiber's "The Creature from Cleveland Depths" might have sounded farfetched fifty years ago a comic warning about people being bossed around by little machines that ride on their shoulders.
But now, it seems to describe the real world of cell phones, Blackberries and iPods, and its prediction of terrible things to come isn't so easy to shrug off.
Leiber sets the tale in a future when "missiles are on the prowl," and most people live underground, George Gusterson is a writer with crazy ideas one being, he still lives on the surface, For another, he imagines a gizmo that would remind him of things like when to turn on the TV, George's mere whim inspires an actual gadget called the Tickler, just a "wire recorder and clock" at first, but then, . . it whispers constantly through an earphone, It instills positive thinking. It injects drugs. It makes decisions. It weightspounds. And it won't get off, Only Gusterson understands what "the little fellow perched on your shoulder" is really saying, one word: Obey! And only Gusterson knows what to say back, if it's not too late.
The creature isn't LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, A quaint and hilarious warning about the dangers of smartphone usage, Nothing new here. Librivox Thought this was going to be about some slimy monstrosity crawling its way out of the depths of a murky lake, going by the title, Was surprised to find that it was scifi! I knew nothing of this story before I read it it was recommended to me as something I might like,
Bit of a rambling beginning, but I'm glad I stuck with it, A dystopian story of people walking around with glazed eyes, wholly dependent on a device to tell them how to live their daily lives and losing the ability to think for themselves.
. . hmmm! With eventual horrifying consequences, . . As probably one of the last remaining members of humanity that doesn't own a smartphone, does not engage with social media and lives a life of relative isolation compared to the rest of Western society not to mention being a writer myself! And I quite like the idea of 'Insanity Fiction'!, this was a tale with which I could ironically relate.
But the thing I liked most about this story was the surprisingly positive ending, In this modern world where cynical, relentlessly tragic stories seem to be the main fad, I found it satisfactory and refreshing, and kind of a relief,
This is the first story I have read from Fritz Leiber, I liked it. See ya later Fritz Fritz Leiber's "The Creature from Cleveland Depths" One of my favorite genre is dystopian based stories and ESPECIALLY if they are older books! There are a few favorite modern ones I loved but I prefer to read about what people in the past wrote or thought about these societies.
In High School, Orwell's "" started it off, but when I started reading again later in life besides reading "", I discovered Huxley's "Brave New World" amp Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We", I mention the last two books because each had something that reminded me of those books as I read this wonderfully poignant short story,
"Brave New World" had soma, a drug to pacify the population as this story it was The Ticker which had a drug like inducement but not sure if all models had a drug induction, nonetheless the mass were automatons.
In "We" the glass buildings were the norm, whereas in this story only for the people who lived above ground, which numbers were miniscule compared to those underground, Why they lived underground, well this was written in, The Cold War and the fear of the Russians which is the reason here, As a kid my father took my brother and myself to the museum in Chicago, that had an underground coal mine of sorts, So like Gus and his family, I would rather take my chance were I could see the heavens, then the claustrophobic below,
This story has to do with two friends, one who lives with his family above and his friend that works for an electronic company below, He comes above to visit his friend for ideas and one idea goes haywire bringing forth a society that has no more thoughts but what they are told, The product that was suppose to help brought a society to its knees, without any escape it seems, Many things mentioned here are products of the future,
As always future societies as well as today's world thinks of new things to invent but do they really think of the effect it will bring, I sure hope that whatever one invents they think twice before bringing to the masses because it might effect their lives too, This was a twisted little story that involved wetware, A cautionary tale about technology and being depended on it too much, You could almost replace the "Tickler" with a "smart" phone, Wow
This story serves as a sort of prophetic tale, It is an interesting look at dawning AI and mans quick dependence on new technology, Probably/. A fun relic from the Golden Age, The theme is still relevant today, but there are many elements of the story that put it definitely into its era, e, g. , the Freudian references and the Cold War concern about atomic war, . It is also funny to see the protagonist using an electric typewriter in what is clearly a future, The cold war is hot, and most of United States' society has moved underground to be safe and free from snooping, A few people remain above ground where a quirky writer, Gusterson, and his wife fend off suggestions from friends to move underground, Gusterson comes up with ideas for his books and his closest friend, who is a mole, gives them to his employer who in turn uses these ideas as concepts for new products.
One idea is a TICKLER, aversion of a personal digital assistant PDA or smartphone that can provide a user with is his schedule for the day, and more.
As the technology advances, the moles become addicted to their TICKLERS, This story might be a harbinger of things to come or maybe a horror that is already here, The story is very humorous and an easy listen, Phil Chenevert narrates the Librivox version, A cautionary tale of personal electronics in future Cleveland, A short read that features the word "tickler" far too often, It is classic Leiber in the writing style and tempo and makes for an enjoyable and brief reading adventure, Loved it. This is definitely one of Leiber's gems, The only flaw is his experiment in "future" jargon, It causes some of his sentences to be very, . . awkward given current American English slang, Also of note is that the antagonists are rather Daleklike, despite this novel appearing a year before Doctor Who went on the air, Leiber's exploration of our increasingly problematic relationship with our gadgets and with the ways in which they open us up to manipulation by government and corporation alike is prophetic.
The realization that this book was written fifty years comes as quite a shock, This book describes something very much like the Singularity promoted by Ray Kurzweil and his fellow travelers, After initially being unimpressed, even nonplussed by the theatrical and frivolous style of Friz Leiber, I'm finally starting to take a shine to him,
The burlesqueries are toned down a little in this postdisaster satire in which most of society lives underground and amuse themselves with the latest technological gizmos, A stray word from a writer who lives above ground leads to the invention of the Tickler, something like an iPhone with AI,
As with most fictional AI the machines start to cause problems for their creators and Gusterson has to prevent the 'ticklerization' of the entire population, informing his wife thusly:
“Im merely goin out an save the world,” he told her.
“I may be back for supper and I may not, ”
He wasn't, but I won't reveal whether he saved the world or not, The parallels to modern smartphones was startling for a story written in, Though I doubt our smartphones will meet the same end that the devices in this story do, . . This is a lighthearted story about a serious theme, It's somewhat prescient, considering that it was first published in,except for the fact that Leiber did not foresee the miniaturization revolution in computing, Consequently, he envisions a scenario where something a bit like our cellphones but in some ways beyond them begins to take control of homo sapiens except that the device weighs something likepounds and must be worn on one's shoulder under a cape, to keep it fashionable.
Leiber's Quasimodo jokes add to the levity of the story,
The title is quite misleading, "The Creature" is actually a borglike entity of networked devices called "ticklers," which initially were "worn" by humans to remind them of their goals and tasks, While the terminology comes from office lingo, these "ticklers" actually prod their masters to varying degrees, all the way from a tickle to a serious kick, As their sophistication increases, the ticklers eventually administer pharmaceuticals to their wearers in order to regulate their moods and, ultimately, take control of them altogether,
"The Depths" refers to the fact that most humans are dwelling underground, The central character, a writer of "insanity novels," has, in contrast, chosen to remain aboveground, His buddy who works for an RampD company lives underground and develops the "tickler," based on the main character's novelistic imaginings,
At any rate, keep an eye on cell phone technology, It's already got you under surveillance GPS, while cookies are steering your browser and Google knows all your personal preferences, What next Will the cell phone eventually take over Is the cell phone where the "singularity revolution" will happen IF it happens I'm skeptical, but after reading this story I'm definitely spooked.
Note: I read the original printing of Leiber's story in an issue of Galaxy Science Fiction a digestsized magazine from, Wally Wood's illustrations added to the enjoyment!,, I suppose. Characters were rather overthetop caricatures, but that lent itself to some humor and witty lines, Fairly strong female character, given when it was written, And the close mapping of the tickler to the Blackberry amp its successors gives the story "prediction points, "
Suggested in conjunction with sitelinkSeven Views of Olduvai Gorge Terrifyingly relevant Not one of Leiber's best
This review is of the following free Kindle edition:
ASIN: BTSBVC
Publication date: March,
Language: English
File size: KB
Simultaneous device usage: Unlimited
TexttoSpeech: Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported
Enhanced typesetting: Enabled
XRay: Not Enabled
Word Wise: Not Enabled
Print length: pages
ISBN:
Lending: Enabled
A better title than story.
Even scifi masters must have off days, Horrid little machines, vaguely similar to smart phones and similar devices, take over,
Then get out thought by one man and consequently, . . No. No spoilers. .