dear goodness. what a find! the reader at librivox "gregg margarite" has a unique voice and an excellent reading voice, he brought this story alive, most excellent. highly recommended.::at librivox dot org under the title "the ego machine", . . go for it. free clever and artistic. wowza. oh. and the story is good too at least with margarite's reading/interpretation,
rd reading and just as delightful as ever, . . i love this book and the reader is excellent! Uhhh not that good Very sloppy, Occasionally funny. Like most public domain scifi, there's something very arbitrary and not well thought out about it,
How about a story about a talking robot imprinting personalities on people temporarily for research
Ok, . . What kind of personalities
You know, Famous historical figures.
Who do you have in mind Napoleon Alexander the great Jesus
Nah, The big guns. Benjamin Disraeli!
I guess that could work, . .
Oh and also we'll have a screenwriter trying
to get out of a contract with an evil company,
Wut. When a slightly mad robot drunk on AC, wants you to join an experiment in optimum ecologydon't do it! After all, who wants to argue like Disraeli or live like Ivan the Terrible.
. .
Nicholas Martin looked up at the robot across the desk,
"I'm not going to ask what you want," he said, in a low, restrained voice, "I already know. Just go away and tell St, Cyr I approve. Tell him I think it's wonderful, putting a robot in the picture, We've had everything else by now, except the Rockettes, But clearly a quiet little play about Christmas among the Portuguese fishermen on the Florida coast "must" have a robot, Only, why not six robots Tell him I suggest a baker's dozen, Go away. " The Ego Machine by Henry Kuttner is a humorous science fiction tale that explores the problems of a writer who gets the ability to change personalities for up tohours.
A robot from the future provides the capability, but the changes have not always the intended results, A humorous tale that reflects Henry Kuttner's pulp fiction style, Aptly narrated on Librovox. I listened to this as a free download from LibriVox, org. One of the more bizarre science fiction I have read but an interesting read, I haven't quite figured out yet what it all means but thought provoking nonetheless, A humorous story about a serious writer trying to extricate himself from the clutches of a Hollywood studio which wants him to write "B" screenplays he accomplishes his goal with the help of a visiting alien robot but only after he learns how to get the robot "high" on jolts of electricity.
I wasn't particularly impressed by anything in this story, I also didn't think it was humorous either, To be honest I don't understand what so many find brilliant about it,
Not a very good example of Kuttner's work and it feels like he did this alone without any input from Moore, I try to put myself into the context of when the story was writtenbut that didn't help me as much as usual with the language and attitudes.
I found the personalities, both actual and assumed through future technology, to be much too simplistic and exaggerated, And I didn't think it was all that humorous either which was apparently one of the aims of the story, As a team I think that Kuttner and Moore wrote a lot of very good SF and fantasy even though Moore was often not listed as a coauthor.
The use of a robot in this story reminds me of Kuttner's "Gallegher" stories which Moore claimed were written by Kuttner alone even though they were published under the Padgett name.
This also seems to reinforce my feeling that although I like the writing of the Kuttner/Moore team, I'm not that fond of Kuttner's individual work,.stars. Definitely weird, somewhat enjoyable, a bit confusing, I'm going to assume it was in Weird Tales Magazine or something similar back in the day because it fits the bill,
You might be wondering if why I somewhat enjoyed it, why give it,My reasoning is simple, . it was just okay. There were some funny moments but nothing that put it over the top for me to get it into thatstar or higher spectrum, A surreal story of a great genius, a work of a classic of science fiction literature, I love this book about robots and about an interesting philosophy of life with them, A fun story, would work better as a comic, This is a splendid bit of quick fun, I can't say much without giving away the whole short story but we meet a classy robot on a research assignment and hijinks ensue,
Actually I don't usually have a lot of fun with stories about song and dance but this one doesn't get bogged down in rehearsal town, the profession is used as a setting for the main character to try out some personality changes and I definitely had fun with it.
Ok, great story
This book read like a story from the Twilight zone, Very enjoyable indeed. The ending wasn't expected, the beginning had you wondering what was going on, I actually thought that the robot was from the studio, enough spoilers, read and enjoy, Classic Kuttner hilarious science fiction, A sharp satire about creativity, with a SF slant, This is both a delightful and immensely humorous science fiction spoof with a twist, When a robot and a movie screen writer begin to overindulge in libation sparks are sure to fly, Lacking a suitable personality, the writer tries two on for both size and effect, The two forenamed personalities are that of the twotime British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeliand the one time Tsar of All the Russias Ivan Vasilyvich, better known as Ivan the Terrible.
Ivan even outdid Henry VIII in having eight wives maybe adding additional food for his reported insecurities and depressions which, in turn caused him to be over reactionary and not such a nice guy.
This is a short story well worth the time and effort and is bound to add color, insight and lasting pleasure to the reader, Henry Kuttner with or without his wife, C, L. Moore is considered one of the four greatest scifi writers of thes, If one reads this novella, it is easy to believe and will soon be scouring the market for other prints and reprints of his other works, I highly recommend this short yarn to science fiction lovers and anyone looking for amusement, Henry Kuttner was, alone and in collaboration with his wife, the great science fiction and fantasy writer sitelink C, L. Moore, one of the four or five most important writers of thes, the writer whose work went furthest in its sociological and psychological insight to making science fiction a human as well as technological literature.
He was an important influence upon every contemporary and every science fiction writer who succeeded him, In the earlys and under many pseudonyms, Kuttner and Moore published very widely through the range of the science fiction and fantasy pulp markets, Their fantasy novels, all of them for the lower grade markets like Future, Thrilling Wonder, and Planet Stories, are forgotten now their science fiction novel Henry Kuttner was, alone and in collaboration with his wife, the great science fiction and fantasy writer sitelink C.
L. Moore, one of the four or five most important writers of thes, the writer whose work went furthest in its sociological and psychological insight to making science fiction a human as well as technological literature.
He was an important influence upon every contemporary and every science fiction writer who succeeded him, In the earlys and under many pseudonyms, Kuttner and Moore published very widely through the range of the science fiction and fantasy pulp markets, Their fantasy novels, all of them for the lower grade markets like Future, Thrilling Wonder, and Planet Stories, are forgotten now their science fiction novels, Fury and Mutant, are however well regarded.
There is no question but that Kuttner's talent lay primarily in the shorter form Mutant is an amalgamation of five novelettes and Fury, his only true science fiction novel, is considered as secondary material.
There are, however,orshorter works which are among the most significant achievements in the field and they remain consistently in print, The critic James Blish, quoting a passage from Mutant about the telepathic perception of the little blank, silvery minds of goldfish, noted that writing of this quality was not only rare in science fiction but rare throughout literature: "The Kuttners learned a few thing writing for the pulp magazines, however, that one doesn't learn reading Henry James.
" In the earlys, Kuttner and Moore, both citing weariness with writing, even creative exhaustion, turned away from science fiction both obtained undergraduate degrees in psychology from the University of Southern California and Henry Kuttner, enrolled in an MA program, planned to be a clinical psychologist.
A few science fiction short stories and novelettes appeared Humpty Dumpty finished the Baldy series in, Those stories Home There Is No Returning, Home Is the Hunter, Two Handed Engine, and Rite of Passage were at the highest level of Kuttner's work, He also published three mystery novels with Harper Row of which only the first is certainly his the other two, apparently, were farmed out by Kuttner to other writers when he found himself incapable of finishing them.
Henry Kuttner died suddenly in his sleep, probably from a stroke, in FebruaryCatherine Moore remarried a physician and survived him by almost three decades but she never published again.
She remained in touch with the science fiction community, however, and was Guest of Honor at the World Convention in Denver inl, She died of complications of Alzheimer's Disease in, His pseudonyms include:Edward J, Bellin Paul Edmonds Noel Gardner Will Garth James Hall Keith Hammond Hudson Hastings Peter Horn Kelvin Kent Robert O, Kenyon C. H. Liddell Hugh Maepenn Scott Morgan sitelink Lawrence O'Donnell sitelink Lewis Padgett Woodrow Wilson Smith Charles Stoddard sitelink,