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"I just can't be politic. I never learned how to do that and I don't like doing that. I think it's false."
- Harlan Ellison
 |
| Bendix Anxiety Reducer | ||
| Machine-based psychotherapy. |
Elwood Caswell knew he was a homicidal maniac. That's why he hurried into the Home Therapy Appliances Store.
| "Oh," said the clerk, glancing distrustfully at Caswell's bloodshot eyes. "You seem a little nervous. Perhaps the portable Bendix Anxiety Reducer."
 (Mechanotherapy devices from 'Bad Medicine') "Anxiety's not my ticket either. What have you got for homicidal mania?" |
| Technovelgy from Bad Medicine,
by Robert Sheckley. Published by Galaxy in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Science fiction readers have had plenty of sessions with computer therapists; consider the Sigfrid von Shrink from Frederik Pohl's 1970 novel Gateway, Dr. Smile from Philip K. Dick's 1965 novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and the machine psychologists from James Blish's 1957 novel Cities in Flight.
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'If you're one of those rarities who haven't attended a rocket-polo "carnage", let me tell you it's a colorful affair.'
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.'
'a walking balloon proceeded with long strides of its aluminum legs...'
'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...'
'Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day...'
'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'
