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"The trouble with too much genre SF is that it's so obviously the product of the conscious mind."
- William Gibson
 |
| Electric Monk | ||
| Robotic device provides belief services. |
| The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe. |
| Technovelgy from Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency,
by Douglas Adams. Published by Simon Schuster in 1987 Additional resources -
|
A few additional details are provided on the physical appearance of the Electric Monk.
So the Monks were built with an eye for originality of design and also for practical horse-riding ability. This was important. People, and indeed things, looked more sincere on a horse. So two legs were held to be both more suitable and cheaper than the more normal primes of seventeen, nineteen or twenty-three; the skin the Monks were given was pinkish-looking instead of purple, smooth and soft instead of crenellated. They were also restricted to just the one mouth and nose, but were given instead an additional eye, making for a grand total of two. A strange-looking creature indeed. But truly excellent at believing the most preposterous things.
Thanks to chelymorpha for contributing this item.
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
