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"The way you write science fiction is: you sit down at your writing machine and you open your mind to the first thought that comes through."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Robot Manifesto | ||
| A linotype machine demands its rights. |
A Linotype machine (used to set type for printing) has received an unusual upgrade; it has started to absorb the words it typesets.
| "It's Saturday," he told me, "and it's gone on a
five-day, forty-hour week. I made the mistake of
setting type yesterday for a book on Socialism and
labor relations, and... well, apparently... you
see" He reached into the top drawer of his desk. "Anyway, here's a galley proof of the manifesto it issued this morning, demanding its rights..." And as he did these mechanical duties George told me, it came to him fully that the Linotype no longer worked for him; he was working for the Linotype. Why it wanted to set type he didn't know and it didn't seem to matter. After all, that was what it was for, and probably it was instinctive. Or, as I suggested and he agreed was possible, it was interested in learning. And it read and assimilated by the process of typesetting. Vide: the effect in terms of direct action of its reading the Socialist books. |
| Technovelgy from ETAOIN SHRDLU,
by Frederic Brown. Published by Unknown Worlds in 1942 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the robot strike from Robots of the World! Arise! (1952) by Mari Wolf, the general strike of the robots from Rex (1934) by Harl Vincent, and the "metallic Marx" from The Robots Strike (1959) by Harry Harrison.
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'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
