Mindwebs: Weep No More, Old Lady

[james_davis_nicoll]

Weep No More, Old Lady

I wonder if the hit and miss approach whoever assembled this archive takes to titles is related to the poor quality of some of the files.

There's a long tradition in SF of stories about angry, alienated geniuses; this would be an example of that sub-genre . The ur-example authors might want to look at before doing their particular version of the angry, alienated genius story is Judgment Day by L. Sprague de Camp, which compacts enough bitterness into its narrative to fuel a thousand Felicia Day Geeks Rule Jocks Drool music videos..


If you're revisiting a popular sub-genre like this one you have to find some way to make it your own. How Grant managed that was the twist about was the purpose of the research, which (spoiler)

was carried out to make sure an IQ-boosting drug was not too effective, lest the nation be denied its elevator operators and such.

Comments

[onyxlynx]

Telephone disinfectors?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

What variety of elitism is it to suppose that if people were more intelligent they'd never want to do physical labor again? Even I like doing a certain amount of housecleaning and home-repair-type-stuff, and most of my activities wouldn't be worse off if I were a disembodied voice as long as I still had Internet access.

And is it related to the belief that the moment holodecks come in nobody's going to ever want to do anything in the real world again, including have sex with non-fantasy-mates? Or that in the post-scarcity economy where money is meaningless there'll never be a cleaned bathroom again?