Sci-Fi Radio 25 - The Twonky by Lewis Padgett

[james_davis_nicoll]

Sci-Fi Radio 25 - The Twonky by Lewis Padgett

Lewis Padgett is a pen name for C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner.

This is an example of indirect first contact gone wrong and is in the same sub-genre as Kornbluth's 'The Little Black Bag'. You can generally be sure that dropping unfamiliar advanced technology into an unsuspecting person's hands is going to go wrong but not necessarily how. I do wonder if there is a benevolent purpose to a Twonky, because I am not seeing it.

I think details of the story were changed for the play. The technology is more advanced than one would expect in a 1940s era story and I don't recall anyone dying in the original.

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

From faint memory of the story: the twonky might have been a weaponized surveillance device.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

If this (http://techreport.com/news/23809/olpc-project-drops-tablets-into-remote-villages) had been by Padgett or Kornbluth, it would have ended with the communities in flames.

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

I don't think Mimsy ended in much flamage.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

No, but the children were gone. Surely that's bad enough.

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

Oh come now. It's not like they were iPads.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

There are deaths in the original.

The Twonky does tasks, but it also deals out the death penalty. I can see why that would be something corporations of the future might manufacture. It would also explain why the time-warped repairman is so "Must make Twonky. Must complete job" if that's how that society rolls.

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

I went through my archives and found a link to the Arch Obler version of "The Twonky" on YouTube.

They changed the ending (it's listed as a comedy -- I guess they decided to take the comedic elements in the story and run with it), and the story is credited solely to Henry Kuttner, which surprised me.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting to do back-to-back reviews of all the prominent stories in the "regular folks with alien/future/alt-universe SFnal gadget" subgenre: "The Twonky", "The Little Black Bag", "Mimsy Were The Borogoves", William Tenn's "Child's Play". I suppose you could maybe count Jack Williamson's "With Folded Hands", though that's a bit different since the gadgets get introduced en masse. One of the subplots in Charlie Stross's "Singularity Sky" might count.

(When I read "Child's Play" I remember the thing that caused me the most shock-of-dysrecognition was the barbed aside about restricted neighborhoods.)

[scentofviolets.livejournal.com]

You can split this one a bit more finely to get "salesman makes business deal with alien for gadgets". ISTR one where the gadget in question was a temporary metal softener, ideal for metal working which ended with the collapse of civilization.

Another split is "aliens introduce alien tech to regular people to see what would happen". That one comes with lightheartedly sprinkling human society with super-duper duplicators just to see what would happen.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Rudy Rucker's "Realware" was one of the latter.

[(Anonymous)]

ISTR one where the gadget in question was a temporary metal softener, ideal for metal working which ended with the collapse of civilization.

I believe this is "Technological Retreat" by G. C. Edmondson, but I do not my copy of 13 Great Stories of Science Fiction to check.

rgl