More Words, Deeper Hole

The Robot Killer

An experimental robot clumsy enough to kill a kitten it was told to pet is given away as a prize in a contest. The lead researcher protests as this is obviously a bad idea that can only end in tears but the company he works for thinks there's PR potential in using the robot in this manner and he is overruled.

As it turns out, it's an even worse idea than it seems because the wife of the winner is mentally ill, convinced her husband no longer loves her and that she has been replaced in his affections by the lady next door. The wife becomes increasing fixated on the robot as the only faithful companion she has, which of course can only end with her ordering the mechanical man to kill her hated rival. ( Read more... )

The Rocket And The Skull

The UN program to beat the Eastern Alliance to the Moon and by controlling it control the world is threatened when a pilot vital to the program crashes his aircraft. While he survives the crash, he is badly injured and to make matters worse ( Read more... )

Worlds Apart

Humanity's ship to Neptune is en route (at the leisurely pace of 12 km/s, if I heard right) when suddenly they find themselves within the debris field of a comet! Flung off course by encounter, all seems hopeless until ( Read more... )

The Green Thing

A psychiatrist of the future discovers to his surprise several of his patients have had exactly the same dream. Investigation reveals the horrible truth: ( Read more... )

Space Wreck

Sound quality too crappy, gave up before the clearly doomed vessel set off into space.

The Other Man

The authorities and a woman named Mira are confounded when Scotty -a trusted member of the Security Police- is arrested for killing a man in Cairo. Worse, in the days leading up to the arrest, he seems to have engaged in some very suspicious activities. The problem is, when Scott comes home to Mira, his wife, he has no idea about any of this, and this is because ( Read more... )

When Worlds Met

When the humans establish a base on the Moon, the Martians, a peaceful race, make diplomatic overtures to the Earth. Unfortunately for the Earth, among the many areas in which Martian technology is more advanced than ours is remote sensing, which means they have a much better idea about how the humans are really reacting rather than having to rely on human assurances of peaceful intentions. They are not much impressed by the heavily armed ships that escort them, the mine field in which they were instructed to land or certain details of terrestrial society they can see, like show trials in a Communist nation or a lynch mob in the South.

On the up side they really are peaceful so this is not one of those stories that ends with mass death.

I conditionally take back what I said; in the context of 1950s SF, this has some interesting points. One is that the world government is said to be military in nature but also likely unstable because it does not address the true conflicts between groups except to temporarily suppress them. Another is that the guy who comes up with a technical solution for communication and who is the Voice of Reason in one scene is explicitly Chinese. Granted, voiced in a cringingly awful way but there were not a lot of sympathetic Asian characters in SF in 1950.

I am just going to ignore the bits that seem to imply they can hear sounds in the vacuum of space.

The Martians seem to be screwed here; the humans may not be able to reach Mars in 2020 but presumably some day they will be able to and what will the peaceful Martians do then?