The Humanoids
by Jack Williamson
science fiction
copyright 1947
read in July 2013
rated 6/10: read to pass the time
My copy of this book has the first few pages ripped out. I had to search to find a publication date. I try to not see anyone else's view before I review. One thing I could not help but see -- this book is one of a series.
Which could explain why I have read the same story but as a short story.
Well... The same story but stripped down to its essentials.
Omnipotent robots have been programmed to protect and serve humans. In their efforts to protect, the robots smother humanity. All the best things have some risk -- so they are banned. The human animal is forced to become vegetable.
It took a few chapters of apparently irrelevant stuff to get to the point... I was beginning to wonder how the story would relate to its title and to the book's cover. Still, it got there.
It's all about one man's fight to resist the suffocation of the security-minded robots. He fights, he suffers, he loses.
Then there's the insufferably smart and smarmy character. The one who wins, no matter what. Remember... I think it was Gladstone Gander ? Donald Duck would fight and lose. Gladstone would just walk by and pick treasure of the ground...
That's what you have in The Humanoids: fighting and suffering and losing, versus relaxing, enjoying, winning.
Finally, the climax... and the fighter finally wins !
Or does he ?!
The fighter is "cured" by the robots. He joins the rest of the robot supporters: super-powered humans with their tireless robot servants.
Forget the rest of humanity. Those who did not "see the light". Those who are still drugged, controlled, treated as mindless pets. Forget about them.
All that matters is that the desperate fighter had now joined the ranks of the smug.
Humanity has its omnipotent servants. Servants who have been programmed to serve. You want it ? The robots provide it...
Unless you happen to want something different. Unless to want to bring change. Unless you want to be *human*...
Because then the robots will drug you back into their own version of humanity. The version that is ruled by the servants. With no questions allowed, nor answered.
If that is really meant to be a happy ending...
I'm not happy.
But I don't want a robot to say, you are not happy... and to drug me into a drooling yet complaisant state of... not being unhappy.
No. Not a satisfactory ending at all.
Perhaps the other Humanoid books were more forgiving of the strength of the vast range of human fallibility.
Perhaps.
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