As the world becomes more technological and populations grow the need to keep the machinery of the civilization working becomes more important and while we may be able to trust machinery the true question always lies in the men who run those machines? What would happen if those who ran the internet, or the airlines, or the truckers who bring us our food went on a general strike?
This question is as relevant or more so now than it was in 1940 when Robert A. Heinlein wrote "The Roads Must Roll" and while the technology that is used in this story can feel a little silly the ba
sic idea that is explored is one still worth exploring.
The roads in "The Road Must Roll" have been replaced with what amounts to moving sidewalks. These can be used to move people and goods quickly across the country. Their only real flaws are that the belts can break, though that has been largely fixed and the technicians who are needed to run them. The story is about those technicians realizing the power that they have and the attempt to exercise that power.
The main character of this story is about the chief engineer of those technicians. A large part of his job is to ensure that the technicians continue to run the road well so when one of his chief deputies shuts down a major roadway and threatens to attempt a general strike it is him who is forced to deal with it.
More impressive than the technology in this story is the political idea that is set forth of a new type of social order. This group call themselves the functionalists and believe that each man should be able to use the importance of his function in society to get what he wants. This idea works because each person believes that his function in society is vital and in large part it is thanks to the interconnectivity of our society. It works especially well with the road technicians who have a near monopoly on transportation in this world.
Of special note in this story is the use of what amounts to a Segway. It is described as a two wheeled vehicle that is kept upright and used to travel though the small areas of the roads mechanisms quickly because it is little wider than a man's shoulders. I don't know if this is the first description of this technology but as this story was written in 1940 it seems likely.
All of Heinlein's work is fun to read. With reasonable action and a quick pace he spends more time than I would like describing the technology of the road but he does it well and makes it seem like a real technology which is what was required and this is a story I would strongly recommend.
Picture from alltellering on deviant art
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sic idea that is explored is one still worth exploring.
The roads in "The Road Must Roll" have been replaced with what amounts to moving sidewalks. These can be used to move people and goods quickly across the country. Their only real flaws are that the belts can break, though that has been largely fixed and the technicians who are needed to run them. The story is about those technicians realizing the power that they have and the attempt to exercise that power.
The main character of this story is about the chief engineer of those technicians. A large part of his job is to ensure that the technicians continue to run the road well so when one of his chief deputies shuts down a major roadway and threatens to attempt a general strike it is him who is forced to deal with it.
More impressive than the technology in this story is the political idea that is set forth of a new type of social order. This group call themselves the functionalists and believe that each man should be able to use the importance of his function in society to get what he wants. This idea works because each person believes that his function in society is vital and in large part it is thanks to the interconnectivity of our society. It works especially well with the road technicians who have a near monopoly on transportation in this world.
Of special note in this story is the use of what amounts to a Segway. It is described as a two wheeled vehicle that is kept upright and used to travel though the small areas of the roads mechanisms quickly because it is little wider than a man's shoulders. I don't know if this is the first description of this technology but as this story was written in 1940 it seems likely.
All of Heinlein's work is fun to read. With reasonable action and a quick pace he spends more time than I would like describing the technology of the road but he does it well and makes it seem like a real technology which is what was required and this is a story I would strongly recommend.
Picture from alltellering on deviant artWhile stories that want to be important are great sometimes you want something that is simply fun. A story that doesn’t try to be a lot more. "The Big Front Yard" by Clifford D. Simak is just that fun. It is the story of that guy that seems to be in every town who has lived there forever and can fix anything, as well as dickering so well that he can make a living trading and selling his stuff.
Hiram Taine is just such a man. He repairs anything ad sells antiques and while he isn't rich he is making a living doing that, but one day while he is preparing to fix a TV he discovers that his basement suddenly has a roof that he didn't put there. What is more odd the glass like material under the wood appears to be almost indestructible.
Over the next days he begins to have more things around his house repaired with no explanation and he begins to worry but whatever is here seems friendly enough. And then one day as he is returning to his home he sees that the entire front of his house is gone.
Rushing inside he finds that whatever has been fixing things has connected his house to another world, and within hours the secret has slipped out and everyone in the world is clamoring to take over his home. The U.S.A. government is threatening emanate domain and the U.N. is arriving.
First contact stories are common and in many ways the ideas of this story are not new. Aliens visit earth and give us a new way to connect with the universe, yet by grounding this story so fully in the time(the fifties) and place it makes it seem far more real than many of those stories. In addition this is not a story of war or aggression. The humans react relatively calmly to the news and the worst thing anyone does is try to hack open a bigger door in Hiram's house so they can get vehicles through it and one of the major conflicts is the loss of Hirum's dog and Hirum's sense of duty for the entire situation since it happened in his front yard.
"The Big Front Yard" won the 1959 Hugo award for best Novelette. Clifford D. Simak won two other Hugo awards, one for "Way Station" in 1964 and in 1981 far "Grotto of the Dancing Deer". In addition to this he was named a grandmaster of science fiction by the science fiction and fantasy writers of America.
You aren't likely to have any great revelations while reading "The Big Front Yard" but it is an enjoyable story and one that is so grounded in reality that you really feel as if you're hearing something that could actually happen even while much of it is quite absurd.
Got the picture from This Website, a bunch of reviews there too.
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"The Big Front Yard" won the 1959 Hugo award for best Novelette. Clifford D. Simak won two other Hugo awards, one for "Way Station" in 1964 and in 1981 far "Grotto of the Dancing Deer". In addition to this he was named a grandmaster of science fiction by the science fiction and fantasy writers of America.
You aren't likely to have any great revelations while reading "The Big Front Yard" but it is an enjoyable story and one that is so grounded in reality that you really feel as if you're hearing something that could actually happen even while much of it is quite absurd.
Got the picture from This Website, a bunch of reviews there too.
"Flowers for Algernon" is the perfect example of what science fiction can do better than any other genre. By using science as a instigator of massive changes in Charley mental state it allows the author, Daniel Keyes, to examine human intellect, the desire for knowledge, love, sexuality and more in ways that could never be achieved in more traditional stories, allowing us in the end to know more about Charley than we ever could have in those stories.
"Flowers for Algernon" is the story of Charley a janitor with an IQ of 68 who wants to be smarter. He is studying at night to learn to read and write but even that simple task is nearly impossible for him. He is given the opportunity to be given a experimental surgery that will triple his IQ.
The title character of the story, Algernon, is a laboratory mouse who has been given the procedure before Charley and regularly defeats Charley at tests of intelligence early in the story as well as being an indicator throughout the story of where Charley is likely to end up.
This story is told through a journal kept by Charley. This is the key to this stories success. Charley as the narrator tells as much about his increases and eventually decreasing intelligence through the words he uses, spelling and punctuation as he does through the actual stories he tells. This keeps the focus of the story on what is important, Charley rather than attempting to deviate into other interesting but superfluous piece of the story.
There are numerous lessons and themes in this story but perhaps the most important is the reminder that people with low IQs are still people with feelings and emotions just like ours. This is most clearly seen in one of the stories Charley tells at the near peak of his intelligence of being in a restaurant when a busboy drops a stack of dishes. Charl
ey finds himself laughing with everyone else until he sees the look in the boy's eyes and recognizes who he was previously. He then becomes angry, more at himself than anyone else.
It is this moment, along with the changing of how other people see Charley, that makes the end of this book less melancholy. In the end the effects of the operation wear off and Charley slowly reverts to his previous mental state, but even as he returns to who he was the emotional lessons seem to remain. Those who had made fun of him because they were smarter now understand better after he has, inadvertently, done the same to them.
This is one of the most powerful stories in science fiction in large part because it is so perfectly suited to the genre. Doing things that could not be realistically done in any other genre it examines the range of both human intellect and human emotion and the connections between them nearly perfectly.
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ey finds himself laughing with everyone else until he sees the look in the boy's eyes and recognizes who he was previously. He then becomes angry, more at himself than anyone else.
It is this moment, along with the changing of how other people see Charley, that makes the end of this book less melancholy. In the end the effects of the operation wear off and Charley slowly reverts to his previous mental state, but even as he returns to who he was the emotional lessons seem to remain. Those who had made fun of him because they were smarter now understand better after he has, inadvertently, done the same to them.
This is one of the most powerful stories in science fiction in large part because it is so perfectly suited to the genre. Doing things that could not be realistically done in any other genre it examines the range of both human intellect and human emotion and the connections between them nearly perfectly.