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"Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes."
- William Gibson
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| Android Son | ||
| An android son for a childless couple. |
Here are three vignettes from this short story to illustrate David, a child-sized android with an eight year-old's sensibility.
| Slowly, he shook his head. "If she loved me, then why can't I talk to her?"
"You're being silly, David. Mummy's lonely. That's why she had you." "She's got Daddy. I've got nobody 'cept you, and I'm lonely." Teddy gave him a friendly cuff over the head. "If you feel so bad, you'd better go to the psychiatrist again." "I hate that old psychiatrist - he makes me feel I'm not real." He started to run across the lawn. The bear toppled out of the window and followed as fast as its stubby legs would allow.
Artificial sunlight was growing long and golden across the lawn - and David and Teddy were staring through the window at them.
As the two adults disappeared from the room, boy and bear sat down beneath the standard roses.
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| Technovelgy from Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,
by Brian Aldiss. Published by Harper's Bazaar in 1969 Additional resources -
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Compare to the robot baby from Life Everlasting (1934) by David H. Keller, the robotic infiltrator from Second Variety (1953) by Philip K. Dick, the robot brother from Brother Robot (1958) by Henry Slesar, the Purza the Pukha from The Rowan (1990) by Anne McCaffrey, and the artificial friend from Klara and the Sun (2021) by Kazuo Ishiguro.
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and Technology from Super-Toys Last All Summer Long
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Tech news articles related to works by Brian Aldiss
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Science Fiction
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
