This post is brought to you by Ships of Steel, edited by G. W. Thomas. Love a good robot story? Then this is the anthology for you. Of the four novellas, two have significant android characters. “Rolling Stone” by M. D. Jackson features Steel, a space agent who has an interesting partner in his android-ship, Darling. “The Hidden Heart” by G. W. Thomas features Sudana and her android friend, Zaar, as they chase space pirate treasure to the far end of the galaxy. That’s them on the cover…
Isaac Asimov, as a young SF reader, admired the work of his future boss, John W. Campbell. JWC had a series of planetary adventures featuring a buddy team, Penton & Blake. In Before the Golden Age (1974), in his discussion of one of Campbell’s tales, Ike admits:
It [“The Brain-Stealers of Mars’] impressed me, and for quite a while I tried to write Penton and Blake stories. An early example, which was a complete failure, was “Ring Around the Sun.” Then I wrote “Reason,” which involved Gregory Powell and Michael Donovan. I wrote and published four of what I called in my own mind “Powell and Donovan stories” in conscious and deliberate imitation of Penton and Blake.
The big difference between these two buddy series is that Powell & Donovan aren’t explorers but robot technicians. Three of the four stories are included in the early chapters of I, Robot (1950), after Asimov’s initial tale, “Robbie” and before the Susan Calvin stories. So I think we can say Ike was happy with them as part of his exploration of The Three Law of Robotics. Are they great Science Fiction? Let’s have a look.
Now all of these stories are going to be classic examples of the Campbellian problem story. This is an SF tale that puts the heroes into a very tight spot and only the application of logic and good Science will get them through. There will be no bulging muscles in hard slugging fights, no ray gun duels on the dusty streets of the Lower Martian towns. More’s the pity but Campbell (and Asimov) were not fans of that kind of SF. The days of Harry Bates were long behind us.
To be fair, the Penton & Blake stories, upon which Ike built these tales, were problem stories too, though I never felt Campbell neglected a little adventure in the mix. That is the different between 1941 and 1936. Five years is a vast gulf in the early days of Science Fiction.
“Reason” (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1941) has Powell & Donovan working on a station in space that has the job of beaming energy to Earth. They are trying to create a system of robots that will make it unnecessary to have any humans working there. They run into problems when the lead robot, Cutie (QT-1) develops a Superiority Complex and locks the humans out. They try their hardest to convince the robot that Earth is real and that the humans created the robots. In the end, Cutie is never dissuaded (Asimov’s slight comment on religious types) but Donovan realizes after the passing of a magnetic storm, that it doesn’t matter. Cutie will keep the station running perfectly because it pleases the Master (the energy generator).
The next story is and is not a Powell & Donovan tale. I suspect it was rejected by John W. Campbell and so Ike changed the names and sold it to Ray Palmer instead. (At this time Asimov was paying for university partly with story sales. He needed the cash.) This story would not be included in the first half of I, Robot but end up in The Rest of the Robot (1964) along with four more Calvins.
“Robot AL 76 Goes Astray” (Amazing Stories, February 1942) begins with two techs who should have been Powell & Donovan (Quell & Tobe). They have lost one of their lunar robots that they are testing on Earth. (Robots are not allowed on Earth except for test purposes.) Robot AL 76 ends up with a human tinkerer named Randolph Payne. He calls the Robot Al. Payne figures he can get a reward for the robot and tries to keep him around. This causes AL76 to start building a Disintro, a giant ray gun, in his shed.
When other people come across the robot, it gets crazy with stupid humans. (A little bit of a rerun of Eando Binder’s “The Robot Aliens” from 1935, which Asimov surely read.) AL76 uses his newly constructed Disintro to take off the top of a mountain before the panicking humans destroy it. The tale ends with our Powell & Donovan replacements wishing the Disintro had survived, because it had been powered on nothing more than (Lovecraftian italics please!) two flashlight batteries!
My Best Science Fiction Story (1949) edited by Leo Marguiles featured this second tale with an introduction by Asimov. In this blurb, Asimov explains that this tale was meant as a “self-parody” of his robot stories.
Anyway, the reason I choose ROBOT AL 76 GOES ASTRAY from among the rest of the robot yams for inclusion here is that it’s the light-heart’ed one. In a sense, it’s a self-satire. Of course, it’s a great day for an author when he becomes important enough to be satirized, and if I waited for a spontaneous gesture on the part of others, I could wait decades, centuries, if I lived long enough. So I took care of the satire myself and did it gently. This represents an ideal combination.
I know for a fact this is not Ike’s favorite of all his works, or even his robot stories. Marguiles made his selections from stories he had copyrights to from the old Ray Palmer files, so Asimov and the other authors did not have free rein to choose their stories. Asimov’s comments above sound false to me since in 1942 when he wrote “Robot AL76 Goes Astray” he had only written one Powell & Donovan. Seven years later when the anthology came out, Ike may have felt that way, but not back in 1942.
“Runaround” (Astounding Science-Fiction, March 1942) has Powell & Donovan working at a mining facility on Mercury. Things look bad when their newest robot runs away while on a critical mission to dig up some selenium. The duo must figure out some way to retrieve and fix Speedy (SPD 13) before sunrise when the Sun will kill any humans who are exposed. Powell manages to get Speedy back by using The First Law. By exposing himself to dangerous light, the robot must work to save any human in danger. More fun than Speedy are the the two older giant robots that the humans ride around on. (I want one.)
“Catch That Rabbit” (Astounding Science-Fiction, February 1944) feels like another version of “Reason”. This time the robot techs are at another mine with Dave (DV-5). Dave’s job is to be the main thinker for a cluster of robots. The only problem is he keeps dodging work and dancing around or marching with his pals. None of the ore is getting processed. Whenever humans are around the robots are fine. But the plan is to have no humans on the station. Powell & Donovan figure out this weird behavior happens when a crisis comes along. They decide to engineer their own accident and get themselves trapped in a mine collapse. Only as they attract Dave’s attention (by shooting one of the other robots) do they solve the mystery. Dave has been malfunctioning because of his collective programming.
“The First Law” (Fantastic Universe, October 1956) begins with Mike Donovan saying he heard about a time a robot disobeyed the First Law. This is 1956 and Ike has already written The Caves of Steel (Galaxy, October November December 1953) with Lij Bailey and R. Daniel Olivaw. They would appear for a sequel The Naked Sun (Astounding Science Fiction, October November December 1956) which uses this same idea for a Murder Mystery. That being said: why is this story in Fantastic Universe? (To be honest, it goes back to Eando Binder and the original “I, Robot”.)
Donovan tells how he and Powell were on Titan with a type of robot that was never mass-produced, the MA or Emma. Titan is subject to storms for eighty percent of the year, making mining unprofitable. The new Emma could work in any weather. Unfortunately Emma 2 goes missing. Donovan is crossing a six miles stretch back to the station when bad weather hits. He is lost in a blizzard when he notices that a snowpup is following him. These creatures are deadly. He is about to shoot it when Emma 2 appears and rescues the creature, not him! This is in direct violation of the First Law. The snow stops and Donovan makes it back to camp. He finds Emma 2 there. He now understands what could cause a robot to defy its programming. The snowpup wasn’t a monster but the robot’s baby. Only a mother’s love is stronger…
And now you know why it appeared in Fantastic Universe, a magazine devoted to Science Fantasy, a type of SF that isn’t rigorously scientific. A pregnant robot, now that wasn’t going to appear in Astounding. It did show up in The Rest of the Robots. Powell doesn’t really appear in this one.
Conclusion
Isaac Asimov essentially abandoned Powell & Donovan after 1944. He now had Susan Calvin working in the very offices of U. S. Robotics to deliver his argument-stories. For that is what Ike does. He writes arguments. Having a two-man team always insured that there was two sides to any discussion. In the first tale”Robbie” aka “Strange Playfellow” (Super Science Stories, September 1940), it is the husband and wife that argue. In any Foundation story it is two on the Hari Seldon side arguing how to deal with something like the Mule. Even his famous “Nightfall” is a newspaperman and an acolyte arguing before the stars show up. This was how Asimov delivered his ideas in this “Literature of Ideas” as SF has been called. What do they argue about? Whatever the problem is in the Problem Story. How do we get that robot back? How do we convince it that we build robots? etc. It’s a tried-and-true formula for the Good Doctor. I can only take it in small amounts though. So I’ll wait and read the Susan Calvin stories later. I’m off to peruse some Arthur C. Clarke…
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