Category Archives: robots

Ron Goulart Has a Screw Loose

Today, January 13, is the birthday of Ron Goulart (b. 1933). Beyond the occasional short story, Goulart hasn’t been very active in the field for quite some time, and that’s a shame. He seems to be focusing his energies on mysteries. I’ve not read much Goulart, but what i have read has been fun. He tends to have a somewhat whacky sense of humor.

Case in point, “What’s Become of Screwloose?” First published in the July-August 1970 issue of Worlds of If, this story has one of the most unusual openings of any story I’ve ever read.

Tom is a private detective working a missing persons case. He’s in the beach house owned by the missing woman, Mary, when the dishwasher attacks and tries to kill him. He manages to lure the dishwasher outside, where it breaks through the railing on the deck and falls into the ocean. The last he sees of it, the dishwasher is swimming out to sea.

“What’s Become of Screwloose?” was a fun little story involving a murder, a woman regaining her memory, and a sinister android tutor named Screwloose.

“What’s Become of Screwloose?” was the title story of a collection of the same name. I’ll be reading more of Goulart’s work in the future.

Robots for Asimov

i-robotI apologize for the campaign-esque sound of the title.  I’m still trying to get 2016 out of my head.  Anyway, I said yesterday at Adventures Fantastic that I’m going to be reading more of the classics of the field.  Furthermore I specifically named Asimov’s robot stories as one of the things I’ll be reading.

It’s Asimov’s 97th birthday today.  He was born January 2, 1920, in Russia.  I first read the robot stories in 7th grade.  It’s been more than a decade (going on two decades now) since I last read one of them.  I’ve read a few Asimov stories over the past year; I’m about a third of the way through The Winds of Change right now.

The robot stories have all been collected in The Complete Robot.  I’ve got a copy around somewhere, if I an ever find the darn thing.  I’m looking forward to diving into them.  Robots used to be pretty  ubiquitous in science fiction, but you don’t see them that much these days.  They’ve been supplanted by AIs.  Still, I like the old-fashioned robots, and Asimov did them better than anyone.