F/SF

It 's a sequel to The Humanoids but it stands alone as a decent SF novel. I was disappointed with the ending but it's his book not mine. I prefer the earlier novel and I really love the short story "With Folded Hands". Williamson was warning us about A. I. decades ago. He was one of the better pioneers of the SF Golden Age. ( )

While this sequel doesn't have the classic status of Williamson's 1948 The Humanoids, it is a better written book. Often when authors return to an early success, the results are often a meandering essay on the original ideas. Williamson instead has written a fairly plot-heavy book, trading the pulp model of the original for the trappings of a young adult novel, with sex. It is similar in many respects to Cowper's Kuldesak from seven years earlier, also about humanity living in caves, a young man exploring the forbidden areas, finding something important to the plot but not understood while accidentally leaving something behind that will cause problems, and sex -- lots of thinking about sex. The info-dumps that filled pages in The Humanoids are gone, as are the long and repetitious passages on how the main character is feeling. Kept is the unstoppable onslaught of humanoids. By the end of the short novel, just hearing the humanoid greeting "Service" is enough to invoke a shudder. The only misstep IMO is near the end when the humanoids call on the population at large to find and kill our heroes. This sees out of keeping with the kill with kindness approach present everywhere else. I also found unbelievable how the humanoids could pass for human using an artificial skin, even in very intimate circumstances.

Side note: I originally took the cover of my bookclub edtion by John Berkey cover to be generic SF impressionism, but it turns out to be a quite literal representation of a scene late in the book.

Recommended. Reading the original story "With Folded Hands" and novel would be helpful, but not required. ( )

This novel, sequel to Williamson's justifiably classic novel The Humanoids, takes place about one thousand years from now. A small remnant of humanity has fled to a pair of planets orbiting a binary star, in order to get away from robotic servants called humanoids.

What's so awful about robotic servants whose only purpose is to serve Man, and protect him from harm? Aside from the fact that they number in the trillions and are spreading throughout the galaxy, they gently, but firmly, insist on doing everything for mankind. They haven't just taken over dangerous jobs like coal mining or crab fishing, they will not let mankind even drive a car or go to the grocery store. Earth is an enslaved planet.

In this book, most of what's left of mankind don't believe that the humanoids are real; they are nothing more than something for parents to mention to misbehaving children. Keth Kyrone and his discredited father are among the few who still fear the humanoids. Keth inadvertently finds something that may be mankind's only weapon against them.

The humanoids arrive, and start manipulating people's beliefs. Even hard-nosed military types suddenly disappear for several days; when they re-appear, they are practically singing hosannas about the humanoids to anyone who will listen. Is it real, or have they been brainwashed? Keth has to undertake a dangerous mission, mostly on his own. to open humanity's eyes to the benevolent slavery of the humanoids. Does he succeed? Are the humanoids stopped?

By itself, this is a really good story from a master of science fiction. When compared to The Humanoids, the older novel is better. This is still a fine piece of writing that looks at the downside of robots and artificial intelligence. ( )

John Stewart Williamson (April 29, 1908 – November 10, 2006), who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American science fiction writer, often called the "Dean of Science Fiction" after the death of Robert Heinlein in 1988.[2] Early in his career he sometimes used the pseudonyms Will Stewart and Nils O. Sonderlund. In the 1980s, he made a sizable donation of books and original manuscripts to ENMU's library, which resulted in the formation of a Special Collections department; the library now is home to the Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library of Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) in Portales (near the Texas panhandle),ENMU's website describes the library as "one of the top science fiction collections in the world"