It Was The Day Of The Robot

by Frank Belknap Long

1st edition Belmont 1963 1st printing, paperback original vg In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Genres: Science Fiction, Apocalyptic, Fiction, Classics

Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Aka Lyda Belknap Long.

Frank Belknap Long was a prolific American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (at the 1978 World Fantasy Convention), the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement (in 1987, from the Horror Writers Association), and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

It Was the Day of the Robot is a book that Long expanded to novel length from a short piece called Made to Order from the Spring, 1957 issue of Future Science Fiction magazine. Belmont published it in March of 1963, and it sold for forty cents, which was probably fair. It's quite dated now, and there's lots more really good stuff out that you'll never have time to get to anyway. The nifty cover (by an unknown artist) shows a giant robot that has three legs and two arms attached to what resembles a pair of conjoined hot water heaters battling a modern army, but nothing like that happens in the story, which is a kind of cautionary Orwellian piece. We'll never get it straightened out, so let's move to Venus. There wasn't really enough story to justify the expansion, so a lot of philosophical verbiage was added, profound observations like women can be pretty and men like to look at them, and some weird point of view/tense shifts.

[Joe Santoro · Rating 1 out of 5]

The actual story is sorta a bad 1984 riff... there a Big Brain of computers that decides who's allowed to get married and reproduce. The main character is denied, and seems to fall in love with a similarly denied woman at the marriage office. He figures he'll never see her again, so he goes to get an android wife, but apparently that's illegal, and he has to go on the run.

DOn't worry, though, apparently New York is a giant slum for people that don't like Society. Yeah. There's some attempted rape, gladiator combat on bicycles, and a horrible twist ending. Oh, and some weird stuff about a colony on Venus where 'Men can be men', but they don't have any women there. Then there's the fact the main character is telepathic, which is rare, and makes the police chase him (why, it's not clear, nor is it clear why they wouldn't want him to have kids if that was valued).. just a hot mess all around.

[Love of Hopeless Causes · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first two paragraphs seem to be in second person, but then it switches first. Fifties Sci-Fi furniture has aged poorly, tape based systems, cars you pilot yourself, a computer dominated society that relies on human guards instead of robots. Infatuation with the love interest is effective, but the eugenics lecture doesn't add up in a society where marriage is a given. The cover promised some robo-human combat, but I abandoned this mess before I read any. Best avoided.

[Snood · Rating 2 out of 5]

It Was The Day Of The Robot claims to be a novelization of a short story, and after reading it, it definitely shows. Even with a measly 141 pages, it felt as if the author was padding the book with tangents about art, love, and analogies. The world seemed genuinely interesting albeit not super original, so it’s a shame it was wasted on a bloated simple story.

[Don · Rating 1 out of 5]

LAME.

Awful. Just dragged on and on. Expected more and it didn't happen.

[Dirk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dated, and badly so. Joe McCarthy is looking at you at each and every page of this badly written story.
The story is called "It Was the Day of the Robot", but within the 141 pages not a single robot appears. One computer, communicating to its operators with punched metal tape (how state-of-the-art 1950ies!) and an android is all we're going to get. Disappointing from the first page to the last.