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From: muffy@lll-crg.ARPA (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Re: Here is the plot.  What is the title and author?
Message-ID: <385@lll-crg.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 31-Jan-85 20:09:47 EST
Article-I.D.: lll-crg.385
Posted: Thu Jan 31 20:09:47 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Feb-85 03:20:14 EST
References: <240@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA>
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Labs, CRG group
Lines: 28

> This is one of the Gallagher stories by Henry Kuttner.  They were collected
> in a book called The Proud Robot.  (The robot started out as a bottle opener,
> he thinks.  He hasn't found a use for it and it just stares at itself in
> mirrors and complains about the ugly humans.)
> 
> These stories are fun reading.  Gallagher has this habit of making promises
> when he's drunk that he has to face up to when sober, while putting on the
> pretense of knowing exactly what his clients want.  He spends great amounts
> of time just trying to find out *what* he promised to build.  And of course,
> there are the things that just show up in his lab that seem to have no useful
> purpose in life....
> 
> 						-Dragon
> -- 
> UUCP: ...ucbvax!dual!lll-crg!dragon
> ARPA: monica.cellio@cmu-cs-cad or dragon@lll-crg

I agree with all of the above.  The Gallagher stories have
also been re-released, about a year and a half ago, in an
English edition called "The Proud Robot" (the title of the
narcissistic-robot story).  Other stories by Henry Kuttner
and his wife, C. L. Moore, both under their own names and
together as "Lewis Padgett" are also well worth reading.
C. L. Moore was the creator of Jirel of Joiry and Northwest
Smith.  As for the latter, forget Stephen King for horror.
If you want to read something really disturbing, read NW
Smith late some evening or early some morning.  Jirel is
almost as good.  The atmosphere is very dark and *scary*.