The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence

by Alexei Panshin

  So this was the situation, with nothing that he tried working very well, that Asimov found himself in at the end of the summer of 1940, when two of his stories appeared on the newsstands at nearly the same moment. One was “Homo Sol” in the September Astounding. Seeing it in print made the true acuteness of his disagreement with Campbell explicitly evident to Asimov. The other story was “Strange Playfellow” in the September issue of Pohl’s Super Science Stories. And it offered an indication of a possible way out of his dilemma.

  Going over “Homo Sol” was a dismaying business for Asimov. As he read it, he discovered that even those changes and adjustments he had been chivvied into making for Campbell had not been sufficient to satisfy the editor, who had thought it necessary to insert comments of his own in several places in which he offered special tribute to the warmaking abilities of Earthmen. Asimov did not appreciate this one bit. He did not like being apparently responsible for sentiments that seemed to him both racist and militaristic.

  At this point in his dealings with Campbell, Asimov was feeling frustrated and desperate and, even though he might not care to admit it, more than a little angry. In two dozen attempts he had managed to sell only two stories to the man, and he could readily wonder if he was ever going to escape the maze presented to him by Campbell’s strictures, judgments and demands. Especially after what Campbell had just done to “Homo Sol.”

  Asimov knew he had a problem. It was clear to him that Campbell wanted him to write about universal operating principles. But it was also evident that except for a story like “Homo Sol,” in which Earthmen present themselves to be measured by alien scientists and the aliens then blush, stammer and tremble at the readings they get, Campbell just wasn’t going to tolerate stories in which intelligences other than human controlled these principles and mankind didn’t. On this point, the editor was unyielding.

  But, for his own part, Asimov would never see the day when he would be ready to write stories in which superior human beings lord it over lesser aliens. That was simply contrary to everything he believed.

  He could see that something had to be done if he were to continue to try to write for Campbell. But what?

  When Asimov picked up his other story, he saw that it, too, had an obvious if less acute problem—its title. He had written this little tale of the vindication of a robot nursemaid the previous year and called it “Robbie.” But Pohl had seen fit to retitle it “Strange Playfellow”—and Asimov found this change exquisitely embarrassing.

  It wasn’t at all unusual for a pulp editor to change a title and not bother to notify the author. Campbell had casually altered “Ad Astra” to “Trends.” “Stowaway” had been changed by Pohl into “The Callistan Menace” (Astonishing, Apr. 1940). One of Asimov’s titles would even be altered from “Pilgrimage” to “Black Friar of the Flame” (Planet Stories, Spr 1942). The crucial difference that made Campbell’s change acceptable to Asimov where others were not was that it was evident to him that Campbell was attempting to express the pure, undiluted essence of things, whereas other SF editors were merely aiming for cheap and easy pulp sensationalism.

  Aside from the change in title, however, Asimov wasn’t displeased with what he saw. He says, “After reading ‘Robbie’ in cold print in the magazine, I decided I liked it more than any other story I had written yet.”391

  “Robbie” was a story with a purpose. It had been written as a reaction to all those Romantic Era and Techno Age horror stories, from Frankenstein to R.U.R., in which created beings turn on their human makers and destroy them.

  In Asimov’s story, a man buys an early model nursemaid robot to mind his little daughter, but his wife doesn’t like the idea at all. She says:

  “ ‘You listen to me, George. I won’t have my daughter entrusted to a machine—and I don’t care how clever it is. A child just isn’t made to be guarded by a thing of metal. . . . Some little jigger will come loose and the awful thing will go berserk and—and—’ ”392

  Husband George counters this old-fashioned fear of the machine out of control by saying:

  “ ‘A robot is infinitely more to be trusted than a human nursemaid. Robbie was constructed for only one purpose—to be the companion of a little child. His entire ‘mentality’ has been created for the purpose. He just can’t help being faithful and loving and kind. He’s a machine—made so.’ ”393

  Almost always prior to this—with the notable exception of the mechanical man Tik-tok in L. Frank Baum’s Oz books394—an SF scientist or inventor would construct the exterior of an android or robot, but the creature’s thoughts and motives and volition would still be its own. There would be no guarantee that it might not take it into its head at any moment to run amok. Here in this story, however, Asimov was ready to suggest that the values and purposes of a constructed being might be preprogrammed, built right in from the start.

  Eventually, Asimov would state this aspect of his thinking about the robot this way:

  Consider a robot, then, as simply another artifact. . . . As a machine, a robot will surely be designed for safety, as far as possible. If robots are so advanced that they can mimic the thought processes of human beings, then surely the nature of those thought processes will be designed by human engineers and built-in safeguards will be added. The safety may not be perfect (what is?), but it will be as complete as men can make it.395

  But there is still another view of the nature of the robot on display in “Robbie”/”Strange Playfellow.” It is there by implication throughout the story as Asimov refers to this mute metal construct as “he.” And it is stated explicitly when husband George says of his little daughter, “ ‘The whole trouble with Gloria is that she thinks of Robbie as a person and not as a machine.’ ”396

  For Asimov, the robot was no monster, having been designed for safety. But if he was not a monster, then what was his true nature? Was he merely a reliable machine? Or was he a person, maybe a friend? Or was he perhaps something even better and greater than that, something possibly transcendent?

  Asimov would investigate these questions throughout his SF writing career. In this first robot story, however, his concern was not to pin down the exact nature of the robot, but rather to demonstrate robotic reliability.

  Robbie the nursemaid is fortunate enough to be granted the opportunity to put his trustworthiness on public display. He wins a secure place in the family by saving Gloria from the threat of a conveniently onrushing tractor. We may rest assured that whatever else he might be, first of all Robbie is faithful and loving and kind—and prepared to keep his little charge out of trouble. He’s made that way.

  John Campbell hadn’t seen fit to buy this story when it was submitted to him back in May 1939. It must have seemed just another of those simple first-order notions that Asimov was still offering to him then. Since this one hadn’t happened to spark any next-order consequences in Campbell’s mind to come back at Asimov with, he’d let the story pass.

  But as Asimov read “Robbie” now, he not only found himself liking it—title change aside—but he caught a sudden glimmering of all those future robot stories he would come to write. He says, “It also occurred to me that robot stories would not involve me in any superiority/inferiority hassle with Campbell. Why not, then, write another?”397

  Why not, indeed?

  On examining his conscience closely, Asimov saw no problem in writing more stories like “Robbie” in which human beings were at least assumed to be superior to robots that were made, directed, and controlled by universal operating principles. What is more, in a sudden access of insight, Asimov was gifted with exactly the kind of idea that Campbell in all his brilliance might have given him, but hadn’t. That is, he thought of a next-order consequence of dealing with a made-to-be-reliable robot.

  This time, Asimov thought, he wouldn’t just write some obvious little story in which a sweet, sincere, devoted robot mutely did exactly what he was supposed to do.

  What if that robot could talk?


  What if he should decide to talk back?

  What if a robot should argue for his own alternate view of things?

  What was the maximally rebellious thing a reliable robot might think or say, and get away with? Just how contrary and insubordinate and out of hand could a robot get and still be acceptable to John Campbell?

  During the Techno Age, there had been the nagging fear that because of the greater logic of their thought processes and the greater efficiency of their function, robots might actually prove superior to their makers. So, what if a safely controlled robot were to declare the obvious superiority of robotic logic and efficiency—and even present this as an article of robotic religious faith?

  Asimov says:

  My notion was to have a robot refuse to believe he had been created mechanically in a factory, but to insist that men were only his servants and that robots were the peak of creation, having been created by some godlike entity. What’s more, he would prove his case by reason, and “Reason” was the title of the story.398

  On the face of it, this was exactly the kind of idea Campbell was always asking him for. But this one had hidden teeth. It was the equivalent in story form of a technique that Asimov the precocious wiseguy kid had often used at home or in school to show up the pretensions of authority without being able to be held accountable for it. This was to wait until just the right moment, and then to slip in some apparently ingenuous remark or question that was actually intended to reveal limitation, self-contradiction, or hypocrisy, and then to wait all wrapped in a cloud of sunlit innocence to see whether his father or his teacher could cope with the implications of their dicta, and to enjoy it mightily when they proved they couldn’t.

  As Don A. Stuart and as the editor of Astounding, Campbell liked to present himself as a dedicated challenger of received opinion. Until now, Asimov had listened to Campbell, avoided conflict with Campbell, and attempted, with no great success, to please Campbell, but never had he tested his limitations. But now, after “Homo Sol,” Asimov was ready to find out what stuff Campbell was really made of.

  He was feeling half-conciliatory, half-rebellious. He did want to please Campbell. But he also wanted to fight him tooth and nail in defense of his own values. He was willing to do things Campbell’s way. But he was also determined to retain the right to think his own thoughts and believe his own beliefs.

  So he put his contrary feelings into “Reason.” He would give Campbell exactly what he liked best, to the utmost of his ability. And at the same time, he would be as completely and subtly subversive as he knew how to be and see whether Campbell could deal with that.

  He would attempt to appeal to Campbell with a pair of scientifically trained space adventurers like Campbell’s team of Penton and Blake. Asimov had tried a variation on Penton and Blake as early as the fourth story he’d shown to Campbell, back in the summer of 1938. Campbell had made no comment about this would-be homage then; he’d just turned the story down. But now Asimov was ready to have another go at Campbell with an improved variant—robotic field-testers Gregory Powell and Michael Donovan.

  And of course “Reason” would bear an epitomal one-word Don A. Stuart-type title. Asimov knew that Campbell had a taste for the story title that promised the quintessence of something or other. In the early years of his editorship, Campbell would print stories with titles like “Impulse,” “Pressure,” “Pride,” “Habit,” “Hindsight,” “Legacy,” “Jurisdiction,” “Mission,” and “Proof”—not to mention “Universe” and “Nightfall” and “Nerves” and a good many others. Since Campbell changed “Ad Astra” to “Trends,” Asimov had tried this approach half-a-dozen times with no success, but he was ready to try it again.

  Best of all, his story would toss Campbell a bone that Asimov thought the editor would really snap at. He would show religious belief—the religious belief of a robot—as ultimately secondary to the power of universal operating principles. That should really push Campbell’s buttons.

  And then, finally, the test. “Reason” would have human characters and lesser creatures of a sort. But not so much lesser that the point couldn’t be argued, and continue to be argued after the story was over. Could John Campbell handle that?

  On October 23, 1940, Asimov gathered his ambivalent feelings and his plans for “Reason” and set off for lower Manhattan and the Street & Smith offices to see the editor. And just as he had calculated, John Campbell did like his story idea. More than that, he was completely enthusiastic! The last thing he said to Asimov as he was setting off home to Brooklyn was a reminder that he wanted to see this story as soon as possible.

  How wonderful! How unprecedented! How unnerving.

  And, in fact, when Asimov sat down to work, he found himself hung up, unable to get the story under way. Four times he began it, wrote a couple of pages, and then scrapped them.

  Some part of this hesitation may well have been because Asimov was trying so many different things in this story and required time to integrate them before going ahead. But it seems more likely that Asimov’s need, his desire, his ambition, his calculation, and his rebellion were taken by surprise and stunned into silence by the very degree of Campbell’s receptivity. It was as though he had inadvertently stumbled upon the pure mother lode of favorable response that had previously eluded him, and he was disconcerted and didn’t know what to do next.

  Asimov tells us quite frankly, at least, “In this case, pushing Campbell’s buttons was easier than pushing the typewriter keys.”399

  Finally, after eight days of spinning his wheels and going nowhere with this story, Asimov decided that the thing for him to do was to touch base with Campbell. So, somewhat sheepishly, he went back to see the editor and confessed that he was having a problem getting his story started.

  And John Campbell rose to the occasion. He managed to give Asimov the right advice at just the right moment—the final thing he needed to learn in order to be able to write modern science fiction.

  Campbell told him: “Asimov, when you have trouble with the beginning of a story, that is because you are starting in the wrong place, and almost certainly too soon. Pick out a later point in the story, and begin again.”400

  This most certainly was not Techno Age storywriting advice. That would have been to begin at the beginning, and then to go on until the end, telling everything that happened along the way. This was fundamental modern science fiction writing advice—to start a story as late as possible and tell no more than was necessary. And it was what Asimov needed to hear just now for “Reason” to fall into place.

  “Reason” does start at a strange and special advanced moment. It is some time in the not-too-distant future and we are on board one of a number of space stations that have been established to beam solar energy to Earth and the other planets. Heat, solar radiation and electron storms make a post like this a difficult one for humans to endure, so a new experimental series of robots has been developed to handle the job. As the story opens, the more thoughtful of Asimov’s troubleshooters is facing the first of these robots, QT-1, and explaining the facts of life to him:

  “Gregory Powell spaced his words for emphasis. ‘One week ago, Donovan and I put you together.’ His brows furrowed doubtfully and he pulled the end of his brown mustache.”401

  Cutie the robot reflects on this for a moment, and then says, “ ‘Do you realize the seriousness of such a statement, Powell?’ ”402

  If we ourselves pause to think about it, we can only wonder at this situation. Why would a sophisticated experimental robot have been shipped to a space station in a packing crate and assembled there for the very first time? Why should a great space station like this be staffed by only two men? Why does QT-1 not recall the moment of his awakening, with Powell and Donovan no doubt standing right there beaming proudly upon their handiwork? And why is it that the true state of things wasn’t properly explained to Cutie then and there during that first crucial moment of awareness?

  Somehow a glitch has occurred. A full
week has been allowed to slip away and it is only now that Powell is getting around to telling Cutie of his origins. But for some unknown reason, Powell doesn’t come across as all that certain about what he is saying. He speaks with odd overemphasis, he furrows his brow in doubt, and he yanks on his mustache. By comparison, Cutie the new-made robot is a model of composure. He may be ignorant of ordinary fact, but in no time at all this robot has turned himself into a sure-footed philosopher full of talk of intuition, assumption, reason, and the deduction of truth from a priori causes. Whatever has happened here?

  Now, if Asimov had thought long enough and hard enough, he might have been able to come up with answers for all of these questions. Armed with Campbell’s crucial piece of advice, however, he saw that he didn’t need to. In the new kind of science fiction, it was all right to skip right past these irrelevancies and go straight to the heart of the matter.

  In a modern science fiction story, we are wherever we chance to find ourselves. And, in this case, where we happen to be is within a special isolated artificial environment, a place where one explanation of reality may appear as plausible as another. Here a recently assembled robot with no memory and a philosophical bent can look the other member of this human team in the eye and say:

  “Look at you. I say this in no spirit of contempt, but look at you! The material you are made of is soft and flabby, lacking endurance and strength, depending for energy upon the inefficient oxidation of organic material—like that.” He pointed a disapproving finger at what remained of Donovan’s sandwich. “Periodically you pass into a coma, and the least variation in temperature, air pressure, humidity or radiation intensity impairs your efficiency. You are makeshift.

  “I, on the other hand, am a finished product. I absorb electrical energy directly and utilize it with almost one hundred per cent efficiency. I am composed of strong metal, am continuously conscious, and can stand extremes of environment easily. These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis.”403