The Machine
This is science fiction as satirical fable or folk tale. As a result, certain metaphorical associations are persistent throughout the tales. One of them most frequent being imagery which lends machines a sinister inference:
“The machine, however, had already begun. First it manufactured antiprotons, then antielectrons, antineutrons, antineutrinos, and labored on, until from out of all this antimatter an antiworld took shape, glowing like a ghostly cloud above their heads.”
Computers
When speaking of machines, of course, one usually means computers. Or, at the very least, computerized. This is the future being discussed after all. Most of the computers in this volume exhibit some very strange and wonderfully comic problems relative to the nature of their computational skills. This sets up ample opportunity for metaphorical imagery:
“Meanwhile the machine labored on, as if it had been given the most difficult problem in the Universe to solve; the ground shook, the sand slid underfoot from the vibration, valves popped like champagne corks, the relays nearly gave way under the strain.”
Character Description
Although machines and computers can effective be counted as characters, metaphor is also engaged to help describe more traditional and conventional ideas of characterization. Most interesting, perhaps, is that the language describing humans, robots, machinery and the rest do not diverge very sharply from each other:
“Whereas the paleface of Cybercount Cyberhazy was a genuine monstrosity: its every step was like the overflowing of marshy vats, its face was like a scummy well; from its rotten breath the mirrors all covered over with a blind mist, and some iron nearby was seized with rust.”
Final Lines
Many of the stories in the collection end on a metaphorical note of one sort or another. One of the most memorable is the resonant imagery which concludes “The Fifth Sally (A) or Trurl’s Prescription.”
“So that it wouldn’t devour you in turn!” Trurl replies. And he flies off, nodding to them kindly—and his smile is like the stars.
Cyber Insults
Yes, machines take quite a harsh swiping at the hands of more organic creatures in these stories. In one particularly humorous passage, one of the two protagonists, Trurl, is giving a powerful dressing-down of the idiocy of a computer. This imagery is comical enough but the kicker is the use of a surprisingly mundane simile to punctuate the attack?
“there’s no question but that we have here a stupid machine, and not merely stupid in the usual, normal way, oh no! This is, as far as I can determine…the stupidest thinking machine in the entire world, and that’s nothing to sneeze at!...the thing is not only stupid, but stubborn as a mule…it has a personality common to idiots, for idiots are uncommonly stubborn.”
