Machines That Kill [Mass Market Paperback]

Fred Saberhagen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1992

From killer bulldozers to rampaging automobiles to homicidal robots, this collection of stories about mechanized monsters--edited by the popular author of the Berserker series--includes works by Roger Zelazny, David Drake, Robert Silverberg, Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, and others.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 341 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1ST edition (May 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812520599
• ISBN-13: 978-0812520590
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,264,892 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Anthology Of Robots, February 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Machines That Kill (Mass Market Paperback)

In the broad range of this fine book you have a riveting story about a bulldozer who terrorizes a group of construction workers on a small island, an out-of-control kitchen robot who takes "dieting" a bit too serious, a sentry robot who refuses a starving man reentry into camp until his understanding of logic is cleverly subverted and several others, all together providing a mixed and enjoyable read. I loved it.

4.0 out of 5 stars Homicide Machines, October 20, 2011

By 

Jonathan Stover (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Machines That Kill (Mass Market Paperback)

Including "Killdozer!"(1944) by Theodore Sturgeon, "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard"(1961) by Cordwainer Smith, "Hunting Machine" (1957) by Carol Emshwiller, "Auto-da-Fe" 1967) by Roger Zelazny, "Second Variety"(1953) by Philip K. Dick, "Under the Hammer"(1974) by David Drake, "Lost Memory" 1952)by Peter Phillips, "Making the Connections"(1975) by Barry N. Malzberg, "Steel" 1956) by Richard Matheson, "The Iron Chancellor" (1958) by Robert Silverberg, "The Wabbler" (1942) by Murray Leinster, "The Cruel Equations (1971) by Robert Sheckley, "Combat Unit" (1960) by Keith Laumer, "Fondly Fahrenheit" 1954) by Alfred Bester, and "Goodlife" (1963) by Fred Saberhagen:

Generously overstuffed, tiny-print 1980's paperback reprint anthology edited by Saberhagen, creator of the anti-life killer machines called Berserkers by the humans who have to fight them, and the ubiquitous anthologist Martin H. Greenberg.

The machines here aren't always self-willed in their attempts to kill people or animals, or even malevolent when they do so, and the tone of the stories ranges from hard-edged military drama like that seen in David Drake's "Under the Hammer" to the bleakly humourous and satiric "Hunting Machine", "The Iron Chancellor", "Auto-da-Fe" and "The Cruel Equations." We visit the odd and oddly believeable world of humanity's far future in "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard," one of Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind stories, and the world of the now-past in Theodore Sturgeon's then-contemporary WWII-era "Killdozer!".

Some stories, like Cordwainer Smith's, form part of larger story and novel cycles, such as "Goodlife" (the aforementioned Berserker stories), " Combat Unit" (Laumer's Bolo series), and Drake's Hammer's Slammers military/mercenary science-ficton universe ("Under the Hammer"). At least three of these stories have been adapted at least once for television or movies -- "Steel" (as the Twilight Zone episode "Steel" and the 2011 movie Real Steel), "Killdozer!" (as a 1970's TV movie of the same name) and "Second Variety" (as Screamers). All and all, a solid anthology with a nice mix of the often-anthologized and the overlooked.