Android Avenger

Android Avenger #1

by Ted White

All of a sudden I was moving faster than usual. The other passengers standing on the subway platform seemed rooted to their places. It took me only seconds to reach the top of the six flights of stairs, and then I was out of the station and moving down Fulton Street at better than forty miles an hour!

What was happening to me? It was as though I were the helpless passenger in a runaway car. Something else had assumed control and was guiding me.

My body turned into an office building and raced down the corridor to a room where a man was sitting at a console. He'd begun to swing around in his chair when my mouth opened, and a thin, blood-red ray shot out, cleaving the man from head to abdomen.

Then it was over. My mouth closed, and I stood there, stunned. Up to today I was Bob Tanner, an average, sane Citizen. Now what was I, man or murder machine?

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

105 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Theodore Edwin ("Ted") White is a Hugo Award-winning American writer, known as a science fiction author and editor as well as a music critic. In addition to books and stories written under his own name, he has also co-authored novels with Dave van Arnam as Ron Archer, and with Terry Carr as Norman Edwards.

Reviews

[Aricia Gavriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another volume from the Nostalgia Shelf! I was about 12 when I read this for the first time, and was quite impressed by the "grit" of the material, and the treatment given it by Ted White. Sure, it doesn't read so well decades later, but it's still far from a bad read. I'd give it 2.5 stars if Goodreads allowed for it, but I'll round up to 3 for sheer nostalgia. I have a shelf of pulp SF from way-back-when, and I'm often in the mood for the simpler stories in which we reveled when we were kids.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s sort of like a mix of Blade Runner and The Matrix. There’s a goon squad (the proctors) who hunt down anti-social type people and neurotics and drag them to an execution arena. In other words, it’s a dystopia that squashes out individuals. I came across a short story, I Executioner, that duplicates the first few pages. The neat thing is that the protagonist is android who isn’t aware of his bionic abilities!

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sebbene abbia apprezzato questa fantascienza ormai vintage sono anche un po' perplessa dalla velocità con cui è trattato l'argomento.
Avrei desiderato maggiore contestualizzazione, qualche descrizione in più della società e della vita fatta da questa generazione controllata da un'interfaccia informatica.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun read fron the mid 60s - android who doesn't know he is - time is now 2017 and gas cars were outlawed in the 80s.

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a long action-movie chase scene of a story: the protagonist is dropped into the adventure with no clear idea why, and a slow unveiling of the situation, with him as either witness or football. White is going for the Philip K Dick reality-rug-pull from under the reader, but only manages to drag it a bit.

Completely spoiled by that title and cover, of course.

Ultimately a shallow situation and an abrupt ending that even the characters had a hard time explaining.

[Claudio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interessante distopia che però manca di coerenza interna e dopo un inizio promettente decade al livello di scarsa e poco convincente storia a metà fra esoterico, erotismo soft e fantascienza.

[N. M. D. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's impossible not to be reminded of the Blumhouse movie Upgrade--in which a man is implanted with a device that allows someone else to hijack his body--during certain moments of this book. The MC in this book inexplicably finds himself becoming an unstoppable killing machine, moving at double speed, as a helpless passenger in his own body. This character's situation is crazier, because he also eventually discovers he's a robot. AND he can shot a laser out of his mouth that cuts people in half. So that's pretty rad.

My primary issue with this book is that the lead is generic and uninteresting. His remorse and horror at slaughtering people against his will come and go in a blink. He's a faceless vehicle for the story. There's also a lot of male fantasy material, as this guy gets laid three times in a 100-page book in which he's constantly on the run. The main woman instantly falls for him based on nothing, except maybe pity.

The dystopian 2017 depicted is hella silly. Scanning machines constantly check everyone's brains. If you're found to be deviant, you're executed. Bored citizens attend executions like jury duty. Everyone presses a button on their chair to contribute to the deadly shock that's sent to the seated prisoners, most of which are children. It's impossible for me to believe that people would be that okay and desensitized to this. There's no resistance force at all, no sabotaging of brain scanners or efforts to block their abilities. The ascending-speed moving walkways are also a blatant steal from Asimov's New York in the Robot books.

But it's the sort of fun, stupid, pulpy story I expect from Ace Doubles.