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A.I. Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Stories of Future Time
'You and I are real, Teddy, aren't we?'
The bear's eyes regarded the boy unflinchingly.
'You and I are real, David.'
SUPERTOYS LAST ALL SUMMER LONG is the haunting tale of a young boy unable to please his mother, a boy who is not a boy at all, a boy whose intelligence is only artificial...
This story, together with two other tales from Brian Aldiss's formidable collection of futuristic fables, form the foundations of Steven Spielberg's latest blockbuster A.I. - a project which Spielberg himself inherited after the death of Stanley Kubrick. They are typical of the writer's humane powers of prophecy, and his unerring sense of how technology and intelligence could - and sometimes should - work together.
The bear's eyes regarded the boy unflinchingly.
'You and I are real, David.'
SUPERTOYS LAST ALL SUMMER LONG is the haunting tale of a young boy unable to please his mother, a boy who is not a boy at all, a boy whose intelligence is only artificial...
This story, together with two other tales from Brian Aldiss's formidable collection of futuristic fables, form the foundations of Steven Spielberg's latest blockbuster A.I. - a project which Spielberg himself inherited after the death of Stanley Kubrick. They are typical of the writer's humane powers of prophecy, and his unerring sense of how technology and intelligence could - and sometimes should - work together.
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
45 people are currently reading
1663 people want to read
About the author
Brian W. Aldiss
834 books673 followersPseudonyms: Jael Cracken, Peter Pica, John Runciman, C.C. Shackleton, Arch Mendicant, & "Doc" Peristyle.
Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.
Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads
Brian Wilson Aldiss was one of the most important voices in science fiction writing today. He wrote his first novel while working as a bookseller in Oxford. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first work of science fiction and soon gained international recognition. Adored for his innovative literary techniques, evocative plots and irresistible characters, he became a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1999.
Brian Aldiss died on August 19, 2017, just after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family and closest friends.
Brian W. Aldiss Group on Good Reads
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
February 20, 2020
Brian Aldiss was, with Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey), and maybe Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange), one of the few contemporary writers who have closely worked with Stanley Kubrick on the development of one of his films. Supertoys Last All Summer Long, a short story written by Aldiss around 1969, caught Kubrick’s interest in the early 1980s. He consequently invited the writer to develop his concept into a full-fledged screenplay. Aldiss and Kubrick worked together on this project over the years.
Supertoys is a 10 pages vignette, a short chamber piece set in a future dystopia, which reflects upon the nature of humanity. A lonely, isolated woman spends her time idly in a fake garden, with Teddy, her speaking toy, and David, her artificial son. Her husband is away, doing business, selling mechanical androids. The woman, probably depressed, is unable to feel compassion for her robotic son, or even acknowledge the fact that he, as she will soon discover, genuinely loves her. She eventually rejects him. Is this child human? Is this woman humane? Aldiss leaves the question open.
Aldiss wrote a couple of tie-in sequels to this vignette, included in this volume, along with other stories (Nothing in Life is Ever Enough, a retelling of The Tempest from Caliban's eyes, is quite fascinating). Kubrick rejected them since he wanted to develop the concept as a parable around Collodi’s Pinocchio. In the end, Aldiss’ collaboration with Kubrick wasn’t very fruitful, since the filmmaker eventually abandoned the project. Shortly after Kubrick’s death, however, Steven Spielberg saw the job through the end and released A.I. Artificial Intelligence, probably one of his most moving films since (and in keeping with) E.T. The Extraterrestrial.
Supertoys is a 10 pages vignette, a short chamber piece set in a future dystopia, which reflects upon the nature of humanity. A lonely, isolated woman spends her time idly in a fake garden, with Teddy, her speaking toy, and David, her artificial son. Her husband is away, doing business, selling mechanical androids. The woman, probably depressed, is unable to feel compassion for her robotic son, or even acknowledge the fact that he, as she will soon discover, genuinely loves her. She eventually rejects him. Is this child human? Is this woman humane? Aldiss leaves the question open.
Aldiss wrote a couple of tie-in sequels to this vignette, included in this volume, along with other stories (Nothing in Life is Ever Enough, a retelling of The Tempest from Caliban's eyes, is quite fascinating). Kubrick rejected them since he wanted to develop the concept as a parable around Collodi’s Pinocchio. In the end, Aldiss’ collaboration with Kubrick wasn’t very fruitful, since the filmmaker eventually abandoned the project. Shortly after Kubrick’s death, however, Steven Spielberg saw the job through the end and released A.I. Artificial Intelligence, probably one of his most moving films since (and in keeping with) E.T. The Extraterrestrial.
December 11, 2009
Like many other people, I picked this book for the first 3 stories, the ones that were the basis for AI. I think I hardly ever read anything this bleak. The story of the little robot boy who wants to be human so his "mother" loves him is particularly disturbing. What made it particularly efficient was the attention given to details: the absent "father", the boredom of the mother, and the picture of society at large (just one example: it is a society in which the developing countries are as starved as ever, but where at least the West has solved the problem of obesity by inventing an electronic tape worm that is inserted in the bowels and eats half of what the person is ingesting...), painted with acid, dark humour, in which the story of the little boy is merely another grim detail. Very dark, but very human, as well.
As for the other stories, they were of rather uneven qualities. Maybe that's just me getting tired of SF satire that is really about our own world... but frankly, was it really that necessary to print a story about a man making huge money by beheading himself in public while the audience is wildly satirised, just to deride the current trends in media and shows in general? Doesn't that sound a bit... well, déjà vu? The only redeeming force there is the style. At least it is properly cynical.
Other stories, especially one rewriting of The Tempest, read very well in comparison. There was poetry, style, originality. There was even that human quality that caught my eye in the three Supertoys stories. There were beatiful images, like that planet where women have wings like a peacock's tail. There was a measure of humour. Overall, that hit the mark much better than the satirical bits... which did hit, true, but what is the use when the mark has been hit so often you can't even see it anymore, except as a big fuzzy cliché?
As for the other stories, they were of rather uneven qualities. Maybe that's just me getting tired of SF satire that is really about our own world... but frankly, was it really that necessary to print a story about a man making huge money by beheading himself in public while the audience is wildly satirised, just to deride the current trends in media and shows in general? Doesn't that sound a bit... well, déjà vu? The only redeeming force there is the style. At least it is properly cynical.
Other stories, especially one rewriting of The Tempest, read very well in comparison. There was poetry, style, originality. There was even that human quality that caught my eye in the three Supertoys stories. There were beatiful images, like that planet where women have wings like a peacock's tail. There was a measure of humour. Overall, that hit the mark much better than the satirical bits... which did hit, true, but what is the use when the mark has been hit so often you can't even see it anymore, except as a big fuzzy cliché?
October 24, 2020
Verso la fine mi sono stancata di votare ogni storia. Ci saranno stati un massimo di due 3☆ e il resto sono 2☆. La maggior parte sono porno travestiti da sci-fi. Che per carità so che gli sci-fi sanno essere più porno di un porno stesso ma che noia se quasi tutte le shorts hanno il sesso o parlano di sesso ... non ho problemi con il sesso o il porno. Ho problemi quando penso di leggere uno sci-fi ed è per la maggiore porno.
E poi alcune sono davvero volgari. 😱
Su tutto non penso di poter dare più di 2☆.
E poi alcune sono davvero volgari. 😱
Su tutto non penso di poter dare più di 2☆.
July 26, 2012
Hitting a story in which the tragic ending was that some college-age dude didn't get to stay with the girl he'd been dating - who just turned *thirteen* - has cooled my interest in Aldiss's books considerably. Trying to stick this one out, just so I can mark it "read", but am in the middle of another story in which some guy with a wife who is blind starts cheating on her with another woman, and thinks it is great fun to get this new lady to walk around the house naked in front of his wife? And then to gaslight his wife whenever she asks if someone else is there? And there is quite a bit of detail about the sex they are having, and the new lady waving her crotch (I believe the word "pudendum" may have been used) at the wife? So much so that we're getting into Reefer Madness territory, where perhaps the reader is supposed to find this unsympathetic, but we certainly are spending quite a bit of time detailing it lovingly, aren't we?
Conclusion: It may not be worth it for me mark this book "read". I want to start reading Dark Matter.
Addendum: Finished it anyway. There were one or two stories that were okay? But also one where some guy takes a woman back to his room, sexually assualts her, and then when she complains to the headmaster of the school the headmaster shows up in the main character's room to let him known that he, "knows how to deal with girls like that," and so not to worry? I don't even know.
Conclusion: It may not be worth it for me mark this book "read". I want to start reading Dark Matter.
Addendum: Finished it anyway. There were one or two stories that were okay? But also one where some guy takes a woman back to his room, sexually assualts her, and then when she complains to the headmaster of the school the headmaster shows up in the main character's room to let him known that he, "knows how to deal with girls like that," and so not to worry? I don't even know.
December 5, 2025
Supertoys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldiss, the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s AI Artificial Intelligence…Brian Aldiss is the author of the masterpiece Non Stop http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/04/n... included on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read
10 out of 10
Artificial Intelligence has been in the news for quite some time now, and about one thousand scientists and specialists in the domain have called for a temporary halt in the development of new tools, one of them is Elon Musk, who has his own start up developing the technology and thus could be in a conflict of interest…anyway, the second richest man (if this has not changed in the meantime, he was once the wealthiest, but due to his improvident behavior, the fortune of the man and more importantly, of the folks working for him fluctuates) is not the trustworthy luminary we should listen to…
The theory of Singularity – explained with extreme talent in Why The West Rules for Now http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/10/w... by Ian Morris - predicts that around 2035, due to the inevitable progress in computing power – including that law which doubled the capacity of computing for a chip, which in fact is a different rule, but here you have it botched and maimed, it could be per square millimeter, and not doubling, like in that Radio Yerevan joke we had under communism…’is it true that Mr. Ionescu (my name, and that of another half a million people living in this realm) has been given a white Dacia’ (car made locally) the answer from Radio Yerevan is ‘no, it is not a car, it is a bicycle, it was not given to him, it was taken away from him and it is not white, it is black’- the supercomputer will have surpassed all that humanity knows
I am in some ways relying on Artificial Intelligence, even in what regards this note, and all the (too many) others that I have written, for seeing that there is a small (almost non extant) audience for these scribblings (and alas, it is as it should be, for there is not much, if anything, worth extracting here) in human terms, then there is this escape, the future will be dominated by these machines, and since they have these super brains, they will be able to consume all that I have ‘produced’ (or destroyed) here, and all that in a tiny fraction of a nano second, and furthermore, it will be able to make some (granted, very limited) sense out of these elucubrations, perhaps as in ‘there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’, most likely the contribution to the revolution that took down Ceausescu
In December 1989, I took to the streets and joined the couple of hundred protesters in the Roman Square, led by the real hero Andrei Finti – this would be part of the miniscule contribution I bring to the table, the repeated emphasis on the role of this glorious actor and man, the one that deserves a statue – maybe AI could be used for that in the future – whereas we have had tens of thousands of fake revolutionaries, one of the real leaders of that rebellion (and there are less than twenty authentic key figures, people like Caramitru, Doina Cornea, Dinescu) has been almost completely forgotten, I have never seen him taking the stage to speak about his paramount role, but that is the way - ’Revolutions eat their children’, in this case, that movement has taken into oblivion the special one, and if for nothing else, those notes would help in the future to try and pay homage to Andrei Finti, the real hero
As for my presence, it is evoqued in the Newsweek article, written by the Eastern Europe correspondent, Michael Meyers…I met him in those febrile days, and since I had my chance to translate for James Wilde from TIME (what a strange coincidence, to meet two corresponds, and from then rival publications) I have called Dan Minulescu to come and do some work for Michael Meyers (Dan has become in the meantime one of the fifty richest people in this realms and I should be felicitous and proud, for he had been for a short stint my pupil…this is another small contribution, what, I have written some autobiographical notes for this Future AI, and in the history of the rise of local business, Dan would have a role assigned, and since I had given him a few lessons, there are some tiny kudos there, albeit we have had arguments, when he first came, we entered a sort of parallel deal, a trip offered outside the state network, which was illegal, and the share of the profits I divided was sixty percent for me and the rest for the new kid on the block, who protested…but hey, when I was an apprentice, they never even mentioned the possibilities, never mind teaching me anything in that regard, as for sharing the profits, seeing one percent, are you joking? http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r... this is the link to the copy of the crucial page
One of the most important luminaries of our times is Yuval Harari, who has three major works so far, Sapiens, A Brief History of Humanity, Twenty One Lessons for the 21st Century and Home Deus – A Brief History of Tomorrow http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/h... the latter looks at the progress we have made, and what the future looks like, with people living longer and longer, hence Deus aka God, for we will become like gods, living almost forever – you, if you are younger – and the challenges brought on by Artificial Intelligence, the algorithms that already play such a part in our existence, the fact that we have traded our information, much like natives of Africa and other places have given away huge treasures for the small beads brought by colonizers, we get free videos with cats in exchange for vital information that we offer…
We have grown too dependent on the computers – there is the example that is tragicomic of the Japanese (I think they were from Japan) travelers who followed the indications of the trip assistant to the point where they plunged into the ocean – but it is evident that we will stop driving and have the benefit of getting a mix of Michael Schumacher and Immanuel Kant to drive for us – the issue of utilitarian philosophy is brought on, cars could be altruistic or selfish in their modus operandi, but humans will probably buy the option where the driving system prefers the owner to another, in case of an accident =-
Jobs are on the line, and we have extended analysis http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/07/2... to read, for instance, echography will be better interpreted by AI, which will have accumulated the experience of seeing and understanding millions, maybe hundreds of millions of images, as opposed to the best human doctors who will have seen only a few thousand, if that… now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
10 out of 10
Artificial Intelligence has been in the news for quite some time now, and about one thousand scientists and specialists in the domain have called for a temporary halt in the development of new tools, one of them is Elon Musk, who has his own start up developing the technology and thus could be in a conflict of interest…anyway, the second richest man (if this has not changed in the meantime, he was once the wealthiest, but due to his improvident behavior, the fortune of the man and more importantly, of the folks working for him fluctuates) is not the trustworthy luminary we should listen to…
The theory of Singularity – explained with extreme talent in Why The West Rules for Now http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/10/w... by Ian Morris - predicts that around 2035, due to the inevitable progress in computing power – including that law which doubled the capacity of computing for a chip, which in fact is a different rule, but here you have it botched and maimed, it could be per square millimeter, and not doubling, like in that Radio Yerevan joke we had under communism…’is it true that Mr. Ionescu (my name, and that of another half a million people living in this realm) has been given a white Dacia’ (car made locally) the answer from Radio Yerevan is ‘no, it is not a car, it is a bicycle, it was not given to him, it was taken away from him and it is not white, it is black’- the supercomputer will have surpassed all that humanity knows
I am in some ways relying on Artificial Intelligence, even in what regards this note, and all the (too many) others that I have written, for seeing that there is a small (almost non extant) audience for these scribblings (and alas, it is as it should be, for there is not much, if anything, worth extracting here) in human terms, then there is this escape, the future will be dominated by these machines, and since they have these super brains, they will be able to consume all that I have ‘produced’ (or destroyed) here, and all that in a tiny fraction of a nano second, and furthermore, it will be able to make some (granted, very limited) sense out of these elucubrations, perhaps as in ‘there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’, most likely the contribution to the revolution that took down Ceausescu
In December 1989, I took to the streets and joined the couple of hundred protesters in the Roman Square, led by the real hero Andrei Finti – this would be part of the miniscule contribution I bring to the table, the repeated emphasis on the role of this glorious actor and man, the one that deserves a statue – maybe AI could be used for that in the future – whereas we have had tens of thousands of fake revolutionaries, one of the real leaders of that rebellion (and there are less than twenty authentic key figures, people like Caramitru, Doina Cornea, Dinescu) has been almost completely forgotten, I have never seen him taking the stage to speak about his paramount role, but that is the way - ’Revolutions eat their children’, in this case, that movement has taken into oblivion the special one, and if for nothing else, those notes would help in the future to try and pay homage to Andrei Finti, the real hero
As for my presence, it is evoqued in the Newsweek article, written by the Eastern Europe correspondent, Michael Meyers…I met him in those febrile days, and since I had my chance to translate for James Wilde from TIME (what a strange coincidence, to meet two corresponds, and from then rival publications) I have called Dan Minulescu to come and do some work for Michael Meyers (Dan has become in the meantime one of the fifty richest people in this realms and I should be felicitous and proud, for he had been for a short stint my pupil…this is another small contribution, what, I have written some autobiographical notes for this Future AI, and in the history of the rise of local business, Dan would have a role assigned, and since I had given him a few lessons, there are some tiny kudos there, albeit we have had arguments, when he first came, we entered a sort of parallel deal, a trip offered outside the state network, which was illegal, and the share of the profits I divided was sixty percent for me and the rest for the new kid on the block, who protested…but hey, when I was an apprentice, they never even mentioned the possibilities, never mind teaching me anything in that regard, as for sharing the profits, seeing one percent, are you joking? http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r... this is the link to the copy of the crucial page
One of the most important luminaries of our times is Yuval Harari, who has three major works so far, Sapiens, A Brief History of Humanity, Twenty One Lessons for the 21st Century and Home Deus – A Brief History of Tomorrow http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/h... the latter looks at the progress we have made, and what the future looks like, with people living longer and longer, hence Deus aka God, for we will become like gods, living almost forever – you, if you are younger – and the challenges brought on by Artificial Intelligence, the algorithms that already play such a part in our existence, the fact that we have traded our information, much like natives of Africa and other places have given away huge treasures for the small beads brought by colonizers, we get free videos with cats in exchange for vital information that we offer…
We have grown too dependent on the computers – there is the example that is tragicomic of the Japanese (I think they were from Japan) travelers who followed the indications of the trip assistant to the point where they plunged into the ocean – but it is evident that we will stop driving and have the benefit of getting a mix of Michael Schumacher and Immanuel Kant to drive for us – the issue of utilitarian philosophy is brought on, cars could be altruistic or selfish in their modus operandi, but humans will probably buy the option where the driving system prefers the owner to another, in case of an accident =-
Jobs are on the line, and we have extended analysis http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/07/2... to read, for instance, echography will be better interpreted by AI, which will have accumulated the experience of seeing and understanding millions, maybe hundreds of millions of images, as opposed to the best human doctors who will have seen only a few thousand, if that… now for a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
March 29, 2012
Brian Aldiss has always been one of the more un-bounded authors. By that I mean he strays outside particular definitions of genre or sub-genre. You could say "creative", but all authors are creative.
This collection contains a fair sampling of the range of work that he has written over the years. Here there are science fiction "futures" with the near or far extrapolation of science, technology and culture, as one might expect. But many of the stories have an almost surreal, subtle flavoring of viewpoint or human condition. His short-form fiction is very good.
Although the collection includes stories with very different "feel" I enjoyed all of them. I won't single out any specific winners or losers, since I read this in brief spurts while on a grueling trip after long work days. It's probably worth another read in the future when I can give it more attention.
I picked it up because it was a "slim" and lightweight paperback suitable for bring on the plane. (Not that I actually read any of it while in the air.) I had no idea that the "Super toys" trio or the discussion about working with Kubrick were in the book. Full disclosure: I have not seen "AI" or read any reviews of the movie, so I had no preconceptions about these stories. I thought they fit the style and tone of the collection just as well as any other.
The writing, imagination, and novelty of these stories make it a solid "4".
This collection contains a fair sampling of the range of work that he has written over the years. Here there are science fiction "futures" with the near or far extrapolation of science, technology and culture, as one might expect. But many of the stories have an almost surreal, subtle flavoring of viewpoint or human condition. His short-form fiction is very good.
Although the collection includes stories with very different "feel" I enjoyed all of them. I won't single out any specific winners or losers, since I read this in brief spurts while on a grueling trip after long work days. It's probably worth another read in the future when I can give it more attention.
I picked it up because it was a "slim" and lightweight paperback suitable for bring on the plane. (Not that I actually read any of it while in the air.) I had no idea that the "Super toys" trio or the discussion about working with Kubrick were in the book. Full disclosure: I have not seen "AI" or read any reviews of the movie, so I had no preconceptions about these stories. I thought they fit the style and tone of the collection just as well as any other.
The writing, imagination, and novelty of these stories make it a solid "4".
February 17, 2019
I was interested in reading because I heard it was the inspiration for the movie AI, and although I genuinely enjoyed and the concept it felt to me more like a first chapter than a short story.
Anyway, that's just one person's opinion.
Brian
Anyway, that's just one person's opinion.
Brian
December 31, 2012
Interesting stories, but too many moments along the lines of "what the fuck did I just read?" for my liking.
March 7, 2020
Super-Toys Last All Summer is a short story on which the movie, A.I., by Steven Spielberg is based. The story mainly focuses on philosophical topics of existence and reality.
November 12, 2021
“His obsession with being human would count as a neurosis if he were human.”
October 12, 2016
Pinocchio in space
In the world where most people lead a life of leisure robots are doing most of the work. The last step in this evolution is to create robots which have consciousness and are able to love and can be adopted by childless parents. David is one of the prototypes, but not quite to the satisfaction of his parents. When they get permission to have a child of their own they do away with David. Which leads to the boys / robot’s existential crises.
The writer of the three stories about David, Brian Aldiss, gives us an interesting account of his talks with director Stanley Kubrick how wants to turn the stories into a movie. After Kubrick’s death it is finally Steven Spielberg who makes the movie under the title A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) The film is an homage to the director Stanley Kubrick. Unfortunately, the writer Brain Aldiss gifs us no account of his weekend long discussions with Steven Spielberg about the stories and the movie. Perhaps because Spielberg himself wrote the scenario and there were no weekend long discussions.
Other than in the book Spielberg makes the surge for the ‘Blue Fairy’ one of the main storylines of his movie. The stories of Brian Aldiss are a lot darker and less easy to grasp. As are his other SF stories in this book. I especially like the dreamlike ‘A matter of mathematics and ‘Dark society’.
In the world where most people lead a life of leisure robots are doing most of the work. The last step in this evolution is to create robots which have consciousness and are able to love and can be adopted by childless parents. David is one of the prototypes, but not quite to the satisfaction of his parents. When they get permission to have a child of their own they do away with David. Which leads to the boys / robot’s existential crises.
The writer of the three stories about David, Brian Aldiss, gives us an interesting account of his talks with director Stanley Kubrick how wants to turn the stories into a movie. After Kubrick’s death it is finally Steven Spielberg who makes the movie under the title A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) The film is an homage to the director Stanley Kubrick. Unfortunately, the writer Brain Aldiss gifs us no account of his weekend long discussions with Steven Spielberg about the stories and the movie. Perhaps because Spielberg himself wrote the scenario and there were no weekend long discussions.
Other than in the book Spielberg makes the surge for the ‘Blue Fairy’ one of the main storylines of his movie. The stories of Brian Aldiss are a lot darker and less easy to grasp. As are his other SF stories in this book. I especially like the dreamlike ‘A matter of mathematics and ‘Dark society’.
August 31, 2023
This was a bit of slog to complete. However, there are some great concepts and ideas in these short stories, but they felt rushed and condensed beyond enjoyment.
The messages are clear, but some of the delivery made me crave the end page. I think I would read it again on a later date, who knows.
The messages are clear, but some of the delivery made me crave the end page. I think I would read it again on a later date, who knows.
December 11, 2018
pirmasis apsakymas- super. Kiti jam sunkiai prilygsta, nors keletas geruliu yra... :D
April 11, 2023
This was my first go with Aldiss’ short stories. It’s hard to review a collection like this. On the whole, a good read.
October 7, 2025
Not for me
December 9, 2025
3.5 - kinda feel bad for robot Pinocchio
November 16, 2018
https://m7raby.wordpress.com/2018/11/...
شاهدت فيلم “إي آي – الذكاء الاصطناعي” منذ مدة طويلة، أظن في فترة الثانوية، خلال تلك الفترة كنت مدمنة على أفلام الخيال العلمي سواء كانت ذات أفكار منطقية أم مجرد هلوسات هيروينية، وأعجبت بهذا الفيلم كثيرا، وبعد مرور أكثر من عشر سنوات، أعدت مشاهدته، وقد أصبحت عازفة عن أفلام الخيال العلمي.
الفيلم مبني على قصة قصيرة عنوانها
“Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”
للكاتب برَين الديس. هنا ، تتحدث الرواية عن قابلية برمجة الذكاء العاطفي في الروبرت، حيث يشعر مثل البشر في الأمور العاطفية والاختلاجات النفسية والنسيج الحسي وانفعالات أخرى. فقد أدت التغيرات المناخية والجيولوجية على انخفاض الكثافة السكانية وقل عدد الولادات، فتم توفير روبوتات شبيهة بالبشر. فيظهر لنا الفيلم نموذجان عن الروبوتات، أحدهما طفل “ديفيد” باحث عن الحب وحنان الأم، أحلامه تشبه أحلام الدمية الخشبية بينوكيو وتمنيه ليصبح فتى حقيقي، والآخر شاب آلي “جو” من جيل العشاق، وهاتين الروبوتات متقدمة قادرة على محاكاة الأفكار والعواطف.
تركز القصة على المسائل الأخلاقية والانسجام مع المثل الأخلاقية العليا، فمثلا مشهد طرد مونيكا لديفيد في الأدغال، في منفى بعيد عن الحضارة البشرية، مثل طرد آدم من الجنة وتركه هائما على الأرض. وهروب الآلي جو بعدما تورط في قضية مقتل إحدى زبوناته، كطرد إبليس بسبب تمرده.
أما المشهد الذي أثر في كثيرا فكان عندما اكتشف ديفيد أنه ليس طفل فريد من نوعه ومميز، ذلك عندما وجد أشباهه في مقر البروفيسور هوبي صان ديفيد، أظن هذه الأزمة التي عاشها ديفيد تمثل الأزمة الوجودية التي يعيشها الإنسان الحاضر.
August 30, 2016
To be honest—I didn't read the whole thing. I just read the 3 stories about David... well, because those were the only ones that seemed interesting to me. So I'm only really rating the first 3 stories, not all of them. Maybe someday I'll go back and read the whole book.
But about the first 3—well, I saw Steven Speilberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence and loved it, so I had to read the story that was the inspiration! First of all—the two were pretty similar. However, in the movie, David never has that moment of realization that he's an android. Well, maybe he does. But it's certainly not as deliberate and shocking as in the book. Poor David! Wouldn't you be in shock, too, if you found out that you were artificial? That's a theme in my own writing as well, and I was happy to find it somewhere else in literature.
There isn't much else I can say without this turning into a review of the movie, so I'll just say this—the short stories I read were very well-written and covered some interesting themes. I'd recommend (at least the first 3 stories) to anyone who saw and enjoyed A.I., or anyone interested in the idea of artificial intelligence in general.
But about the first 3—well, I saw Steven Speilberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence and loved it, so I had to read the story that was the inspiration! First of all—the two were pretty similar. However, in the movie, David never has that moment of realization that he's an android. Well, maybe he does. But it's certainly not as deliberate and shocking as in the book. Poor David! Wouldn't you be in shock, too, if you found out that you were artificial? That's a theme in my own writing as well, and I was happy to find it somewhere else in literature.
There isn't much else I can say without this turning into a review of the movie, so I'll just say this—the short stories I read were very well-written and covered some interesting themes. I'd recommend (at least the first 3 stories) to anyone who saw and enjoyed A.I., or anyone interested in the idea of artificial intelligence in general.
March 22, 2012
This collection of short stories includes the famous Supertoys Last All Summer Long as well as the two sequels that Aldiss wrote and which form the basis of the film A.I. I've never managed to read Supertoys until now and I found it a moving story of a boy whose mother doesn't love him. The sequels were interesting, but they felt much more bitter than the original story and, to my mind, jarred slightly.
I didn't find most of the other stories in the collection hugely memorable, really. Most of them had a feeling of 'fable' about them, so they felt more like fairy tales wrapped in an SF shell, which I like in bits, but I found it wearing after a while. To my mind the best story in the collection, other than Supertoys was probably White Mars, a Socratic dialogue describing how a brief utopia is formed on Mars and offering a hopeful vision of the future of Humanity.
While all the stories here have merit, beyond the title one, I don't know if I'd read many of them again.
I didn't find most of the other stories in the collection hugely memorable, really. Most of them had a feeling of 'fable' about them, so they felt more like fairy tales wrapped in an SF shell, which I like in bits, but I found it wearing after a while. To my mind the best story in the collection, other than Supertoys was probably White Mars, a Socratic dialogue describing how a brief utopia is formed on Mars and offering a hopeful vision of the future of Humanity.
While all the stories here have merit, beyond the title one, I don't know if I'd read many of them again.
April 28, 2022
Probably closer to 2 1/2 stars, as I found very little enjoyable in this collection. The title story may be the most poignant, due in great part to the light touch that implies the underlying emotions and conflicts. Unfortunately, the majority of stories suffer from a heavy-handed approach that leaves the reader cold and uninterested, and in some case wanting to tune out from what reads more like a pedantic diatribe than an entertaining story. Beyond that, there are not even many interesting ideas here, and yet a lot of bizarre concept which do not seem to pay off or fascinate. And certain themse get repeated a bit too much, even to that point where "A Whiter Mars" actually repeats two paragraphs about the ancient myths and monsters of Earth almost word for word from "Marvells of Utopia". This is the second book from Aldiss that has failed to impress me, so although there are still a couple of his novels which I might read one day, they certainly won't be high on my list.
May 13, 2013
Like many here, I found this book because of the connection to the film A.I. However, even though the film itself had it's own flaws, the story it was based on was lacking itself: no obstacles, albeit potentially interesting characters, and not a very satisfying conclusion...having me asking "And...?"
"Supertoys Last All Summer Long," the lead story, was followed by two other sequels in the same book, but they also don't really have anything to say, no characters to latch onto, and no satisfying conclusions. Unfortunately, this basically describes the stories in the book overall.
Writing short stories is difficult: Having a beginning, middle, end...and feel "done;" and, as aforementioned, having characters that we as readers find interesting and remember. However, the stories in this book read as if they were ideas that still needed developing.
"Supertoys Last All Summer Long," the lead story, was followed by two other sequels in the same book, but they also don't really have anything to say, no characters to latch onto, and no satisfying conclusions. Unfortunately, this basically describes the stories in the book overall.
Writing short stories is difficult: Having a beginning, middle, end...and feel "done;" and, as aforementioned, having characters that we as readers find interesting and remember. However, the stories in this book read as if they were ideas that still needed developing.
August 18, 2018
I picked up Brian Aldiss's collection of short stories to read the stories that inspired the movie, AI. The foreward by the author describes how Stanley Kubrick picked up the short story, Supertoys Last All Summer Long, determined to make it a movie. And how he worked with the author to develop it for film, strictly rejecting the author's ideas. After Kubrick's death the story was inherited by Spielberg and eventually developed into the movie, AI. The book also has two more stories in the AI short trilogy, from which any viewer of the movie might find origin ideas. The book is a great display of the masterful intersection of philosophy and speculative fiction that Aldiss's imagination explores.
June 15, 2015
I appreciated several tales from this collection, especially the trilogy of supertoys. Supertoys story is quiet different from Spielberg's movie (A. I.), there the focus is on Pinocchio's transposition to the future. Here the problem is not that A.I. wants to become human (like in the movie), here humans had lost their proper humanity. Feelings are not real, supertoy mother really doesen't want a child, her love is a sort of game. So the situation is quiet overturned: the A.I. toy seems much more human than its mother
March 1, 2015
Brian Aldiss creates a vision of the future that seems so eerily similar to our current reality by preserving the fundamental drives and charms of human nature in his characters. The result is that while reading one feels both compassionate and cynical about humanity at the same time. I have become a superfan of this octogenarian writer, and I find myself trolling his website like a teenager with a crush on a rock star.
May 3, 2008
The first three Supertoys stories are brilliant and were the basis for Steven Spielberg's 2001 film A.I.; other stories are very uneven in quality.
July 6, 2016
2.5 Apart from the 3 short stories that inspired A.I. this is a somewhat hit and miss collection, more a set of ideas and constructs than proper stories with a narrative arc.
March 21, 2018
Reguleque. Algunos cuentos buenos y algunos cuentos malos, pero ninguno que me volviera loca. Solo un libro más bajo la luna y el sol.
August 7, 2022
Hmm. All a bit unfinished. Bad attitude to women throughout. I doubt an unknown would have managed to get these slight efforts published.
April 25, 2023
I only read “Super toys last all summer long”
December 17, 2017
Way back in the mid-1970s director Stanley Kubrick was looking for a new project and ran across Brian Aldiss' short story, 'Supertoys Last All Summer Long', in which a childless couple create their own android son, who tries to understand if he is real or not. Kubrick was moved by the story and started trying to mould it into a film with Aldiss' help. Their work on the project went on for more than a decade (including the full gestation periods for Kubrick's movies The Shining and Full Metal Jacket) before Aldiss eventually left, exhausted by Kubrick's demanding work schedule and his insistence on drawing parallels to Pinocchio that Aldiss had never intended. Kubrick died in 1999 and Stephen Spielberg picked up the project, released it as the moderately successful A.I. in 2001. Aldiss sold several additional ideas to Spielberg which made it into the movie, and expanded these ideas into two sequels to the original short story.
The short story collection Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Tales of Future Time was released in 2001 to tie in with the film's release. As well as the original 1969 short story, it features the two sequels: 'Supertoys When Winter Comes' and 'Supertoys in Other Seasons'. These very short stories (each is 2,000 words or less) depict the story of David, an android who is created for a childless couple, but whose quest for self-identity proves problematic and he eventually leaves to wander the city. These stories are masterfully economical, transmitting much of the same story and concepts as the movie with Spielberg's sugar-coated schmaltz and Kubrick's worrying Blue Fairy fixation removed in a very small number of pages. You can read all three in considerably less than a single lunch break, as compared to the movie's sometimes bum-numbing two-hour running time.
Obviously, 6,000 words do not make a full collection, so an additional sixteen stories are included. They are united by the themes of dislocation and loneliness, which are approached from different angles. Many of the stories are ambiguous and few have any solid resolution. Aldiss' goal here is to raise issues and questions and see what the reader makes of them, not provide pat answers. Interestingly many of the stories are prototypes or condensed versions of other stories he has written: the lengthy seasonal cycle of 'Apogee Again' feels like Aldiss' epic Helliconia Trilogy on extreme fast-forward, whilst 'A Whiter Mars' is a direct tie-in to his stand-alone SF novel, White Mars. Some of the stories are obvious - 'III' is a simple commentary on humanity's fixation of exploiting natural resources, whilst 'Dark Society's twist ending will likely be spotted by experienced genre readers but remains haunting nonetheless - but others are more inventive, such as the Lord of Light-esque 'Becoming the Full Butterfly' and the judgmental 'Galaxy Zee'.
This is a fine collection of stories reflecting Aldiss' impressive writing range. There is a feeling of distance and coldness in many of the works - possibly an attraction for the likewise non-sentimental Kubrick (Blue Fairy obsession aside) - which may be offputting for some, but overall this is an intelligent and thought-provoking book and well worth seeking out.
Supertoys Last All Summer Long (***½) is published in the UK by Orbit (out of print but copies seem available on Amazon) and by St. Martin's Griffin in the USA.
The short story collection Supertoys Last All Summer Long and Other Tales of Future Time was released in 2001 to tie in with the film's release. As well as the original 1969 short story, it features the two sequels: 'Supertoys When Winter Comes' and 'Supertoys in Other Seasons'. These very short stories (each is 2,000 words or less) depict the story of David, an android who is created for a childless couple, but whose quest for self-identity proves problematic and he eventually leaves to wander the city. These stories are masterfully economical, transmitting much of the same story and concepts as the movie with Spielberg's sugar-coated schmaltz and Kubrick's worrying Blue Fairy fixation removed in a very small number of pages. You can read all three in considerably less than a single lunch break, as compared to the movie's sometimes bum-numbing two-hour running time.
Obviously, 6,000 words do not make a full collection, so an additional sixteen stories are included. They are united by the themes of dislocation and loneliness, which are approached from different angles. Many of the stories are ambiguous and few have any solid resolution. Aldiss' goal here is to raise issues and questions and see what the reader makes of them, not provide pat answers. Interestingly many of the stories are prototypes or condensed versions of other stories he has written: the lengthy seasonal cycle of 'Apogee Again' feels like Aldiss' epic Helliconia Trilogy on extreme fast-forward, whilst 'A Whiter Mars' is a direct tie-in to his stand-alone SF novel, White Mars. Some of the stories are obvious - 'III' is a simple commentary on humanity's fixation of exploiting natural resources, whilst 'Dark Society's twist ending will likely be spotted by experienced genre readers but remains haunting nonetheless - but others are more inventive, such as the Lord of Light-esque 'Becoming the Full Butterfly' and the judgmental 'Galaxy Zee'.
This is a fine collection of stories reflecting Aldiss' impressive writing range. There is a feeling of distance and coldness in many of the works - possibly an attraction for the likewise non-sentimental Kubrick (Blue Fairy obsession aside) - which may be offputting for some, but overall this is an intelligent and thought-provoking book and well worth seeking out.
Supertoys Last All Summer Long (***½) is published in the UK by Orbit (out of print but copies seem available on Amazon) and by St. Martin's Griffin in the USA.
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