The Robot Brains

by Sydney J. Bounds

Brains without soul - Giant blonde creatures, they were as curvaceous as the bodies of their dwarf men were shriveled.
Captain Christian was the only human who'd ever laid eyes on them. And now he wished he hadn't. They were beauty without heart. Cruel, cold.
And he was their prisoner.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

aka
Earl Ellison, Rex Marlowe

Reviews

[Carlos West · Rating 3 out of 5]

This ok sci-fi has done a bit of travelling. It actually was first published in 1957 with the title, Mission of the Brains. It was then reprinted in 1967 & 1968 with the title, The Robot Brains and published by Macfadden Books as well as Arcadia House. Then in the mid to late 1970's, Unibooks-Modern Promotions purchased a large amount of science fiction(this one among them) and Western novels and they were released in bulk at stores with prices such as 2 for $1. What was misleading was they had the reprint dates and not the original publication dates. So if when you first read this paperback book and felt it had a feel for the 50's, you were right!

[Mark H · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are some great novels published as pulp paperbacks, but this isn’t one of them. A dozen early sci-fi cliches thrown at a huge story that keeps reporting monumental events without describing them. There are robots and characters with huge brains, but no robot brains. Pulp like this needs action or humour to be entertaining.

[Adrian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has no real plot or interesting characters and worst of all, has only 1 page of robots, and that has no bearing at all on the rest of the book. Also what do the hundreds of mutant ants eat in a post-apocalyptic desert? That ecosystem seems unbalanced

[Bryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title had nothing whatsoever to do with the story.

[Tom Britz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually I may give this one a 3.5. It is not even close to award winning, in fact, it read a lot like a "B" movie from the 60's. Which to me is not a bad thing, I happen to like "B" movies. This novel though simply written and plotted, did manage to squeeze quite a few ideas into its simple plot. The plot involves large headed beings, (here is one of many SF tropes that this novel uses-People of the future with large heads because their brain is so advanced.) traveling to our time to kill off the leading scientists.

The novel starts out like a straight forward mystery, slides into pulp science fiction, and then even has some adventure. Now I would not recommend this novel to any one that is not firmly grounded in SF and loves it, because this is not even close to being a good representative novel for the genre. But for those that are familiar and can enjoy its simplicity and enjoy it for what it is - pure escapism, then I would recommend taking the short time it wold take to enjoy it.

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was clearly an idea that evolved in the writing. The Robot Brains of the title--okay it is a terrible title and has nothing to do with anything, just go with it--start as a circus sideshow act and then once the story ticks past the 'must investigate' section we go full-bore pulp lunatic and their weird dastardly plan spins up. And then the main character is sprung into their world so that the villain can torment him, which is code for "the author wanted to show what was really going on but didn't have a good way to do that, so the villain has a Monologuing Villain Moment and does something uncharacteristically dimwitted."

Also, sexual dimorphism because that would make these 1960's readers shiver and a long deus ex machina moment as Enlightened Future Humans arrive and take charge and set things right.

[Roddy Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

'BRAINS WITHOUT SOUL

Giant blonde creatures, they were as curvaceous as the bodies of their dwarf men were shrivelled.
Captain Christian was the only human who’d ever laid eyes on them. And now he wished he hadn’t. They were beauty without heart. Cruel, cold.
And he was their prisoner.'

Blurb from the 1969 Macfadden paperback edition

When the police do not believe the irascible Doctor Fox’s contention that there is a connection between a travelling circus and the decapitation of several leading scientists, he asks his friend, Captain Christian, to help him investigate.
Christian discovers that ‘The Brains’, a trio of dwarfs with enormous craniums, are working at the travelling fair and is subsequently framed for murder.
It’s an odd little novel, slightly American in style, but very British in content.
In some ways the plot can be compared to that of the Time Machine. ‘The Brains’, it transpires, have travelled from the future of Earth, long after the time when Humanity seeded interstellar colonies. The Earth humans did not divide and evolve along lines of class structure, as Wells’ humans did, but of gender, Men grew more intelligent than women while women lost their intellect and grew merely huge, blonde and beautiful. While an unlikely premise, it shows at least an awareness of sexual inequality at the time.
One woman of the future, Alma, displays intelligence and is hunted like an animal by the male Brains and the giant females. Luckily, the rest of humanity has evolved to a state of sexual equality and have confined the Brains and their females to Earth. The Brains’ aim is to change history so that mankind did not reach the stars, leaving their own race to conquer the galaxy.
Fortunately, Captain Christian is there to save the day, having been kidnapped, taken to the future and battled the Brains and some giant mutated insects before making contact with the enlightened humans who help him to rid his own time of the Brain menace.
He returns to find that Doctor Fox has married Jo the dwarf woman from the circus (as perhaps some weird symbolic reverse metaphor of future developments on Earth)

[gazoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

" life isn't a static thing - we either progress or degenerate". This is science at its fantastic and most fun. Where bad brains and mutant babes do their damndest to control mankinds' power of imagination. I am sure the Watchers were scooped up by the Silver Surfer of Marvel comic fame and the mutated insects remind me a lot of the baddies in Starship Troopers. Always great to dip back into the golden era of sky fi pulp where imagination can run wild and the covers are pulled up over your head most of the time.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

lame

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pulpiest sci-fi I have ever read, and that's why I love it!

[James May Sr.]

at the time, i thought it was a fun book to read. it grabbed me and just hung on!

[Paul Vincent Robot · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has a misleading title. There are no "robot brains". There's brains. And there are some robots, but not in the way the book cover leads you to believe.

Overall though, it was a fun, pulpy sci-fi read.