Robot Nemesis by E. E. "Doc" Smith

[Dan]

"Humans from the inner planets and robots from the outer planets have engaged in a planetary war in which no side won. Both sides have retreated to their respective zones, searching for a superweapon that will allow them to annihilate the other. Robots believe they have a plan and only one man can stop them."

This pick is going to come as a surprise to most of us, I suspect. Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D. is known as the father of space opera. He wrote novels for two long series, first Skylark, then the even longer Lensman series. No one today considers reading anything of Doc Smith's outside of these two series.

Nevertheless, he wrote a few odds and ends, stories shorter than novels, that are not parts of either of these series. This is one of them. Few know about it or have heard of it. It's not available in an eBook, at least not that I know of.

It is available for free from Gutenberg.org, and has been since July 2022. If you know how to download from their site and transfer works over to an eBook reader, you're set. That is one way you could obtain a copy of this book to read. Another is to pull it up off Gutenberg's site and just read it on your laptop or tablet.

The short story (it's 6,873 words long, so not quite a novelette) was also published in the June 1939 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. That's how I plan to read it--in its natural habitat as it were. Past issues of Thrilling Wonder Stories are available to read for free here: https://www.luminist.org/archives/SF/....



If none of these methods works for you, the story was anthologized once, only once, in Science Fiction: The Best of Yesterday. Plenty of used copies of this obscure anthology are available in the used books online market for under $15, including shipping, and of course you would get all the other excellent stories that come in that volume too. Bookfinder.com is your friend here.

I have not read this story, but I am envisioning something like Battlestar Galactica's premier episode, either series, only set on Earth instead. We'll see. Starting October 1.

[Dan]

"Robot Nemesis" was a great work. I found it easy to download from Gutenberg's site for free. Here's my review of this novelette for those interested in space opera: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Rosemarie]

This was fun-short and exciting, with a good ending.