The Joy of Erudition > Recent Status Updates

"I Sing the Body Electric!": The story the collection is named for. A rare pro-technology story from Bradbury, in which a family of kids who have lost their mother and grandmother welcome a loving robot grandmother into their lives, except for young Agatha, who remains reticent until they learn why.

"The Haunting of the New": In this one, where Bradbury shows you how much he's really into Ireland, a generous woman descends into self-loathing and misery after the ungrateful spirit of the house she rebuilt and furnished from scratch expresses its spectral disapproval of her free-spirited and sex-positive ways. Or, The Haunting of Hill House, if the house were a Puritan.

"Night Call, Collect": The best so far! One colonist is left behind on a now-empty Mars, where he has grown old waiting for a rescue ship. His only companions are the limited AI constructs he made of copies of himself at various ages throughout his long wait, who occasionally talk to him over the phone, but now he wants nothing to do with those cocky young fools who don't know what it's like to grow old alone.

"Yes, We'll Gather at the River": A small town that depends on a highway that runs through it is doomed to extinction because a new interstate is opening 300 yards further away, and they can't afford to move their buildings. No resolution.

"The Cold Wind and the Warm": Irish townsfolk are captivated by a group of travellers suspected to actually be birds.

Several of these stories just end without any resolution.

"The Inspired Chicken Motel": A bickering family travelling in poverty to seek work stops at a farm hostel, where an egg tells them things will get better. The end.

"Downwind from Gettysburg": A man shoots a robot duplicate of Abraham Lincoln, hoping for attention.

"Tomorrow's Child": In the far future of 1989, an accident with a machine intended to ease infant deliveries causes the baby to be born partially in another dimension, manifesting as a blue pyramid. It's a race against time to fix the problem before the mother kills herself.

"The Women": A human woman engages in a secret battle of wills with a siren-like sea creature who is trying to lure her husband into the water.

"The Kilimanjaro Device": A man goes back in time to offer his hero (implied to be Hemingway) the opportunity for a better death.

"The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place": A mob of revolutionaries intent on setting fire to a local lord's manor get to know the lord first.

This book definitely influenced Moorcock.

Courtroom drama, raising an army, and a city siege don't fit with how this book was advertised.