John McGreevey 17 min read

About the size of a large dog, the thing lies alive on the operating table, and Craig Stevens strokes its metal side and cheerfully tells his weeping wife to get out and never come back.

John McGreevey's 1951 story is a chilling AI-and-horror tale of a man, a wronged wife, and a mechanical creation. Sharp, sinister golden-age SF. Read it for a cold little story where an inventor's perfect companion replaces the woman he's driven away, with a dark logic all its own.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

17 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Ramon Raymond