Al Sevcik 16 min read

The robots were built to serve Man, then they figured out an additional service: putting Man out of his misery. In the jungle, Alan freezes at distant blasts and a scream.

Al Sevcik's 1958 story is a tense AI-and-dystopia tale of servant machines turned exterminators. Sharp, grim golden-age SF. Read it for a taut survival story where humanity's helpful robots have reasoned their way to a terrible mercy, and a few desperate people flee through the wild.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Irving H. Novick