Bifurcation

Figure 1. Moses Nebogipfel (see)

 This blog post is supposed to be about "Richard Cowper", A.K.A. John Middleton Murry. I'm in the process of working my way down a list of science fiction story tellers who were born in 1926 and Cowper is next on the list. 

However, I'm going to split this blog post into Parts. "The 1977 Annual World's Best SF" edited by Arthur W. Saha and Donald A. Wollheim had both "The Hertford Manuscript" by Richard Cowper and "The Bicentennial Man" by Isaac Asimov. In my previous blog post, I mentioned "Brother to the Machine" by Richard Matheson, a story that reminded me of Asimov's positronic robot stories. I've never read "The Bicentennial Man", so I'm going to do that now and pay attention to how Asimov depicted the mind of the robot "Andrew".

A quick glance at "The Hertford Manuscript" showed me that "The Hertford Manuscript" is part of what the ISFDB calls "H. G. Wells' Time Machine Universe". So, I needed to do some preparation.

Figure 2.  A time machine by ImageFX

 Part 1. In preparation for reading "The Hertford Manuscript", I read "The Chronic Argonauts". The writing style of "The Chronic Argonauts" by H. G. Wells is not to my taste. The dude who builds the first time machine, Moses Nebogipfel, describes himself as a genius, a man born ahead of his proper time, realizing "my age was still to come". "The Chronic Argonauts" has a distinctly anti-science tone, not even trying to explain how Moses Nebogipfel, Super Genius™, could have built his time machine. The whole story is very reminiscent of Frankenstein.

When science fiction developed as a distinct genre (and that genre was finally given its name, in the 1920s), it became an established part of the science fiction game to make the imaginary technologies deployed in stories seem appropriate for their time. 

Figure 3. A more colorful image by ImageFX.

 Space 1997. For example, as discussed in my previous blog post, when Richard Matheson wrote his story "Death Ship" and got it published in 1953, he told his readers that the events of the story were set in the far-off year of 1997 when interstellar spacecraft routinely visited distant star systems.

 Time Travel 1890. In contrast, Wells imagined the development of time travel as taking place in rural Llyddwdd Wales among an ignorant population of villagers who were comically going to treat a scientist like a warlock ("Fear ye to smite when the Lord hateth? Burn the warlock!"). Was it the hope of Wells that his fellow students, when reading "The Chronic Argonauts", would say to themselves: "I'm not an ignorant Welshman, I can imagine invention of a time machine with a more open mind?"

Figure 4. The original
Moses by ImageFX.

 Back From The Future. Wells missed the opportunity to depict Moses Nebogipfel as being a time traveler from the future. However, it may have been the case that when "The Chronic Argonauts" was written, Wells was only just beginning to think about the future. Rather than try to tell readers something interesting about the future, Wells carefully outlined a 100-year long history for the house where Nebogipfel built his time machine, including one past resident who was: "an old man named Williams" known well to the local people because of "The foul murder of this tenant by his two sons". Because of this local legend about the sad demise of Williams, the house was long abandoned -ready and waiting- for Moses Nebogipfel to move in and build his time machine.

 The Moses Erection. Wells described the time machine as "a peculiar erection of brass and ebony and ivory". In the text of "The Chronic Argonauts", Wells did provide detailed descriptions of both Moses Nebogipfel and his time machine. 

Figure 5. Kyky in her workshop.

I provided the written description of Nebogipfel from "The Chronic Argonauts" to ImageFX. The original depiction of Moses Nebogipfel that was generated by ImageFX was quite hideous, with a deeply creased face and sickly yellow skin tone (see Figure 4, to the left and above on this page ↖). I used WOMBO Dream to make a more realistic and less ugly depiction of Moses Nebogipfel (see Figure 1, above, upper right on this blog post). 

 The Chronic Argo. The original depiction of the time machine that was generated by ImageFX (see Figure 2) was almost devoid of color, even-though my text prompt specified that I wanted a "full color movie still". With additional arm-twisting and modification of the text prompt, I was able to get ImageFX to make a slightly more colorful scene (see Figure 3).

The Project Gutenberg webpage with the text of "The Chronic Argonauts" has a color illustration that is attributed to "Microsoft Bing software". I used that Bing-generated image as a reference for the WOMBO Dream software and made the image shown in Figure 5 ↗.

see the original cover

 The first time loop?  Who is that in the time machine with Moses (Figures 2 & 3)? He is the Reverend Elijah Ulysses Cook, who having previously departed with Moses in the time machine, returns three weeks later and is taken in by The Author. Cook tells The Author about the murder of old man Williams in 1862. Cook's account begins on the day that he visited Moses and saw "the philosopher" use his time machine: seemingly disappearing. Already, Moses had spent 10 years (his subjective time) using the Time Machine and visiting other Times.

 Particularly, Moses went into the past, to the precise Time when the old man, Williams, died. Suddenly appearing in the year 1862, Moses was attacked by Williams (who yelled "Man or Devil, I defy thee...") and while defending himself, Moses killed Williams.Thus, the local legend that Williams had been killed by his sons is mistaken.

image source

After Moses has given Cook a quick introduction to quadridimensional geometry, the fearful townsfolk are approaching the house of Moses Nebogipfel with menace. Cook and Nebogipfel use the time machine to depart and they have an adventure in the future, which is not described in the pages of "The Chronic Argonauts" 😖. 

 No Female Characters. Yes, there are female townsfolk in "The Chronic Argonauts", but none of the important characters is a woman. Another standard trope the eventually arrived in the Golden Age of science fiction was the scientist's cute daughter. I like to imagine that Moses Nebogipfel had a daughter named Kyky (see Figure 5) who remained at her father's workshop, crafting the parts that were needed to complete the time machine. In my imagination, Kyky was a time traveler from the future whose knowledge of advanced manufacturing techniques made it possible for Moses to build his time machine.

Little Miss and Andrew

 Part 2. "The Hertford Manuscript" begins with comments about the 1990s and mention of the Fabian Society. Soon, the narrator's aunt Vikki is describing how in 1907 H.G. Wells had asked her for help with a book he was writing. The claim is made that "The Chronic Argonauts" was based on a Doctor Robert Pensley, who mysteriously disappeared. The story narrator laughs off that claim and the suggestion that "The Chronic Argonauts" was based on actual time travel.

 Time Warp. After aunt Vikki dies, the narrator of "The Hertford Manuscript" inherits a book from the 1600s which has some pages that were written on a type of paper that existed only after 1860. 

Little Miss and Andrew playing piano.

Reading the hand-written text on those mysterious out-of-time pages, the narrator hears about Morlocks and a malfunction of the Time Machine. Of course, there is nothing as straight forward as a statement saying "the following message was written by Pensley from 1894, trapped in 1665", so "The Hertford Manuscript" starts feeling like some lame episode of Dr. Who. 

  Bad Break. Readers quickly learn that one of the 4 quartz prisms that are needed to propel the Time Machine through Time has broken.

Little Miss and Andrew working.

But will it be possible to get a replacement quartz prisms in London when the city is in the grip of the plague? After suffering through a long boring walk into London, readers of "The Hertford Manuscript" finally learn that the time traveler is Robert Pensley. Readers are led to believe that Robert Pensley died in 1665, but no mention is made of how an abandoned Time Machine in 1665 never provoked any interest or record in history.

 Part 3. Place the End at the Beginning. Having satisfied myself of the contents of Richard Cowper's story "The Hertford Manuscript", I was eager to move on to reading "The Bicentennial Man". Asimov listed the Three Laws of Robotics right at the beginning of "The Bicentennial Man". Then, readers are presented with Andrew Martin in consultation with a robotic surgeon. Andrew is himself a robot, but the surgeon mistakes Andrew for a human being.

Andrew and his owner, Sir, learn that he is unique.

Originally an NDR model household robot (NDR-114, serial number 583625), Andrew got the name 'Andrew' from Little Miss and her childish attempt to say NDR. Fresh from the factory, Andrew is not a normal robot; he can bring an unusual amount of creativity to incidental tasks such as carving a wooden pendant for Little Miss.

Upon consulting with a Roboticist at U.S. Robotics, Andrew's owner learns that Andrew is unique, apparently his creativity is a rare fluke not seen in any other NDR model robot. A common science fiction theme in Golden Age stories was the Mutant. Asimov milked the mutant idea for all it was worth in his robot stories, depicting both Giskard's telepathic abilities and Andrew's creativity as happy accidents.

image source

Andrew is allowed to keep the money that he earns from his wood-working. Eventually, he asks his owner, Sir, for his freedom. Sir grants it, but Andrew continues to follow the Three Laws of Robotics, but now as a "free robot", that status having been recognized by the legal system. 

Maybe the strangest thing about "The Bicentennial Man" is that Andrew is depicted as the the only creative robot in the world and the only robot who can even think of the possibility of freedom. Asimov pretended that humans would always fear thinking robots, so the company U.S. Robotics is depicted as actively altering the design of robots so as to prevent any more of them from "going bad" like Andrew.

With time, U.S. Robotics develops the ability to make robots with human appearance. Andrew requests that his positronic brain be placed into such a human-like body. 

Andre and Portia

After the body-swap is accomplished, the text of "The Bicentennial Man" states: "Andrew could feel his brain from the inside." There is no question that Asimov was depicting Andrew as having a conscious mind and human-like thought processes.

Andrew then sets about the task of making his mechanical body more like a biological body. Andrew makes devices that can be transplanted into humans, replacing biological organs. Andrew reconstructs his own body, incorporating those prosthetic devices. Andrew's ultimate goal is to have his own "humanity" recognized legally. 

Portia and Andrew.

Andrew realizes that he will only be declared human if he can die. Returning to the first scene of the story, Andrew has his robotic body altered one last time so that he can age and die.

I'm left wondering if Isaac Asimov might have been influenced by Matheson's story "Brother to the Machine". Matheson's story is completely dismal, while Asimov's story about Andrew is much more positive, if ultimately still dodging the question of how a conscious machine might be constructed. "The Bicentennial Man" seems to raise the issue of self-consciousness as opposed to mere consciousness of one's surroundings. All of the other robots of Earth seemingly have consciousness, but no self-interest. 

 This webpage discusses the differences between Asimov's story and the film, Chris Columbus' "Bicentennial Man", that was made based on the the original written story. In the film, Andrew gets the girl (Portia), and the story is much more fun and humanized than the original version by Asimov.

Clones by ImageFX.

 Part 4. Mutants. Having read "The Hertford Manuscript" (see above on this page) I gathered up my courage and took a look at another Richard Cowper story, his 1972 novel "Clone". At the beginning of the story (in 2072) , not only are readers introduced to one of 4 clone brothers, but also a genetically modified chimp that talks. Alvin and his clone brothers (born in 2054) were created by in vitro fertilization using gametes from two people with extraordinary memory. Not only are Alvin and his brothers unable to forget anything, they start having visions of the future. 

And when together in the same room, they have additional superpowers such as being able to teleport people through space. But then, what is meant by "space"?

Talking chimp clones & Cheryl by Leonardo.

 Fictional Politics. Much of "Clone" concerns the future as imagined by Cowper: over-population of Earth "solved" by government agencies that devise new ways to get people to kill themselves and each-other. And then there is an entire Planet of the Apes sub-plot in which renegade talking chimps kidnap Alvin's telepathic love-interest, Cheryl the rich kid, and hold her for ransom. 

Human-chimp hybrids by Leonardo.

Of course, in the fictional universe of "Clone", the solution to all the world's troubles is Alvin, his clone brothers and their magical powers. In the end, I think we readers are supposed to believe that the clones use their amazing brain power to open up "another dimension" where they start a new civilization with Cheryl, like Adam and Eve... creating a true bifurcation of reality. The implication seems to be that the "old Earth" is not worth bothering with and a "new Earth" needs to be founded by Alvin and Cheryl.

I have to describe the fantastic powers of the clones as magical because Cowper made no attempt to explain them. Similarly, there is no account of the origin of the talking chimps who populate Earth in the year 2072 of Cowper's imagined future.

Chimp-human hybrids by Leonardo.

 And AI. I must mention one last Hi Tek™ element that Cowper included in "Clone". There is an artificial intelligence (called OMEGA) that acts as an advisor for the government of Europe in 2072. OMEGA seems similar to the Multivac system that Isaac Asimov included in some of his science fiction stories.

image source

 Part 5. Having suffered through two rather pointless stories by Richard Cowper (including his time travel story, see above on this page) it was with great trepidation that I took a look at another H. G. Wells follow-on time travel story: A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright, which was described by one reviewer as a "terrifying dystopia". Particularly terrifying for me is that this novel is listed as being 352 pages long. 

 Too Long; I Started Skimming. From my perspective, a reader who is not interested in fluff, "A Scientific Romance" does not not begin in promising fashion. There are 20 pages of rambling text before we see a document purportedly from H. G. Wells, written in 1946, just a few months before his death: "TO BE OPENED ON DECEMBER 21st, 1999."

Figure 6. Tatiana's 1899 fusion
power source by ImageFX.

 Secret Message from H. G. Wells. We readers of "A Scientific Romance" are told that it was a woman, Tatiana Cherenkova, who built the first time machine. About 1897, Tatiana became the mistress of H. G. Wells and she told him that she could build a time machine. Doc Brown had the "flux capacitor", but Tatiana apparently used a cold fusion process to power her time machine.

 The Lone Inventor. After a few years of secretive work, the time machine is completed in 1899 and Tatiana plans to make short trips into the future and the past and then destroy the time machine. In case something goes wrong, the time machine is programmed to automatically return again in 1999. None of this makes sense nor does Ronald Wright try to explain or justify these plot points.

Figure 7. Inside the time machine;
image generated by ImageFX.

H. G. Wells watched as Tatiana disappeared in the time machine and did not return. In the end, all that matters is that the narrator of "A Scientific Romance" gets to see the time machine return right at the end of 1999. Suspecting that he is dying of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the narrator decides to travel into the future, in search of a cure. The time machine can go no more than 1000 years.

All the lead-up to the narrator actually using the time machine take 90 tedious pages 😖. Arriving in the future (the year 2500), the narrator finds London deserted, the climate changed, the sea level higher. The idea of finding advanced medical knowledge in the future is quickly replaced by a search for any surviving humans.

"A Scientific Romance" has 130 more pages describing the tedious walking journey from London to Edinburgh. Finally it is revealed to readers that there are few thousand people living in Scotland. Looking through old records, the narrator finds that by the 2020s there was a problem with increasing amounts of UV light reaching the surface of Earth along with multiple diseases killing millions. By 2040, civilization had collapsed. The story ends with the narrator returning to the time machine, ready to take another trip through time. Maybe Ronald Wright planned a sequel.

For the AI-generated images shown in Figures 6 & 7, I provided ImageFX with descriptions of the time machine's interior and the power source for the time machine that were provided by Ronald Wright in the text of "A Scientific Romance".

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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