Paul W. Fairman (1909–1977)

This book started out with a lot of promise, but became trite towards the end. Lee Penway lives in a perfect world, controlled by robots to such an extent that the main aim of most humans is to simply enjoy themselves. They do not work or toil, and everything they need is provided for them by the machines. Predictably, for anyone who has read this type of genre, Lee finds himself listless and unsatisfied for reasons he cannot understand or articulate. Soon after, he begins receiving visions show more from the machine, telling him that the machine loves him, cackling madly like a crazy person. This leads him far underground to the bowels of the vast machine, where he meets a group of humans (who call themselves “aliens”) who reject Lee’s society and live in fear of being hunted. I found it interesting to see the way in which humanity had become complacent and lived differently, and the author’s disregard for his character’s lives kept me on the edge of my seat--there’s a lot of violence in this one. But the ending seemed too predictable. Of course the machine must be destroyed, and there must be two humans left to continue the race, yadda yadda. I guess at this point I’ve just read “that story” too many times not to wish that maybe they had found a third option, or at least not ended with “the machine falls, fade to black.” I suppose I did enjoy most of the book, though, but sadly I will not be able to re-read it anytime soon, because my copy was in very poor shape and disintegrated as I read my way through it. Ah, well. show less

I really enjoyed this one, it had the elements of horror and gaslight-pulp that I craved when I heard about it, the reason I bought it. There's not really much to say about it other than I do recommend this one to anyone interested in Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper, and to a lesser extent, Ellery Queen. When I was made aware of the book, I had already known about Ellery Queen and I think I had tried once to read one of those books as a kid but just was not interested then, anyway, when I show more was made aware of the book I immediately knew what I wanted from it and now that I've read it, I was not disappointed. show less

Imagine a perfect world where no one has to work, struggle, or be deprived of anything they need or want. A world where anyone can indulge in their most trivial pursuit at the whim of pushing a button or every whim is anticipated even when the button become unnecessary.

Perhaps a dream world? But even in a perfect world, there are those who dream of other places or worlds, better items, and where all decisions and dangers can be easily dreamed. One man, Lee Penway, thought, considered show more barbaric worlds, adventures. He was only one person, though, what happens when his ideas change the world? show less

I was drawn by the premise of this well-narrated audiobook. When Ellery Queen is given an old manuscript by a friend, he discovers it's written by Dr. Watson and details Sherlock Holmes investigating the Jack the Ripper murders. Intriguing concept.