Robots Have No Tails

Robots Have No Tails
Dust-jacket from the first edition
AuthorLewis Padgett
Cover artistRic Binkley
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction
PublisherGnome Press
Publication date
1952
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages224

Robots Have No Tails is a 1952 collection of science fiction short stories by Lewis Padgett (pseudonym of American writers Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore). It was first published by Gnome Press in 1952[1] in an edition of 4,000 copies. The stories all originally appeared in the magazine Astounding Stories.

It has been reprinted in 1973 by Lancer books with an introduction by C.L. Moore; in 1983 in the UK by Hamlyn Books as The Proud Robot[2] with an introduction by Peter Pinto; and lastly in 2009 in the US by Paizo Publishing LLC's Planet Stories line of books, with an additional introduction (to the one of Catherine Moore) by F. Paul Wilson. Both later editions credit Henry Kuttner as being the author, as does the introduction by C.L. Moore in the 1973 and 2009 editions.

Contents

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  • "The Proud Robot"
  • "Gallegher Plus"
  • "The World Is Mine"
  • "Ex Machina"
  • "Time Locker"

Reception

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Groff Conklin wrote in his Galaxy review column that Robots Have No Tails was not good science fiction, but "zany imaginings of a rather anti-scientific sort."[3] Boucher and McComas praised the collection as "a great joy.".[4] P. Schuyler Miller praised the stories as "pure entertainment, lavishly applied."[5]

References

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  1. ^ Reginald 1992, p. 555.
  2. ^ Reginald 1992, p. 556.
  3. ^ "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf", Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1952, p.124
  4. ^ "Recommended Reading," F&SF, October 1952, p.99
  5. ^ "The Reference Library", Astounding Science Fiction, December 1952, pp.101-02

Sources

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  • Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd. p. 299.
  • Contento, William G. "Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections". Retrieved 2008-02-25.
  • Reginald, Robert; Mary A. Burgess; Daryl F. Mallett (1992). Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, 1975-1991: A Bibliography of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Fiction Books and Nonfiction Monographs. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Inc. pp. 1512. ISBN 9780810318250.
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