It isn’t very long before he proves to be right.

He claims that an experiment in cryogenics at a Soviet facility in Afghanistan threatens civilization. A news report on the radio reveals that a Russian scientist has defected to the West. Brian is a nicer guy, of course, and has the decency to admit that it’s up to Anne to choose which of the two men, if either, she prefers.īefore we get too deep into this soap opera plot, we get our reminder that this is a science fiction novel. Carl is bigger, richer, and more used to getting his own way than his rival. They are both interested in Anne Cermak, who works with Brian. Carl Jackson is an electronics expert for the same company. Brian Philips, our protagonist, is a chemist for a research corporation. The first page of the book sets up a romantic conflict. (At only 120 pages of text, I’m guessing it’s well under 40,000 words, so it might be considered a long novella.) With its near-future setting, lack of space travel or aliens, and almost entirely serious tone, it’s quite different from his usual creations. The Day the Machines Stopped is his first novel. Perhaps his best-known story is Pandora’s Planet ( Astounding, September 1956), the first of a series of humorous accounts of the misadventures of lion-like aliens trying to deal with the chaos caused by those unpredictable humans. His work most often appears in Astounding/ Analog.Ī typical Anvil yarn is a lightly comic tale about clever humans defeating technologically advanced but naive aliens.

After remaining silent for a few years, he came back with a bang in the late 1950’s, and has since given readers about fifty tales under his new name. Crosby, who published a couple of stories under his real name in the early 1950’s. The Day the Machines Stopped, by Christopher AnvilĬhristopher Anvil is the pseudonym of Harry C. Enjoy this last review of books before the New Year! [ The second Galactoscope for this month features a pair of new novels we felt we could not in good conscience leave unreviewed, particularly the latter.

Fuzzy sapiens