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Worlds Without End Blog

RYO Review: The Forever Machine by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley Posted at 7:28 PM by Megan AM

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The Forever MachineRYO_headerThere might be a story somewhere underneath all this twaddle, but Clifton and Riley chose to tell the wrong one.

You would think the combined effort of two authors would enhance the narrative, correct the mistakes, and plug the plot holes. Two perspectives, two brains, two sets of eyeballs… it should amount to a more perfect work, but instead, like all classroom group work, the product fizzles with a fragmented story, cut-and-paste wisdom, and retroactive elaboration. And one writer probably did most of the work, while the other guy flirted with some girls at another table.

Well, that’s been my experience with group work.

The Story:  Professors Billings and Hoskins are on the run after creating Bossy, a controversial supercomputer with powerful, yet untested potential. The professors depend on telepathic student, Joe Carter, to help them evade the government until they can test out Bossy on a human being. But Joe may have other interests in Bossy that he isn’t revealing.

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