This collection of short stories, many of them predating the term "cyborg," explores a range of themes. The original publication dates rangefrom 1940 to 1973, and many of the stories have not aged well. Don't expect to findnarratives informed by a feminist or postmodern sensibility; if there is a"cyborg manifesto" implicit in this anthology, it is a celebration of thecyborg as idealized masculinity, combined with a contempt for the human body,which is typically portrayed as both weak and unclean. But it is preciselybecause they express so baldly some of the assumptions and obsessions of theirtime that these stories are of historical interest (Freudians and feministsshould have a field day). Though they may not all be great literature, thesetales are short, pungent, and could work well as the starting point for classdiscussion.
Historians of technology may be interested to note which technologies held theimagination of writers at various times. Some stories, including the oldest("Men of Iron," 1940), explore production technologies and labor themes, withthe cyborg worker becoming ever-more-literally a cog in the machine. In theyears after World War II there seems to be increased interest in creatingmechanical prosthetics to repair damaged human bodies. A number of writers(both within this anthology and elsewhere) have described cyborgspaceships--human brains embedded in vehicular bodies--which is perhapsfitting, since the very first cyborg research was done with the aim of adaptinghumans for space travel.[1]
If there is one theme that underlies all these stories, it is the challengethat the cyborg presents to our notions of humanity. For me, what is mostinteresting in these stories is not their response to the question "Are cyborgshuman?"Most of them, predictably, answer this in the affirmative. (These arescience fiction writers, after all!) But in exploring this question, theauthors are forced to articulate their beliefs about what it means to behuman--and, especially, which aspects of human nature they would be mostfearful of losing.
"Men of Iron." Guy Endore. First published in 1940.
"I'm With You in Rockland." Jack Dann. First published in 1972.
"Masks." Damon Knight. First published in 1973.
"No Woman Born." C. L. Moore. First published in 1944.
"Fortitude." Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. First published in 1968.
"Camouflage." Henry Kuttner. First published in 1945.
"Crucifixus Etiam." Walter M. Miller, Jr. First published in 1953.
"Period Piece." J. J. Coupling. First published in 1948.
"Solar Plexus." James Blish. First published in 1941.
"Sea Change." Thomas N. Scotia. First published in 1956.
"Starcrossed." George Zebrowski. First published in 1973.
The introduction provides an explanation of the cyborg concept and an overviewof the various stories. The editors, both of whom also contributed stories tothe volume, discuss how science fiction can enrich our understanding of thecyborg by raising and dramatizing questions about the effects of this newtechnological capability on our experience as human beings. In addition to thischapter, the editors also provide a short a introduction to each story thathelps place it within the history of cyborg fiction. <p>
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In this parable of industrial automation, worker and machine gradually changeplaces. The machine, an automatic lathe, is consistently portrayed as superiorto the body of the human worker, Anton, who is so old and decrepit that he canbarely manage to eat a sandwich. Although Anton does not consciously expressadmiration for the machine, he dreams about achieving a cyborg perfection:
To Anton, in his dream, came the engineer, declaring that he had anew automatic hopper and chuck for Anton's hands and mouth. They were ofshining steel with many rods and wheels moving with assurance through acomplicated pattern. And now, though the sandwich was made of pins, of hardsteel pins, Anton's new chuck was equal to it. He grasped the sandwich of pinswith no difficulty at all. His new steel teeth bit into the pins, ground them,chewed them and spat them out again with vehemence. Faster and faster came thepins, and faster and faster the chuck seized them in its perfectly occludingsteel dogs, played with them, toyed with them, crunched them, munched them. . . . (7)The company engineers are firmly convinced ofthe superiority of the machine, but the director of the factory--an old-timerhimself--warns that technology is getting out of control. He tells a fableabout "why the sea is salt," which relates how a well-meaning wizard created asalt-making machine that could not be shut off, resulting in the contaminationof formerly fresh-water oceans. But this warning is ignored; his subordinatesdo not understand the message of this tale, and the automatic lathe takes overmore and more of Anton's functions until he is completely displaced. The endinghints at an erotic merger of human and machine bodies.
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The title of this story of technophilia run amok comes from Allen Ginsberg'spoem "Howl":
I'm with you in RocklandThe main cyborgtechnology in this story, used by a construction worker, is "an exoskeletalharness, a light metal framework equipped with sensors that picked up his everymovement and transmitted them to artificial muscles." With this harness inplace, a human worker has the strength to lift steel beams. The main characteris impotent with his wife (his name, Flaccus, seems a reminder of his sexualinadequacy) and finds himself becoming more and more alienated from the peoplearound him. For Flaccus, the machinery represents an augmentation of his ownphysical power.
where we wake up electrified out of thecoma by
our own soul's airplanes (quoted p. 15)
The harness felt good. It was all around him, thin, light strips ofbody armor, giving him all the power and security he needed. He was soft tissuesurrounded by a steel and plastic carapace. (16)This is one of theanthology's most direct portrayals of the cyborg as a symbol ofhyper-masculinity; the harness not only makes Flaccus feel powerful but beginsto feature in his sadistic sexual fantasies. As Flaccus retreats into hismechanical world, the line between reality and fantasy becomes increasinglyblurred.
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What would happen if a person's entire body were replaced by an mechanicalprosthesis? This is the fate of Jim, the protagonist of "Masks." The storyplays off the reader's (presumed) expectation that the cyborg will lament theloss of his biological body, only to reveal that Jim has in fact developed aloathing of all things organic. Jim's total identification with the machineside of his nature is symbolized by the featureless metallic mask he insists onwearing over his reconstructed human face, denying his connection with humanityand disconcerting those who labored to create his new body.
At the end of this story the author gives his own comments about its genesis.He notes that he had researched and thought extensively about the practical andpsychological problems involved in prosthetics and had concluded that thecyborg
can and must accept his own clean smooth functioning as the norm.When he looks at the sweaty, oozing meat that other people are made of, his onepossible emotion is disgust (38).This "inevitable" disgust withthe organic body leads the character into deceit, violence, and ultimately,perhaps, madness.
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Vonnegut's 19-page play foregrounds an issue that is touched on in many ofthese stories: the power of those who create cyborgs--whether individualscientists or military-industrial complexes--over the cyborgs themselves. (Thisissue appears to a lesser extent in "Masks.") After all, replacing most of ahuman body with mechanical parts would require an enormous scientific andtechnological effort, and the people funding and participating in such aneffort could be expected to want some control over the final product--even ifthat "product" were also a human being. All of the authors portray such controlas an infringement of the cyborg's rights, even (or especially) when that poweris supposedly being exercised for the cyborg's own good.
Sylvia, the cyborg subject of "Fortitude," is a wealthy woman has had one organafter another replaced with artificial parts until she is finally reduced tobeing a head on a pedestal, which is attached to a roomful of machines attendedby medical personnel. Lest we be in doubt as to whether Sylvia's treatment hasgone beyond the proper bounds of medicine, the doctor who performed theseoperations is named Frankenstein. We also learn that he has a morbid obsessionwith Sylvia, whom he views as a surrogate for both the mother he lost and thelover he never had.
Sylvia's life is completely under Frankenstein's supervision, and her abilityto act is limited. Prosthetic arms allow her to read magazines and writeletters to pen-pals, her main diversions, but she has no mobility and nopurpose in life. Most sinister is the fact that her very emotions arecontrolled by Frankenstein, who adulterates her nutrient supply with alcohol,LSD, and other drugs to shape her moods according to his notion of what is goodfor her. Sylvia's one friend, her hairdresser, tries to give Sylvia the onlyform of freedom left to her--the power to commit suicide--but in trademarkVonnegut fashion, the play comes to an unexpected and darkly humorousconclusion.
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Is it coincidence that the only female writer in this anthology has a much morepositive view of the human body--and its cyborg possibilities--than most of themale writers featured? Deirdre, Moore's protagonist, is a world-famous dancerwhose body was destroyed in a theater fire. A team of scientists and artistscreates a new body for her from sculpted metal, and after an initial period ofadaptation Deirdre is happy and confident in her new body and ready to resumeher life as a public performer. Reflecting on her new identity, she observesthat the mind and the machine are not completely alien to one another, that thehuman ego is actually in communion with the objects around it:
It does instill its own force into inanimate objects, and they takeon a personality of their own. People do impress their personalities on thehouses they live in, you know. (77)The cyborg is, by thisargument, on a continuum with our everyday interactions between people andmachines.
It is the men around Deirdre who express anxiety about her new cyborg state andwho try to keep her under their "protective" control. The story could be read,on one level, as a commentary on male fears about strong women. For Malzer, thescientist who oversaw her resurrection as a cyborg, the old, human Deirdre wasdefined primarily (and stereotypically) by her sex, and the loss of her femalebody means the loss of her humanity:
One of the strongest stimuli to a woman of her type was theknowledge of sex competition. You know how she sparkled when a man came intothe room? All that's gone, and it was an essential. . . . She used tosurround herself with luxuries--she drew her stimuli from them--and all that'sgone too. (87)Though he has, presumably, devoted his career tocyborg medicine, Malzer regards the new Deirdre as "pitifully handicapped" and"a freak" (89). Arguing that Deirdre is "too fragile" to stand the scorn he issure people will feel for her new metallic body, Malzer vows, "I've got to stopher! For her own sake I've got to do it!" (98). But Deirdre tells her manager,Harris, "That's another idea you and Malzer will have to get out of your minds.I don't belong to him."(85) Later she comments, "There's a flaw in yourargument, and I resent it. I'm not a Frankenstein monster made out of deadflesh. I'm myself--alive. You didn't create my life, you only preserved it."(108) Even Malzer is forced to acknowledge Deirdre's strength and independence:
If it had been someone else I think the whole thing might havefailed completely. It takes more than just an uninjured brain. It takesstrength and courage beyond common, and--well, something more.Something--unquenchable. Deirdre has it. (67)And Harris, watchingher dance, finds her new state in some ways superior to the old: "[H]e hadfeared once to find her jointed like a mechanical robot. But it was humanitythat seemed, by contrast, jointed and mechanical now."(92) Much of the story'sinterest comes from these multiple and shifting perspectives on the cyborgexperience. The story ends ambiguously, reflecting both Deirdre's confidence inher new powers and the men's fears that the "taint of metal" will eventuallyundermine her humanity (118).
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Cyborgs and spaceships seem to be an irresistible combination for sciencefiction authors. The premise is Camouflage" is that people whose bodies aredestroyed in accidents can elect to become "Transplants"--disembodied brainsthat can be hooked up to various types of machinery to act as super-skilledoperators. An engineer who works with the Transplants points out that they havecertain advantages over ordinary people, such as immortality, and he views themas entirely human:
I'm no more conscious of their mechanical, interchangeable bodiesthan a physician would think of a friend as a bundle of nerves and veins. It'sthe reasoning faculty that counts, and that hasn't altered.(126)The Transplant protagonist, Bart Quentin, is operating astarship that a gang of criminals attempt to hijack. One of the gang had beenan old friend of Quentin's, and the two play a psychological game of cat andmouse, as the friend tries to locate the cyborg's human brain within the shipso that the gang can disable it and take over the controls. In the course ofthis struggle there is much discussion of whether the cyborg is still human,with his ex-friend using the argument that Quentin is no longer a person toexcuse his own betrayal.
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I first encountered this story by Walter M. Miller as a young science fictionenthusiast. I remember being deeply impressed at the time, and onrereading the story is still well-crafted and moving. In addition, Milleraddresses directly the power imbalance between cyborgs and the institutionsthat create them for their own ends. The story bears interesting parallels withthe actual proposals made for modifying the human metabolism described inNASA's original "Cyborgs and Space" article; in both cases the proposed changessound quite unpleasant for the person involved, and both show the cyborg beingused in an instrumental way by the sponsoring institutions.
The premise is that a labor colony has been set up on Mars in an effort to makethe planet habitable. To enable these people to survive on the airless planet,they have artificial breathing devices implanted in their chests. Like migrantlaborers here on Earth, the workers (all men) come to the colony freely, luredby the promise of high wages; but once there they find harsh conditions andcannot leave the planet before the end of their contracts. Most of them,therefore, remain in their cyborg state involuntarily.
The main character is a Peruvian named Manue Nanti, evoking the plight ofmigrant laborers in the Americas. Miller puts the subjective experience of thehuman body front and center, depicting Manue's physical state in anunglamorized and visceral way:
Each time he swung the heavy pick into the red-brown sod, his facewinced with pain. The plastic aerator valves, surgically stitched in his chest,pulled and twisted and seemed to tear with each lurch of his body. Themechanical oxygenator served as a lung, sucking blood through an artificiallygrafted network of veins and plastic tubing . . . . Breathing wasunnecessary, except to provide wind for talking, but Manue breathed indesperate gulps of the 4.0 psi Martian air; for he had seen the wasted,atrophied chests of the men who had served four or five years, and he knew thatwhen they returned to Earth--if ever--they would still need the auxiliaryoxygenator equipment. (166)Not only is the transformation fromordinary human to cyborg painful, but it threatens to be a one-way trip forthose who lose the use of their lungs. The story unfolds around Manue'sincreasingly desperate attempts to maintain his lung function--which stands infor his humanity--despite a harsh environment and an unjust class system. Forwe learn that, unlike the workers, the engineers and managers on Mars areprovided with oxygenated environments that allow them to live there withoutrisk or discomfort. For the laborers, however, "Mars was a nightmare, a grim,womanless, frigid, disinterestedly evil world" (168). Their alienation fromthis desolate planet echoes their increasing alienation from their own cyborgbodies.
Moreover, the cyborg laborers find that "the Commission" (the government entityrunning the Mars operation) has lied to them about the purpose of theirmission. "The men resented the quiet secrecy connected with the project.. . . There was a certain arbitrariness about it, a hint that theCommission thought of its employees as children or enemies or servants"(178-179). Eventually Manue's supervisor reveals that they are at the beginningstages of a project that none of them will live long enough to benefit from.
"Some sow, others reap," he said."Why?" the Peruvian choked.The supervisor shrugged. "What's the difference? But if you can't be both,which would you rather be?" (187)While the supervisor's words aremeant to inspire in Manue a feeling of noble self-sacrifice and pride, themessage is undermined by Miller's graphic depictions of the cyborg's suffering,to which the story's title refers.
Every morning he awoke with a still, motionless chest, feltfrightening remorse, sat up gasping, choking, sucking at the thin air withwhining, rattling lungs that had been idle too long. Sometimes he coughedviolently or bled a little. And then for a night or two he would correctlyadjust the oxy, only to wake up screaming and suffocating. He felt hope slidinggrimly away. (181)The Christ-like cyborg finds himself sacrificedon the alter of colonial expansion and capitalist economics.
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This short tale invokes a sense of paranoia reminiscent of the Twilight Zonetelevision series. The protagonist, Smith, is a cyborg but doesn't know it. Hismakers have falsely told him that he is a human being who time-traveled fromthe 20th century to the 21st, and the story follows his progress in unravelingthe truth. Along the way, the author makes implicit claims as to whatconstitutes humanity. For instance, sexual desire is seen as an important partof being human, and Smith's lack of sexual response to an attractive woman hemeets is one of the clues that alerts him to his alien condition:
He had thought of Myria as merely handsome and handsomely dressed.But . . . there could have been more than this. Just how did he,Smith, differ from other men? (197)Once Smith divines his truenature, he also realizes that he has been created merely for the amusement ofhis 21st century hosts, who think of him only as a machine.
He was a cleverly constructed period piece . . . Like aclockwork nightingale. That was why these people admired him briefly, for whathe was--a charming mechanical toy! (198)For the 21st century scientists, meanwhile, the key qualification for humanity is consciousness. Thecyborg they have created is a mechanical body remote-controlled by a brain in alaboratory. Since they believe--inaccurately, as it turns out--that such acyborg would not be conscious, they have no compunction about treating Smith asan object. While the details and purpose of the cyborg project are neverdiscussed in the story (one wonders where the brain came from), it is clearthat these scientists are unprepared to accept their cyborg creations as fellowhuman beings.
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In a twist on the typical cyborg-spaceship story, the cyborg vehicle isportrayed as malevolent, animated by the brain of a mad scientist who is intenton kidnapping humans to use as "spare parts" for more such ships. The plothinges on the hostages finding analogs between the human body and the cyborg'snew machine body, so that they can "knock out" their captor and gain control ofthe ship.
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Another variation on the cyborg spaceship theme. This story focuses on thealienation felt by a cyborg named Matt, who would like to pilot a ship using anandroid body, but is afraid that a direct hookup to the machine (the onlyoption he is offered) would erase the last traces of his humanity. In his view,the cyborgs who opt to be hooked up to ships become machine-like, includingBeth, who had been his lover during their human existence.
They're bringing the new ones out. The new ships. . . . Oh, Iwish I were one of them, Beth said. His hand tensed on the glass and for a moment he thought it would shatter inhis fingers. She hadn't said "on."Were . . . were . . . I wish I were one of them.But when Beth gets into trouble, Matt is roused from his self-pity to help save her. Heultimately resolves to take an assignment as a cyborg ship, inspired by the"dream" of space colonization. Reconciled to his fate, Matt concludes thatcyborgs have
something normal men will never have. They've found a part in thebiggest dream that man has ever dared dream. And that takes courage . . .courage to be what they are. (232; ellipsis in original)Like "Crucifixus Etiam," "Sea Change" has the cyborg find his salvation in themodernist dream of progress and the conquest of nature, rather than thepostmodern play of identities.
While the other stories in this collection focus on a single, isolatedcyborg--this sense of isolation contributing much to the angst most of thecyborgs feel--Scotia's story is unusual in depicting a community ofcyborgs. While they are physically scattered throughout the solar system inships and space stations, the hundred or so cyborgs are able to communicatetelepathically with one another across the distances. Such communication allowsthem to maintain social contacts and help each other in time of need. Thismeans that once Matt has come to peace with his cyborg identity, he need notsocialize with ordinary humans but can join a society of beings like himself:"hundreds of minds, stretching in a brotherhood of metal across the endlessspaces" (234).
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One of the most intriguing characters in this collection is the protagonist ofthis story: "MOB--Modified Organic Brain embodied in a cyborg relationship witha probe vehicle en route to Antares" (238). The rationale for building suchcyborg ships is that they--unlike human ship captains--are able to withstandthe rigors of travel through hyper-space, and can therefore explore distantparts of the universe. (Apparently this is enough to justify using human brainsto control the ships without getting the consent of the brain donors, thoughthis issue is not explored in the story.)
MOB, we discover, is actually composed of two different brain portions:
He wondered about the fusion of the artificially grown andhuman-derived brain portions which made up his structure: one knew everythingin the ship's memory banks, the other brought to the brain core a fragmentedhuman past and certain intuitive skills. (238-9)As it turns out,the human portion of the ship's brain had been embodied in a woman, while theartificial portion was taken from a male infant:
"You would have been a man," she said, "if they had not taken yourbrain even before birth and sectioned it for use in this . . . hulk.I was a woman, a part of one at least. You are the only kind of man I may havenow." (241; ellipsis in original)The gender of the bodies fromwhich the brains were taken should, in theory, have been irrelevant. But when amalfunction of the ship splits apart the two brain segments, they reasserttheir separate (heterosexual) male and female identities, and a remarkableerotic interaction unfolds in the virtual reality these two minds share. Thecyborg state becomes a metaphor for the alienation inherent in a purelyinstrumental view of the body, with its denial of desire and difference. Yet atthe same time, the character(s) are able to create a space for desire withinthat cyborg existence. As the title suggests, however, there is a price to bepaid for asserting--even virtually--the pleasures of the flesh.