“Helen O’Loy” is a 1938 science fiction short story by Lester del Rey. It is about two men who buy a beautiful robot house keeper and the all too life-like problems they encounter with her.
Non-Spoiler Summary In A Nutshell:
Dave and Phil are two pals who spend a lot of time together. Although Dave is a robot repairman and Phil is a doctor, they become increasingly interested in building their own robotic housekeeper. Finally they produce “Lena”, a housekeeping robot who does a pretty good job of things, but she still lacks the common sense that comes from having emotions. After trying – and failing – with mechanical glands in Lena, they order a high quality Dillard’s robot to experiment with. The results are good, but a little bit too real as their new creation, Helen, falls madly in love with one of them.
Instead of sleeping that night, we pored over the schematic diagrams of her structures, tracing the thoughts through mazes of her wiring, severing the leaders, implanting the heterones, as Dave called them. And while we worked, a mechanical tape fed carefully prepared thoughts of consciousness and awareness of life and feeling into an auxiliary memory coil. Dave believed in leaving nothing to chance.
My Two Cents:
• The good:
- I enjoyed the parts of this story that showed it was a true science fiction classic. Like when the two of them fiddle with all the mechanical robot parts! Ha! Who would think of “mechanical glands” nowadays? Honestly, that is half the fun in reading older SF stories.
- I’ve read several stories and seen lots of movies that use this idea of robot house keepers. Some are good, a lot of them suck, but I would imagine that “Helen O’Loy” was among the very first to toy with that idea. It was interesting to see what people in the 1930’s thought of robots.
- It was actually quite refreshing to read a story about two men and an incredibly beautiful female robot without worrying about… you know… what “might” happen between them! Sure, I may be a typical man but I think this story would have been a little more adult-themed had it been written recently.
• The bad:
- I got kind of tired of all the female stereotypes. All the referring to them as fragile, emotional and only-good-as-housekeepers was a little bit too much. I know, I know – this story was written 70 years ago, and is a product of its time and all – but I’m just saying it was irksome none-the-less.
Fact Sheet:
• Page Count: 10
• “Helen O’Loy” garnered the following awards:
- It placed 4th in the 1971 Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll for Pre-1940 short fiction.
- It also placed 30th in the 1999 Locus All-Time Poll for short stories.
Where you can find “Helen O’Loy”:
- This short story first appeared in the December 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.
- “Helen O’Loy” is included in the awesome collection The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One
.
- I was able to read the entire story online at the Google Book Search preview for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
Some Interesting Links:
- Did you know that Del Rey Books, the science fiction imprint for Ballantine books, is named after Lester del Rey? Yep. You can learn more about this science fiction author on Wikipedia.
Craving More Stories?
If you enjoyed this story then you might also like Marionettes, Inc., about two men who feel they are trapped in their marriages, and the desperate and misguided attempts they make to get out of them by replacing themselves with identical robots, by Ray Bradbury.
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