Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!cmcl2!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!LINDSAY%TARTAN@CMU-CS-C.ARPA From: LINDSAY%TARTAN@CMU-CS-C.ARPA Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Klaatu Message-ID: <1004@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Tue, 19-Jun-84 02:33:37 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.1004 Posted: Tue Jun 19 02:33:37 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 21-Jun-84 01:47:12 EDT Lines: 27 "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is based on "Farewell to the Master", by Harry Bates. My copy of "Adventures in Time and Space" (Bantam, 1946) lists it as Copyright 1939. Bates was the founding editor of "Astounding Stories of Super-Science" (1930..), quickly renamed "Astounding Stories". It is considered the first true pulp SF magazine, given the literary standards of the Gernsback magazines. The story stands up well, barring lines like "[the spaceship] had been destroyed when it was pulled into the sun." Of course, the visitor used "the universal gesture of peace", before saying his only line into the television (!) cameras: "I am Klaatu, and this is Gnut." **SPOILER** The visitor is then killed, and Gnut eventually recreates him: "As you must know, a given body makes a characteristic sound. He constructed an apparatus which reversed the recording process, and from the given sound made the characteristic body." Anyone out there with a collection of Queen albums might like to dig out the one showing a remorseful robot with blood on its hand. The art is adapted from an old Kelly Freas, and the robot is Gnut. Don Lindsay -------