The Joy Machine

[cornerofmadness]

The Joy Machine by James E. Gunn

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This was so slow and plodding. As others said maybe if this had been an hour script it might have worked but there just wasn't enough of it to make this exciting. The basic plot is Timshel, a vacation bright spot in the Federation has gone radio silent and two investigators sent to find out why have also not reported in, including a woman Kirk, in theory, loves. Kirk also has a family he's close to there, the kids call him Uncle.

So he's a natural to go down and find out why. It doesn't take long. Everyone but the kids have been hooked into the titular Joy Machine (two words you will get exhausted reading by the end) including Dannie, the woman Kirk 'loves.' The Joy Machine can give you perfect happiness and that's all anyone wants. They are working nominal jobs (like sweeping nothing) to earn that PayDay. Even sex has fallen to the way side (no babies in a couple years).

Naturally Kirk gets hooked into the machine as does Spock, McCoy and Uhura (and I'd be lying if I said I even remembered why those three had beamed down) but he's kidnapped by resistors to the machine, including a scientist, Linda, for whom he promptly forgets his love Dannie....

Let's be honest Kirk is NOT the guy you think of when it comes to fighting computers. And when has making a computer virus ever been interesting? The doomed rebels have some sort of whale creatures, the wampuses, that we spend a lot of time on only to have them not be important later (way to load a gun and not shoot it). There is a very moralistic tone to this with religious undertones. And for most of the novel Spock, McCoy and Uhura are forgotten. We get a little of Scotty on the ship as the Joy Machine tries to take over the Enterprise.

It's so dull a day later I can't even remember how Spock talked the thing to death, almost literally. The Joy Machine is joyless.



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