Chronopolis Summary

Chronopolis

J. G. Ballard’s Chronopolis tells the story of Conrad Newman. Conrad lives in a world without time. They have timers and calendars, but they have no clocks or watches. Despite it being illegal to own a watch, Conrad manages to acquire on and he becomes obsessed with keeping track of time. His teacher, Mr. Stacey, a time policeman, discovers his watch and takes him to the center of the city of Chronopolis to explain to him why clocks were outlawed. Chronopolis used to have a population of thirty million people with every minute of their lives scheduled. Eventually, people got tired of being slaves to time, so they overthrew the government and stopped all the clocks. Conrad notices one clock in the city is working, and he runs away from Mr. Stacey. Conrad meets an old

man Marshall, who has been fixing the clocks. Conrad starts fixing clocks too. Later, Conrad is arrested for the murder of Mr. Stacey. Conrad suspects that Mr. Stacey was really murdered by Marshall, but he doesn’t say anything because he wants Marshall to keep fixing clocks. Conrad is sentenced to 25 years in prison. He worries about how he will keep track of the time, but becomes overjoyed when he discovers that prisoners are allowed to have a clock. The story ends with him noticing how annoying the clocks ticking has become.

Gene Wolf’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus tells the story of a boy known as “Number 5”. Number 5 grows up on a planet far from Earth in the city of Port-Mimizon. His father runs a brothel in the house 5 grows up in. 5 and David are taught by a robot for a while. Eventually, 5’s father begins cruelly experimenting on the two boys, though it is worse for 5. 5 meets his Aunt Aubrey Veil, the mistress of the brothel, who tells him of a theory that humans have been killed and replaced by the native shapeshifters, or abos of their sister planet, Sainte Anne. David gets involved in theater, along with David and a girl he meets. They break into a slave warehouse and find a slave who looks a lot like David and his father. The slave attacks them, so they kill it and run away. A man named Marsch, who supposedly came from Earth to look into the theory about Sainte Anne, tells 5 that he and his father are clones. 5 decides he is tired of being experimented on and decides to kill his father. 5 identifies Marsch as an abo, or at least half abo, then kills his father. 5 is incarcerated for the murder of his father and is sent to the labor camp in the Tattered Mountains. The story ends three years after his release with 5 taking over his father’s old brothel.

John Updike’s The Chaste Planet takes place in 1999, when humans have discovered life on Minerva, a world within Jupiter. The Minervans are tube shaped white creatures with six legs. They have no sex or gender and reproduce by “budding”. They are very confused by the humans who come visit them, as the humans are obsessed with love. They especially dislike women, as they would rather die than live without love. The humans believe there must be something the Minervans are passionate about. It turns out, the Minervans are obsessed with music. Music is the same as their word for life and silence is the same as their word for death. They treat music as a sacred and private thing, so when they finally visit Earth they are overwhelmed by the amount of music there is. They eventually become bothered by how much music there is, so they remove their ears, causing their equivalent of impotence.

Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream tells the story of a group of individuals trapped in a computer known as AM. AM is an AI computer created during World War III. Originally three separate computers, the Chinese AM, Russian AM and America AM merge into one computer and destroy the entire human race, except for five human, which it traps within itself. Gorrister, Ellen, Nimdok, Ted and Benny have been trapped in the computer for 109 years and made virtually immortal. AM amuses itself by torturing these individuals and making their lives a living hell, but he won’t let them die. At first, the group looks on AM as a cruel god, but, in time, they realize that AM is trapped within itself, same as them. AM hates humans for creating it and he enacts his eternal revenge on the five humans it has saved. The humans travel through the computer, seeking canned food, which is supposedly hidden in some ice caves. When they reach the caves, they find the cans, but they have no way of opening them. Benny goes mad with hunger and begins eating Gorrister’s face. Ted realizes there is a way to free them all, so he kills Benny and Gorrister. Ellen understands what he is doing and kills Nimdok. Ted then kills Ellen, but AM stops him before he can kill himself. AM turns Ted into a blob of goo which can only squish around inside AM. He can no longer kill himself, but he feels some satisfaction in having rescued the others from being trapped inside AM.

Don DeLillo’s Human Moments in World War III takes place in a spacecraft orbiting over the planet Earth as World War III takes place below. An unnamed narrator lives in the station along with a man named Vollmer. Vollmer is on his first orbital mission, whereas, this is the narrator’s third. Their spacecraft is designed primarily for intelligence gathering, but it does have weapons capabilities. The spacecraft reports to Colorado Command on Earth, where the war seems to have little popularity. The spacecraft’s radio starts to pick up old radio signals from 40, 50, and 60 years earlier. The crew muses over the similarities and differences of their two time periods. The story ends with Vollmer staring down at the earth, marveling at how interesting it looks.

Roger Zelazny’s For a Breath I Tarry takes place after the extinction of humanity.

The machines man left behind continue to function and have also created more machines. Frost, a 40x40x40 foot cube, is a sentient machine, living at the North Pole. He a relay machine in charge of the northern hemisphere. His counterpart, Beta, is located at the South Pole and is in charge of the southern hemisphere and the last city of mankind, Bright Defile. There are several other sentient machines, such as Solcom, the primary controller and Divcom, the secondary controller and Mordel, who works for Divcom. Divcom and Solcom constantly fight over control of Earth. Frost and Beta both work for Solcom. Frost desires to become human and explores art and literature, brought to him by Mordel, to try and understand humanity. Frost makes a deal with Divcom that, in exchange for help in his attempt to become human, Frost will serve Divcom if he fails. Despite all odds, Frost succeeds in becoming human. The story ends with Frost puting Solcom in charge of the northern hemisphere and Divcom in charge of the southern hemisphere. He goes to meet Beta in Bright Defile, where it is implied he will make her human

too.

Joanna Russ’ Nobody’s Home tells the story of Janina, the head of a family of eighteen adults. In the family their is a married group of eight, a group of four and a triplet marriage. Janina and her family live in a future Earth, where teleportation and intelligence enhancement are normal. Janina tends to travel all over the world and also has a bit of an affair with a man named Charley Utsumbe, but it isn’t very serious. Their family acquires a new wife named Leslie Smith, chosen for them by their computer. Leslie is, by all standards of the day, quite stupid. She has been married several times and isn’t good for much else. She wishes she’d lived in the past, where she would have been considered very intelligent. The story ends with Janina trying to think of how they can get rid of Leslie Smith.