They'd Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton & Frank Riley

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about Mark Clifton and Frank Riley's They'd Rather Be Right.

The Short of It

Plot: What if computers could fix anything, even people?
Page Count: 173
Award: 1954 Hugo
Worth a read: No
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Fail
Technobabble: Heaps
Review: This book is straight up not good. An almost endless stream of garbage science mixed with some casual sexism. Don't read it. It's not bad in any way that makes it remarkable, it's just not good.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

Don't read this book. Characters are flat, plot is bland, pacing is appalling, world building is dull. Each obstacle that exists is overcome with little to no difficulty, which seems to do nothing but provide padding. Just skip it. Read the spoilers below if you're a bit curious.

Don't read this book.  But if you're going to, please use this link! I get a few cents, which help buy more books.

Kindle Version

Paperback

But seriously just skip this one.

The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

This book starts out bad and then gets worse.  We're dropped into a situation that we do not understand, but it is so poorly written that instead of making you want to know more, it's just confusion.  Telepathy exists? Okay, why not. And these guys are on the run? Seems like it.

The dialogue is uncomfortable and stilted, and the first real back and forth between our main characters completely fails at humanizing them.  Worse, other than the telepath, they have no distinct character traits.  There is not a lick of reason for us to care what happens to any of these bland blobs.

They hide out with a down and out prostitute, and this is where the strong feminism of the book shines through.  I'm kidding, of course. They heal her ailments with a super computer, which strips away her personality and makes her super hot. She is very literally an object. Of course the machine shears off human flaws like emotions, but somehow still leaves in enough humanity for her to be the perfect mate for our dear telepath.  

In between these uninteresting incidents that could arguably be called plot are vast swathes of pseudo-scientific pseudo-philosophical rambling that are boring enough that I fell asleep twice while reading them. 

 
Here's a little snippet. Context: Bossy is the name of the computer: 

There must be intercommunication between all the Bossies. It was not difficult to found the principles on which this would operate. Bossy functioned already by a harmonic vibration needed to be broadcast on the same principle as the radio wave. No new principle was needed. Any cookbook engineer could do it—even those who believe what they read in the textbooks and consider pure assumption to be proved fact. It was not difficult to design the sending and receiving apparatus, nor was extra time consumed since this small alteration was being made contiguous with the production set up time of the rest. The production of countless copies of the brain floss itself was likewise no real problem, no more difficult than using a key-punched master card to duplicate others by the thousands or millions on the old-fashioned hole punch computer system.

I don't mind the reference to punch card computers.  #FORTRAN4LIFE or something else that makes me seem very cool.  I'm not damning this book because of dated technology.  It's just all so unpleasant to read.

You might notice that I've talked very little about plot. That's because there is very little to talk about. They have a supercomputer. The police want them. They hide out. They turn a woman into an object. They are cleared of all charges. They decide to spread computers to the world. The end.

The concept of computers being able to answer any question posed correctly is, of course, a not unfamiliar concept.  I'm sure this was a far more novel approach at the time, and the decades make it hard to chew through.

Find something better, Stranger.

And don't forget to read a book!