When HARLIE Was One

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Authors: David Gerrold

BOOK: When HARLIE Was One

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Praise for
When HARLIE Was One

Hugo and Nebula award nominee

“. . . one of the most delightful novels about computers around. Anyone even slightly connected to computers should find this book very entertaining.”

â
Byte
Magazine

“It may well turn out to be the definitive novel of artificial intelligence; even if it doesn't, Gerrold's made the best attack on the theme yet. . . . The main theme of the novel is enough to make it a classic, but is it just as effective on the human side. Auberson is a man you can care about, and Gerrold's handling of his sexual relationship with Annie Stimson is warm and sympathetic.”

â
Renaissance

“By all means get a copy of this. . . . Gerrold has an ear for the sort of ridiculous dialogue that occurs when one party is being excessively literal minded.”

âRobert Coulson,
Yandro

“. . . light, brisk, full of ideas . . . a bit like a mix of Robert Heinlein and Harlan Ellison (if you can believe that) . . .”

âDavid G. Hartwell,
Locus

“. . . an excellent treatment . . .”

â
Locus

“Here is a very different and remarkable novel that is one of the most thought-provoking pieces of fiction I have read in a long while.”

âJeremy Fredrick,
Science Fiction Parade

“. . . a model of its type. . . . Gerrold has given us a lively, touching novel about a man who fulfills the highest animal function, to love; and a machine who fulfills the highest rational function, to know. Together man and machine define humanity.”

âAllan Danzig,
The Science Fiction Review Monthly

“. . . one of the better SF novels of the year.”

âRichard Geis,
Science Fiction Review

“Gerrold has written the best novel of 1972. Rush out and buy ten copies, and give nine to your friends.

Lovers of computer stories will go absolutely berserk over this one. Those who like their science fiction to be about real people may be equally as thrilled. Gerrold has made an almost perfect blend of the old and new traditions in science fiction writing. . . .

It's a fairly long novel. Be prepared to finish it in one sitting.”

â
Awry

“. . . a book that will give you something new each time you read it.”

â
Analog

“David Gerrold's
When HARLIE Was One
is a conscious-computer story with a very nicely evolved plot which I defy you to anticipate. . . . His main characters are warmly human and dimensional. His computer, Harlie, is both understandable and likable as a personality and, in its cold-blooded objectivity, terrifying. Pay attention to Harlie. He gives us more than a glimpse of the potency of the computer and how it will affect us all even if it doesn't achieve consciousness. This book carries a good freight of social and psychological insight.”

âTheodore Sturgeon,
Galaxy

“Harlie is a computerâbut what a computer! . . . David Gerrold has come up with a thoroughgoing winner in
When HARLIE Was One
. The plotline and dialogue are a delight. Harlie takes time out from his own worries to liven the action with practical jokes, help a scientist develop the basis for a unified field theory, and play a psychoanalytical Dear Abby. . . . Whatever Harlie does, a consistent, developed, and complex personality emerges. There is much more than the froth of superficial entertainment here. The novel is also the vehicle for the author's often perceptive speculation and commentary on life, love, religion, and the human condition. It is thought provoking and philosophically penetrating as well as superbly entertaining.

Quite simply,
When HARLIE Was One
is great science fiction. Harlie is real and the novel is real. Don't miss it.”

â
Luna Monthly

“This novel is hardly old enough to qualify as a classicâit was first published in 1972. . . . It is, at this date, still the best thing Gerrold has written.”

â
Delap's Fantasy & Science Fiction Review

“It is in his
When HARLIE Was One
that Gerrold proves what a fine science fiction writer he can be. This is a first-rate novel.

The characters and their evolution could not have been better handled. Harlie advances from precocious immaturity to a true personâone both fully human and fully robotic. Gradually we see and believe as he transfers to being the consulting psychologist for Auberson in his troubles with the love affair that is the subplot of the novel. The long discussions on religion and love are done so well and which such a lack of the obvious or banal that they are as interesting as any plot developmentâand so integrated that they
are
plot development. The technical background of Harlie is handled convincingly and with an inventiveness that makes it a major part of the problem and the resolution. And the ending of the story isn't a simple solution to the immediate problem, but an extension and deepening of all that has gone before. It's a clever bookâand a darned good one.

. . . It's one of the best novels of the year.”

âLester Del Ray,
IF
magazine

“
When HARLIE Was One
is quite a good book. The premise is sound, and the reader cannot help but be fascinated by the strange creature that is Harlie. . . . For Harlie is a child, a child with all of mankind's information, and the availability to use it, at his fingertips. . . .

Is that why he has begun to act irrationally? Is he going through growing pains? He is as eager to learn as any human child and as full of pranks and nonsenseâand it is this part of Harlie's character that holds the reader's interest.”

â
The Washington Daily News

“. . . a novel that is bursting with outrageous and audacious promise.

. . . The only human reality that exists in the novel is the relationship between computer and teacher. The dialogues between the duo form the backbone of the book and they are, without exception, so brilliantly written that they suggest Gerrold will one day be a major talent in the science fiction field. . . .”

â
Newsday

“. . . an outstanding science fiction tale. . . . It is an intricate plot, deftly handled by David Gerrold, a twenty-eight-year-old author who is able to convince readers that machines have feelings. The serio-comic work takes flights into philosophy, religion, and the very meaning of life.”

â
San Jose Mercury News

“The book is so . . . good that it hurts. It is basically about the maturation of two fully human individuals, one of them David Auberson, a psychologist, the other is a Human Analog Robot, Life Input Equivalents computer, acronymed to HARLIE. . . .

But what this book is about is the interface between Auberson and Harlie. The matters explored are simple things like:
What is the purpose of mankind? Is it necessary to invent God? . . . Can an ethos (as opposed to a morality) be derived from human experience that any individual can accept as applicable to his own life?
and
What is human love?

Good questions. Questions that hitherto only Theodore Strugeon, out of all the writers expanding the horizons of speculative fiction, has tried to offer sensitive, loving, and completely human answers to. David Gerrold uses a technique that Sturgeon once called âasking the next question' in honest maskless, one-to-one dialogues between Auberson and Harlie in order to find answers (not
the
answers, answers).

. . . . Read it. Your âI' will grow misty at least three times. And you'll feel so . . .
good
when you're done.”

âBill Glass,
Los Angeles Staff

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