Title: Dial F for Frankenstein
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Date of First Publication: January 1965
Place of First Publication: Playboy
Type: Short Story
Characters: No Character
Themes: MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER; POSTHUMAN
Critical Summary: Arthur C. Clarke’s story depicts several men sitting around at a post office research station during a morning where errors occur with the communications technology. Dr. John Williams of the mathematics division is the main focus as he begins to outline and detail different ideas as to why the satellites have suffered a time delay. Dr. Williams tells those around about the billions of neurons in the brain that are connected, much like a telephone line, and he hypothesizes that the many telephone networks have merged together to form one giant brain. It is a brain that is autonomous and can act on its own accord. Then the BBC line dies. The banking systems close, and military missiles launch off without any command. Williams discusses with the others that something called a “telefrontal lobotomy” may be able to disable the new brain, but the new network has already anticipated this and cuts the humans off from all communications and systems that rely on automation.
Clarke’s story certainly thrusts Shelley’s vision into the modern technological world. The end of “the world as we know it” is threatened by a new creature. All the banking systems and communications are networks tie humanity together and make transactions simpler, but the unprecedented and newly gained sentience of the network turns on its creator– just as Victor’s Creature does. There are no mad scientists directly depicted in Clarke’s story, and Dr. Williams is actually a thoughtful man who considers the calamity at hand, but it is inferred that the humans who did piece together the brain went too far, as did Victor. Both authors also touch on removed storytelling. Victor is telling his story to Captain Walton, the man who actually records the tale, and Dr. Williams is an actual paid storyteller. This authorship question suggests that people may find it easier to tell the truth under the guise of another. In the end, both of these Creatures serve as reminders and warnings to a society that created them only to use them but failed to consider the repercussions of instilling intelligence into that which is inanimate.
Administrative Notes: Nathan San Filippo, a CSUF; Alexandra Roman CSUF (editing)