Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Dueling Machine
    The Dueling Machine
    The Dueling Machine
    Ebook133 pages1 hour

    The Dueling Machine

    By Myron R. Lewis, John Schoenherr and Ben Bova

    3.5/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1969

    Related to The Dueling Machine

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      France Violent Denial

      Aug 8, 2023

      In June 2023, Nahel Merzouk, a 17-year-old of North African descent, was shot and killed by a police officer in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Initially, the officer claimed he had fired at Nahel in ‘self-defence’, but a video of the incident contradi

      2 min read

    • Article

      Rolls-royce Silver Shadow

      Jul 29, 2020

      Rolls-royce Silver Shadow
      4 min read

    • Article

      Development With Independence

      Aug 31, 2023

      The first offline summit since 2020 of BRICS, a group named after the world’s five leading emerging economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—was held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August. Key agenda items discussed included closer

      1 min read

    • Article

      In The Garden Of Forms

      Jun 1, 2022

      In The Garden Of Forms
      8 min read

    • Article

      Frightfully Askew

      Mar 1, 2022

      Frightfully Askew
      8 min read

    • Article

      How Bankers Lost Credit

      Sep 22, 2021

      Prime ministers, archbishops, police chiefs, England football managers: none of them seems quite what they used to be. But what about bankers? Were the City chaps (yes, they were all chaps) of yesteryear wiser and nicer than the thrusters of today? O

      3 min read

    • Article

      'Apsara Engine' Doesn't Break The Graphic Novel Rules — It Ignores Them

      Apr 18, 2020

      Bishakh Som's new comics collection is uncanny and hard to categorize — science-fictiony, mythic and humanistic, without making any particular assumptions about where humans as a species are going.

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Public Pension Puzzle

      Nov 23, 2023

      The Public Pension Puzzle
      1 min read

    • Article

      Bill And The Tooth Fairy

      Mar 10, 2021

      Bill believed in the Tooth Fairy. Big deal, you’re thinking. Lots of kids believe in the Tooth Fairy. Well, Bill wasn’t a kid. He was twenty-eight years old. You don’t believe it. My girlfriend Mary Beth didn’t believe it, either. We were having dinn

      15 min read

    • Article

      We Are Planning To Fail

      Nov 30, 2023

      NO ONE SHOULD BELIEVE THAT THIS country is corrupt in any serious way. Despite decades of networking and friendships it has been shown to me how uninfluential I am. Not that I attempted to flex. When one of our planning applications was called in for

      4 min read

    • Article

      Monster

      Dec 1, 2022

      Monster
      7 min read

    • Article

      Why Utopias Are Dangerous

      Jun 24, 2022

      bigthink.com Nineteenth-century Russian writers were “obsessed” with the idea of utopia, says Tim Brinkhof. They wrote stories and treatises imagining how their own increasingly dysfunctional society could be replaced by one “devoid of suffering or

      1 min read

    • Article

      Rants & Raves

      Jul 14, 2021

      ➝ Revisiting Star Trek: Enterprise – who said it was boring? I’m really enjoying it! ➝ Why did I think the Fear Street movies were made for kids? They’re definitely not. ➝ Masters Of The Universe: Revelation is a great continuation of the series, but

      1 min read

    • Article

      2021 Karma GS-6

      Nov 19, 2021

      PROS: Four-door Corvette style • 4-second acceleration • Exclusivity CONS: Soviet powertrain NVH • Cozy coupe packaging • Prototype refinement Back at COTY in 2011, an identical-looking pre-production Fisker Karma arrived at the Hyundai Proving Groun

      2 min read

    • Article

      Sample Space

      Aug 11, 2021

      Sample Space
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Menu 15 Tbc

      Nov 10, 2022

      The Menu 15 Tbc
      1 min read

    • Article

      Hail, Caesars!

      Sep 22, 2021

      We are still surrounded by Roman emperors. It is almost two millennia since the ancient city of Rome ceased to be capital of an empire. But even now – in the West, at least – almost everyone recognises the name, and sometimes even the look, of Julius

      3 min read

    • Article

      Global Report

      May 5, 2023

      Global Report
      8 min read

    • Article

      Russians Seize Nuclear Plant After Attack, Ukrainian Officials Say

      Mar 3, 2022

      The Ukrainian state company that runs the plant said the Russian attack had caused an unknown number of casualties.

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Hero No More

      Dec 4, 2018

      A Hero No More
      3 min read

    Reviews for The Dueling Machine

    3.5/5

    32 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      This is my review of Ben Bova’s ‘The Dueling Machine’, copyrighted in 1969 and, in the edition reviewed, published in 1978 by Ace Books, with cover art by Ken Burr. The book doesn’t really fit into a particular genre; the Star Watch aren’t strictly a military organisation, being a peacekeeping force, with the power to enforce a peace within the Terran Commonwealth, nor is there a mass confrontation of forces. There is a fair bit of political manipulation and interstellar intrigue however! Bova’s also added a dash of comedy as well. The cast of characters is kept relatively small as well. As mentioned in my review of Bova’s ‘Star Watchman’, this and the former book form a rough series, though the Terran Empire from ‘Star Watchman’ is now the Terran Commonwealth, which is either a completely new polity, or a reformed entity. Given that there are still knights, at least by title, in the Star Watch, it sounds more likely to be the latter. There’s also more evidence of independent star nations in existence, with most of the action taking place on the capital planet of the Acquataine Cluster, Acquatainia, a liberal democracy, and on the planet of Kerak, revealed as a dictatorship run by the dastardly Kanus (and there are no prizes as to which Terran regime Kerak was modelled on…).In the book, most planets, particularly in the Commonwealth, were highly automated and were what in earlier ages, would be considered to be virtual paradises. But they were also heavily populated, for though space travel was fast, it was also awfully expensive. And who wanted to go to a planet that lacked all the benefits of civilisation? Dr Leoh had invented the Dueling Machine, a device that allowed two people to create a consensual virtual reality where they fight each other to whatever they wished – first blood, or a virtual death – to resolve their differences in a legally binding duel. This duel wasn’t supposed to have a lasting effect on the duellists. That anyone was aware of, anyway! As the book opens, Dueling Machines are pretty ubiquitous and no-one thinks there’s more than the usual politics going on when Major Odal of Kerak picked a quarrel with the Prime Minister of the Acquataine Cluster, so it’s news, but when this confrontation leads to Dulaq’s mental collapse, the politics of the Acquataine Cluster, and the surrounding star nations descend into chaos as Kerak begins to make it’s move to dominate the region. Dr Leoh is called in to study the Dueling Machine on Acquataine but he’s unable to find anything wrong. When reports come in from those surrounding nations of actual deaths, Dr Leoh finds himself travelling, desperately searching for the cause of these catastrophic events as the galaxy spirals towards war. In this, he’s aided by Star Watchman Hector Hector (because he had really evil parents! ). Hector is a mathematical genius, but utterly inept physically. Finally, the current prime minister of Acquataine is challenged to a duel by Major Odal and we get to see his side of the duel where he chooses the conflict zone as a high gravity world he had once spent time on as a supervisor, but it’s the brutality of Major Odal’s setting that kills him in the return bout. Dr Leoh finds himself on the receiving end of Odal’s insults in an attempt to get him to challenge the Major. Lieutenant Hector, acting on his own behalf as Dr Leoh’s bodyguard, intercepts a tray of food on its way to the table in such a fashion that it ends up all over the Major making the Major mad enough to insult the Star Watchman, leading to a duel, giving Dr Leoh and Hector a window of a week to find out what’s causing all these uncanny deaths. Mechanical examination of the machine had found no problems so Leoh and Hector used the machine to fight duel after duel, with no effect, or result, so they prevail on the daughter of former Prime Minister Dulaq to allow her father to be remotely connected to the Dueling Machine so they could see what he’d seen. They get their answer; apparently Odal was a telepath and enabled fellow members of Kerak’s military to join him in the duel and gang up on the unsuspecting Dulaq. Unfortunately, this revelation leads to the death of Dulaq and a scathing call from his daughter. But it does enable Leoh and Hector to work out a counter to Odal’s shenanigans leading to the latter’s fall from grace in Kerak. The threat from Kerak isn’t over, though, and Leoh is enjoying being the saviour of Acquataine while Hector is enjoying being around Geri Dulaq, though she’s beginning to hint that there’s something she’d like him to do the next time they ran across Major Odal. She’d really love it if Hector could arrange to make sure Odal could end up dead, pretty please! If he really loved her, he’d kill Odal, wouldn’t he? Hector, not used to pretty girls in general, never mind pretty girls making eyes at him, sort of agrees. In the meantime, Odal’s superiors are doing their best to fulfil Geri’s desire as they push his telepathic powers as much as they can in an effort to see what use they can make of the disgraced major and his powers. The foreign minister of Kerak is also running a double bluff with his leadership and sees the disgraced major as a route to power, but when he contacts Odal to sound him out, Odal spots the problem pretty quickly – he’d either have to agree and die a martyr immediately after killing Kanus, or disagree and die as soon as he left the Dueling Machine… As he contemplates his choices, Odal finds he can also teleport. All the way to Acquataine as it turned out. Unfortunately, things went wrong on the Acquataine side of the transfer with Hector going to Kerak where he becomes a pawn in the hands of Romis, the foreign minister as he tried to get the Star Watch to help in his coup against Kanus and return Odal, who’s enjoying even solitary confinement on Acquataine more than he would have dying in a futile coup attempt... Thankfully, everything does come to a successful conclusion for the Terran Commonwealth and Acquataine, though not necessarily for Kanus. Overall, the book was a fun romp, particularly with poor old Lieutenant Hector, and there were some fairly obvious parallels to a certain period in the not-too-distant past from when it was written. I first read this in my early teens, certainly while I was in Secondary school (11 to 16, if you’re not familiar with English school years) and technologically it’s aged reasonably well, mainly because the Dueling Machine doesn’t pretend to be generating the imagery its users are immersed in a physical sense – it’s all in your head, which is one reason why what Odal managed was so devastating. I’d say it’s a recommended read if you’re looking for a light read.

    Book preview

    The Dueling Machine - Myron R. Lewis

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dueling Machine, by

    Benjamin William Bova and Myron R. Lewis

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: The Dueling Machine

    Author: Benjamin William Bova

    Myron R. Lewis

    Illustrator: John Schoenherr

    Release Date: December 29, 2009 [EBook #30796]

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUELING MACHINE ***

    Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online

    Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

    Transcriber's Note:

    This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction May 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

    THE DUELING MACHINE

    The trouble with great ideas is that someone is sure to expend enormous effort and ingenuity figuring out how to louse them up.

    by BEN BOVA and MYRON R. LEWIS

    ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN SCHOENHERR

    Dulaq rode the slide to the upper pedestrian level, stepped off and walked over to the railing. The city stretched out all around him—broad avenues thronged with busy people, pedestrian walks, vehicle thoroughfares, aircars gliding between the gleaming, towering buildings.

    And somewhere in this vast city was the man he must kill. The man who would kill him, perhaps.

    It all seemed so real! The noise of the streets, the odors of the perfumed trees lining the walks, even the warmth of the reddish sun on his back as he scanned the scene before him.

    It is an illusion, Dulaq reminded himself, a clever man-made hallucination. A figment of my own imagination amplified by a machine.

    But it seemed so very real.

    Real or not, he had to find Odal before the sun set. Find him and kill him. Those were the terms of the duel. He fingered the stubby cylinderical stat-wind in his tunic pocket. That was the weapon he had chosen, his weapon, his own invention. And this was the environment he had picked: his city, busy, noisy, crowded, the metropolis Dulaq had known and loved since childhood.

    Dulaq turned and glanced at the sun. It was halfway down toward the horizon, he judged. He had about three hours to find Odal. When he did—kill or be killed.

    Of course no one is actually hurt. That is the beauty of the machine. It allows one to settle a score, to work out aggressive feelings, without either mental or physical harm.

    Dulaq shrugged. He was a roundish figure, moon-faced, slightly stooped shoulders. He had work to do. Unpleasant work for a civilized man, but the future of the Acquataine Cluster and the entire alliance of neighboring star systems could well depend on the outcome of this electronically synthesized dream.

    He turned and walked down the elevated avenue, marveling at the sharp sensation of hardness that met each footstep on the paving. Children dashed by and rushed up to a toyshop window. Men of commerce strode along purposefully, but without missing a chance to eye the girls sauntering by.

    I must have a marvelous imagination, Dulaq thought smiling to himself.

    Then he thought of Odal, the blond, icy professional he was pitted against. Odal was an expert at all the weapons, a man of strength and cool precision, an emotionless tool in the hands of a ruthless politician. But how expert could he be with a stat-wand, when the first time he saw one was the moment before the duel began? And how well acquainted could he be with the metropolis, when he had spent most of his life in the military camps on the dreary planets of Kerak, sixty light-years from Acquatainia?

    No, Odal would be lost and helpless in this situation. He would attempt to hide among the throngs of people. All Dulaq had to do was to find him.

    The terms of the duel restricted both men to the pedestrian walks of the commercial quarter of the city. Dulaq knew the area intimately, and he began a methodical hunt through the crowds for the tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed Odal.

    And he saw him! After only a few minutes of walking down the major thoroughfare, he spotted his opponent, strolling calmly along a crosswalk, at the level below.

    Dulaq hurried down the next ramp, worked his way through the crowd, and saw the man again. Tall and blond, unmistakable. Dulaq edged along behind him quietly, easily. No disturbance. No pushing. Plenty of time. They walked along the street for a quarter hour while the distance between them slowly shrank from fifty feet to five.

    Finally Dulaq was directly behind him, within arm's reach. He grasped the stat-wand and pulled it from his tunic. With one quick motion he touched it to the base of the man's skull and started to thumb the button that would release the killing bolt of energy ...

    The man turned suddenly. It wasn't Odal!

    Dulaq jerked back in surprise. It couldn't be. He had seen his face. It was Odal—and yet this man was definitely a stranger.

    He stared at Dulaq as the duelist backed away a few steps, then turned and walked quickly from the place.

    A mistake, Dulaq told himself. You were overanxious. A good thing this is an hallucination, or else the auto-police would be taking you in by now.

    And yet ... he had been so certain that it was Odal. A chill shuddered through him. He looked up, and there was his antagonist, on the thoroughfare above, at the precise spot where he himself had been a few minutes earlier. Their eyes met, and Odal's lips parted in a cold smile.

    Dulaq hurried up the ramp. Odal was gone by the time he reached the upper level. He could not have gotten far, Dulaq reasoned. Slowly, but very surely, Dulaq's hallucination turned into a nightmare. He spotted Odal in the crowd, only to have him melt away. He saw him again, lolling in a small park, but when he got closer, the man turned out to be another stranger. He felt the chill of the duelist's ice-blue eyes on him again and again, but when he turned to find his antagonist, no one was there but the impersonal crowd.

    Odal's face appeared again and again. Dulaq struggled through the throngs to find his opponent, only to have him vanish. The crowd seemed to be filled with tall, blond men crisscrossing before Dulaq's dismayed eyes.

    The shadows lengthened. The sun was setting. Dulaq could feel his heart pounding within him and perspiration pouring from every square inch of his skin.

    There he is! Definitely, positively him! Dulaq pushed through the homeward-bound crowds toward the figure of a tall, blond man leaning against the safety railing of the city's main thoroughfare. It was Odal, the damned smiling confident Odal.

    Dulaq pulled the wand from his tunic and battled across the surging crowd to the spot where Odal stood motionless, hands in pockets, watching him.

    Dulaq came within arm's reach ...

    TIME, GENTLEMEN. TIME IS UP, THE DUEL IS ENDED.

    High above the floor of the antiseptic-white

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1