The Killer Thing

by Kate Wilhelm


Captain Tracy has a problem: A ten-foot-tall, laser-wielding, clawed-waldoed, tank-treaded mechanical machine that only knows one thing: self-preservation. And in its quest for self-preservation, this coldly logical robot has marked all mankind as its enemy.

The real problem is, though, that Tracy is more-or-less marooned on an unpopulated and unforgiving desert world, injured, delirious, running out of food and fresh water, with the voices of dead friends and lovers to keep him company. All while narrowly keeping a few miles ahead of the nonstop killer thing. Kill-or-be-killed. Cat-and-mouse. Man-and-murderous machine.

This simple premise fleshes out in three dimensions as the novel unfolds. I liked it more and more as I read it. The first chapter set the setting, and I thought: Okay, let’s see where this goes. It continued and became a little tedious, and I then thought: Hmm. How much effort do I want to put into this?

Then, quite inexplicably and quite enjoyably, the universe Captain Tracy and the killer thing inhabit expands at Guthian speeds. Through a half-dozen or so chapter-length vignettes we learn the backgrounds of our pair of killer things: Tracy and the robot. The wheres and the whys and the whos and hows are methodically filled in for us, rewarding the expectant reader.

There is an undercurrent of pessimism or maybe cynicism, at least in the background, and even though the book was written in 1967, I got a full frontal Vietnam metaphor early-on. You know, Americans bad, indigenous jungle-dwellers good, industrialization bad, bamboo radios good. But it kept in the background and did not become overtly obnoxious in a James Cameron sort of way. Midway through I actually felt it helped a bit, giving our hero Trace a touch of the anti-hero, as he never really “reforms” his ways by becoming disloyal to his planet-country-warrior brotherhood.

No, there’s nothing worldshattering or goosebump-inducing in the novel. But it is a good li’l adventure story set in an intriguing future.

I liked The Killer Thing – a fast, lean, mean, macho read writ by a chick. I give it a solid B.


PS – Kate Wilhelm also co-wrote one of my fondly-remembered reads as a kid – The Year of the Cloud, reviewed here a coupla months ago. Plus she was part of the whole Milford PA science fiction writers writing group in the 50s and 60s.