Stop me if you've heard this one. There's a man in a cubicle in this office and the world just doesn't seem right Something seems off You've all had the experience Suddenly the life drains out of everything Familiar faces become pink patterns commonplace objects look weird All sounds are loud and unnatural of course it lasts only a few moments, but it can be pretty disturbing Our girl enters the office she comes to see him nobody else in the office seems to see her or notice her It's like she doesn't exist to them What if the frightened girl had been a mechanical figure come alive and out of her place in the machine and Desperately trying to pretend that she was in her place because something suspected her that would fit with the things she said What if it really were true the whole universe a mindless machine people just mindless parts of that machine Only a very few of them really conscious really alive This is not the matrix from 1999 This is your all alone a story by Fritz Leiber in the July 1950 issue of fantastic adventures It's collected in your all alone By Fritz Leiber along with two other stories Ace published this in 1972 It's the fourth of the eight apocrypha that I'm looking at the apocrypha of the Ace science fiction special series one Before I start talking too much about the book I want to talk about what I found in the book what Nicholas Royal calls an inclusion So I found this in the book I'll take a picture of it so that you can see it more clearly I'll receipt for a money order and it looks like it's from June of 1972 on amount a hundred dollars purchased at the Santa Fe Springs branch I Don't know about you I just find it interesting sometimes the things that you find in a used book If you've found interesting things and used books, why don't you make a comment below? I would love to hear about your finds or inclusions that you found in the books All right, let's get to the book itself This book has three stories and you might notice a typo for the very first story Maybe I'll take a picture of it so you can see it more clearly You're all alone. It's from page seven to one twelve. It's a novella Then there's four ghosts and hamlet and the creature from Cleveland depths Did you notice the typo in the first story? There's an extra r in your The first story is an existential story What if the world is not as it seems what if it's a machine that just continues rolling forward? And what if you can awaken and move throughout this world without other people noticing? They're actually just automaton's moving in their patterns What would you do? Would you be scared of other people that are awakened? Would they form gangs? What liberties would they take? Is there a point where the reality machine will react? What would you do if you realized that you were alive in a world of automaton's? From page 83 It hit car with all the instant impact of that crucial drink which opens the door to wonderland There at his feet and james lay the city a playground a nursery a zoo a congregation of lock stepping robots of mindless machines you could do anything no one could stop you This is a very interesting story. It's set in Chicago in 1950 There is a love interest a guide of sorts through this world and there are dangers people seeking to use them to hurt them Can our lovers find a way to live peacefully in this world? This was a very interesting story It's a bit slow moving and the plot feels like a plot from the 1950s The villains of the piece reminded me a bit of Stephen King's villains that came across from his fantasy world into this world of reality I have a feeling that this was an influence on Stephen King's writing in the dark tower series You're all alone means literally you being awake are not part of the world anymore I give you're all alone 8 out of 10 The next story is four ghosts in hamlet This isn't really a science fiction story It's more of a mystery slash ghost story Library's parents were both Shakespearean actors and Liber himself did some acting in fact appeared in some movies So there's an authenticity to this story That said it was a pretty standard story I would give it six out of ten The last story is the creature from the Cleveland depths It's a world after a nuclear holocaust Most people live underground but some live on the surface One of the characters asks an inventor if they could invent something that could help them remember appointments and meetings Medications those sort of things He invents the tickler and it's harnessed on your shoulders. It's kind of a part of you It can inject you with medications It gives you haptic feelings when there's meetings or something that you have on your calendar It also is connected with other ticklers and so you can use it for communication Sounds a little bit like a cell phone doesn't it Well, these ticklers become this network and this network starts to become self-aware Will the ticklers emerge as an intelligence Will this creation Look back at its creator And leave that creator behind As the ticklers start to become aware we read on page 187 Maybe it's men's destiny to build live machines and then bow out of the cosmic picture It's a satirical story and it's well told I give it eight out of ten So overall I think I'll give the book seven point five out of ten I recommend the first and last story So now I'm halfway through the A science fiction special series one apocrypha Four more books to go Until next time Keep reading