The success machine by Henry Slesar
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"The Success Machine" by Henry Slesar is a satirical science fiction novella written during the late 1950s. It presents a futuristic corporate environment centered around a machine called the Personnelovac, designed to evaluate employees and streamline the hiring and firing process. The main topic of the book explores the consequences of over-reliance on technology and the effects of mechanical decision-making on human resources. The story follows Ralph Colihan, a personnel manager at
General Products, as he grapples with the unexpected and brutal efficiency of the Personnelovac, which often produces "pink cards" recommending employee dismissals based on its cold, analytical results. As the number of firings escalates, Colihan begins to question the machine's infallibility and the implications of its lack of human touch. The tension builds as he worries about becoming the machine's next victim. Ultimately, the story culminates in a poignant revelation about the dangers of relying solely on mechanistic evaluations that fail to account for human nuances, leading to Colihan's eventual dismissal as he becomes a casualty of the very system he has operated within. Through humor and irony, Slesar critiques the depersonalization of corporate culture and the inherent flaws of allowing machines to dictate human fates. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Slesar, Henry, 1927-2002 |
|---|---|
| Title | The success machine |
| Series Title | Produced from Amazing Science Fiction Stories September 1957. |
| Credits |
Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 79.9 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Science fiction, American |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 26168 |
| ISBN (HTML) | 979-8-238-26168-3 |
| Release Date | Aug 1, 2008 |
| Last Update | Aug 7, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 450 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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