Hopefully this won’t steal attention away from vibrotronica’s thread, which reminded me of this question I’ve been meaning to post. Ideally both stories will be identified.
In the sci fi story I dimly remember, which was in a compilation of stories, a robot gradually goes insane and kills people. I believe the robot was a possession or member of a family through many generations, and was handed down from father to son. The story is told from the robot’s perspective (or possibly one of the family members).
Here’s the kicker. The robot has a phrase he repeats, which gets more and more bizarre, and intejected at innoportune times as it goes progressively more insane. The phrase is something like “All reet! All reet! So jeet your seat!” Ring any bells?
Bonus #1. Is the phrase, “Jeet your seat” a line from a song or anything? I vaguely remember maybe possibly hearing the phrase in a song (possibly an old, early 20-th century, big band or jazz kind of thing). This would be maybe 5 years ago, having read the story 15 years ago. Or I could have just dreamed that part.
Bonus #2. If you can identify the story and/or the book it appears in, I’ll buy you a copy if you’re interested. (If it’s in print anywhere, I’ll be buying a copy as soon as it is identified.)
Aw crap. I’ve answered my own question. A little Google-hacking found me this, which appears here:
**Fondly Fahrenheit. Alfred Bester. **
*Not that long after Asimov was writing his fairly ponderous robot stories, we have here something quite different. A dubious character and his android flee the scene of brutal murder after brutal murder. But the opening words set the scene: “He doesn’t know which of us I am these days…”
A story which dizzies the reader as POV is changed (or not!), and the chilling, murderous refrain of ‘All reet! All reet! Be fleet be fleet’ sticks in the mind long after the story. *
The title jibes with my recollection that the robot gets crazier any time it’s near a heat source, which I forgot to mention in my OP. Anyway, it is a great story, and I’m off to Amazon to spend some plastic.
Still, I guess bonus question #1 is still on the table, but I might have imagined it.
I’m betting it’s from I, Robot or Robot Dreams by Isaac Asimov. I’ll stop by Stars Our Destination on the way home, look at the used copy of each they have and see if that’s it. If so, Alice will happily send it to you.
DISCLAIMER: I get NOTHING from Alice or Stars Our Destination from this except the benefit of helping them stay in business as the country’s best source for sci-fi, fantasy, and horror books.
On preview, if it’s the Bester book, I’ll check that as well and post later.
The first title that popped into my mind was Tik-Tok by John Sladek, a very entertaining and edgy satire. It’s obviously not the book described in the OP but, nevertheless, I highly recommend it and wish I could find my own copy for a re-read :(.
Bonus #1 probably has its roots in 1940s slang.This Cab Calloway lyrics site outlines a 1940 tune, “Are You all Reet,” containing the call-and-response “Are you all reet? Yes, we’re all reet.”
The story, IIRC, dates from Bester’s early SF period in the 1950s, which gave us The Stars My Destination andThe Demolished Man, two of SF’s all-time classics.
Then Bester left SF for a bunch of years to edit a travel magazine, before returning in the 70s with another set of (IMHO) fascinating stories and novels. Oh, if he’d just kept at it,