Project Gutenberg 2016-01-27 Public domain in the USA. 105 Smith, Evelyn E. 1922 2000 Hunter, Mel 1927 2004 Hunter Man's Best Friend Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "Man's Best Friend" by Evelyn E. Smith is a science fiction short story written during the mid-20th century. The narrative explores themes of fate, leadership, and the interplay between technology and human nature. It follows the absurd yet intriguing journey of a young man, Gervase Schnee, who is unexpectedly thrust into the role of ruler in a society governed by a machine that predicts destiny. In the story, Gervase learns that he has been chosen by the Prognosticator to assassinate the current ruler, Overlord Kipp, as part of a bizarre tradition that determines leadership. Despite his initial resistance to this violent fate, Gervase navigates the absurdities of his situation with a mix of resignation and humor. As he encounters various characters, including salesmen and former rulers hiding their identities, he ultimately discovers that the mystical machine's pronouncements are influenced by more personal and mundane forces. The story culminates in a comedic twist, revealing that Gervase's mother is the one manipulating events through the Prognosticator, underscoring the themes of familial influence and the randomness of political power. (This is an automatically generated summary.) en Science fiction Short stories PS Text Science Fiction Browsing: Literature Browsing: Science-Fiction & Fantasy Browsing: Fiction 50008 50013 2024-09-21T10:38:46.076711 2023-09-22T07:50:47.916446 text/html text/html 46416 2016-01-27T16:28:02 text/html; charset=us-ascii 187598 2016-01-27T16:28:02 text/html; charset=us-ascii application/zip 209002 2024-09-21T10:38:48.279694 application/epub+zip 207934 2024-09-21T10:38:46.520734 application/epub+zip 78770 2024-09-21T10:38:46.295695 application/epub+zip 243397 2024-09-21T10:38:49.697715 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 236323 2024-09-21T10:38:47.860687 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 107475 2022-09-23T08:28:23.537243 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 43450 43355 2024-09-21T10:38:45.924699 2023-09-22T07:50:47.760413 text/plain; charset=us-ascii text/plain 43365 2016-01-27T16:28:02 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 17144 2016-01-27T16:28:02 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 19436 2024-09-21T10:38:49.832700 application/rdf+xml 24963 2024-09-21T10:38:46.364773 image/jpeg 4487 2024-09-21T10:38:46.329689 image/jpeg 188557 2024-09-21T10:38:46.091712 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia en.wikipedia