{"id":1852,"date":"2021-11-12T13:39:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-12T13:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=1852"},"modified":"2021-12-31T16:28:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-31T16:28:17","slug":"the-new-father-christmas-by-brian-w-aldiss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=1852","title":{"rendered":"The New Father Christmas by Brian W. Aldiss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The New Father Christmas<\/em><\/strong> by Brian W. Aldiss (F&SF<\/em>, January 1958) concerns Roberta and Robin, an old couple who live in an automated factory in the year 2388 (Roberta is forgetful, and Robin is the mostly bed-ridden caretaker). When Roberta realises it is Xmas day she goes downstairs to invite three tramps up to the flat (the tramps have an illegal home on the factory floor, but have to block the door every day to avoid being evicted by the \u201cTerrible Sweeper\u201d).
When the four of them arrive back to the flat, Robin is up and about\u2014and not at all happy to find that Roberta has invited the tramps to spend the day with them. Then a Xmas card arrives for Robin but addressed to \u201cFactory X10\u201d. This causes Robin to become quite agitated because he is the caretaker of SC541, so he orders his wife and the three tramps to go and check the factory\u2019s name on the output gate. On the way there, and back, the four of them discuss the factory\u2019s change of output from television sets to strange metal eggs.
The group eventually return and confirm to Robin that the factory is now called X10. Jerry also reveals that he has bought one of the eggs back with him:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI brought it because I thought the factory ought to give us a Christmas present,\u201d Jerry told them dreamily, squatting down to look at the egg. \u201cYou see, a long time ago, before the machines declared all writers like me redundant, I met an old robot writer. And this old robot writer had been put out to scrap, but he told me a thing or two. And he told me that as machines took over man\u2019s duties, so they took over his myths too. Of course, they adapt the myths to their own beliefs, but I think they\u2019d like the idea of handing out Christmas presents.\u201d  p. 73<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Jerry\u2019s thoughts are met with further belligerence from Robin, and Jerry responds by saying that New Father Christmas will come for him (New Father Christmas apparently takes old people and machines away).
When the egg later hatches Roberta becomes alarmed, as it looks as if the egg is going to build another factory in the flat\u2014so she stamps on it. Then the group realise that the egg is wirelessing for help, so they flee, only to be caught on the stairs by . . . .
This is a little on the slight side, but the robot factory setting (with its interstitial humans, and the new myths that have arisen) is captivatingly and amusingly done.
*** (Good). 2,100 words. Story link<\/a>.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New Father Christmas by Brian W. Aldiss (F&SF, January 1958) concerns Roberta and Robin, an old couple who live in an automated factory in the year 2388 (Roberta is forgetful, and Robin is the mostly bed-ridden caretaker). When Roberta realises it is Xmas day she goes downstairs to invite three tramps up to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[313],"tags":[210,24,315,25,480,479,12,416],"class_list":["post-1852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brian-w-aldiss","tag-210","tag-3-2","tag-brian-w-aldiss","tag-fsf","tag-father-christmas","tag-robot-factories","tag-short-story","tag-xmas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1852"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2252,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1852\/revisions\/2252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}