The Project Gutenberg EBook of Joy Ride, by Mark Meadows

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Title: Joy Ride

Author: Mark Meadows

Illustrator: Dick Francis

Release Date: April 12, 2010 [EBook #31961]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction December 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

joy ride

By MARK MEADOWS

Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS

Men or machines--something had to give--though not
necessarily one or the other. Why not both?

* * * * *

(HISTORIAN'S NOTE: _The following statements are extracted from
depositions taken by the Commission of Formal Inquiry appointed by the
Peloric Rehabilitation Council, a body formed as a provisional
government in the third month of the Calamity_.)

1

My name is Andrews, third assistant vice president in charge of
maintenance for Cybernetic Publishers.

It is not generally known that all the periodical publications for the
world were put out by Cybernetics. We did not conceal the monopoly
deliberately, but we found that using the names of other publishing
houses helped to give our magazines an impression of variety. Of
course, we didn't want too much variety, either; only the tried and
tested kind.

Cybernetics gained its monopoly by cutting costs of production. It had
succeeded in linking electronic calculators to photo-copying
machines. Through this combination, all kinds of texts and
illustrations could be produced automatically.

* * * * *

Formula punch cards, fed to the calculators, produced articles and
stories of standard styles and substance. Market analysts in the
research division designed the formulas for the punch cards. An
editing machine shuffled the cards before giving them to th