Anthony Boucher was best known as a mystery writer and SF editor, but he also did write some of his own SF. He was a founding editor of Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
This story begins with a "grumpy old man" start. It promises to be some nice technofiction. This story telling protagonist has a long-held secret that he's now telling. This start is similar to my "Praise Osmore, not Jonas" story in Honeycomb Comet.
Some good technofiction telling at the beginning. What are androids now (in the story) are robots at the time of this story because the synthetic flesh versions hadn't been developed yet. His "android" term is my "creation" term. Yup, good technofiction. Robots from Venus and Mars are sometimes imported, and they aren't the same as Earth models. It turns out that's because Venus and Mars are both inhabited with alien species. This is the wonderful part of Golden Age SF -- readers and writers can still suspend belief about other intelligent aliens in the solar system.
In this story those aliens become part of some racial discrimination. The Venusians are aliens and they need breathers when they are ex-pats on Earth. Interestingly the bullies are both Earth workers and execs for a company. Part of his change in the times -- these two are now on the same side. He's doing a good job of laying out a future that is different.
Ah... I didn't recognize this story until now. Now I remember it, and it's good. Not only is he portraying Venusians as alien, the Martians are aliens as well, and what sparked my memory is the Martian bartender who speaks oddly, and the theme drink: the Three Planets. Boucher does a nice job with the Martian's accent.
An enduring minor plot device: men brawl and sometimes come out the far side as buddies rather than enemies -- they have demonstrated the aggressive side of their manhood, they can be admitted to the club of stand-up-for-your-rights males. This device isn't as respected in contemporary literature -- this variant on manly has been swept aside by political correctness/sensitivity indoctrination, but the thinking behind it is still very much alive and well in some real-life circles even if it's getting pushed out of the genre literary ones. A contemmporary variant of this is Fight Club, another is "I got your back." military-style loyalty.
I didn't remember it as such, but there is a thread of morality story about racism. What I remembered were the fun characters.
There's some good technofiction about how people live and grow up. In this part, about education. He makes some predictions about the relations between TV's and books. (TV's are 3D by this time and he calls them "sollies", as in, solids.) TV's show emotional stuff and books show analytical. ...surprisingly visionary considering that TV was just barely being introduced at this time. I was a first generation TV child and I grew up in the 1950's.
Interesting... I'd forgotten, but the heart of this story is "form, fit, function". The robots are misbehaving because they have too much capability, so much of it is wasted that this is driving them insane.
Yup! As Quinby explains his uncoventional repair techniques -- based on form, fit, function -- this is turning into real good technofiction.
Interesting. Lots of talk of robot brains, but so little of communication -- even by this very technofiction-oriented author. Yet another author that misses the meshing of computation and communication power that we now see is the heart of present day computing power. The surprise uses of advanced telephone technology was completely missed.
This blind spot is so big and pervasive in this 30/40's era that I now I wonder why?
Add some classic social issues: a small group of men wanting to start an innovative business, the government supporting a big and established company monopoly that will squelch the innovation, and an idealist inventor who is going to try to change the system. It's a nice optimistic American mix.
Yeah, Boucher feels strongly about his racism. He's got a black president.
And innovation wins out in the end. A fun and optimistic story as well as good technofiction.