This was published in 1940. WWII had just started in Europe but was not yet a spectacular event. In spite of that this is American-centric: The alien space ship "lands" in the center of Washington, DC. Bates indicates early on that solar system space travel is routine at this time, but other described technologies, such as photo equipment and the scientists' lab, are fairly contemporary in level. He does add TV to the media list, but calls the viewing end a telescreen rather than a television. His protagonist is a familiar one: an enterprising investigative reporter.
Nice, this is not a space ship. It's more mysterious than that. It just "blipped" in. He calls it a time space ship rather than a space time ship.
Some technofiction inconsistencies: planetary travel is called commonplace, but there is only one active human space ship. There had been another but it was "pulled into the sun". Ah well... but classic. For some reason writers, and readers, don't want to give up on the concept of space ships losing power and falling into the sun. It's like cowboys never bothering to reload six-shooters and hero dectives getting smacked in the back of the head to end an early scene but wake up just fine a few minutes later.
The description of why this ship is so amazing is ho-hum to me. If it was the first description of such a ship, I can cut it some slack. In that case I can say, "Wow! It sure set a standard."
Interesting, Klaatu is killed with a ray gun fired by a mad man -- the Lee Harvey Oswald of his day.
Another Technofiction problem, both Gnut and the space ship are described as too heavy to move. If so, why hasn't the ground under them collapsed? And, it turns out, Gnut does move. Why doesn't he leave footprints? And the reporter's first clue that there was a mystery is that Gnut had moved from place to place on a patterned floor. How did that floor get under him? But the story is a good one. I remember that I didn't think of these problems when I read it years ago.
Interesting word choice: humans tried to "derange" the robot, meaning shut it down. Choosing words is part of describing something new. This choice did not become a standard.
Ouch! A series of bad coincidences: Gnut's experiments get out of control on the first night a human is watching the inside of the museum overnight? The out of control is huge, the room is trashed? As strong as Gnut is the gorilla went rounds with him for many minutes? Cliff can sneak out successfully in spite of this huge and noisy trashing? Whew! The plot device is strong in this one, Obe Wan.
More plot device: in spite of the interior trashing and the totally wierd appearance of gorilla hair on Gnut no extra precautions are taken the next night. Cliff hides in the same place and has the museum to himself again. This is pushing hard against credulity. Since well before the 1930's there were night watchmen who walked their rounds, and janitors who cleaned after hours.
The mystery of what Gnut is up to is nicely unveiled. This is the story's strong point.
Another interesting word choice: "copter", as in helicopter. He mentions it, but then has "planes" landing on the lawn, not copters. I wonder what a copter was in his mind? Igor Sikorsky flew his first helicopter in 1939, and Russians and Germans had been experimenting with the idea as early as the 1930-31 time frame. ...It appears he uses the words interchangably.
Police-civilian relations are sure different in this story! This guy waltzes by the police to sell his story to the news syndicates then reports back to them. There's no SWAT team or any equivalent violent or precautionary treatment. I wonder how much of a fantasy is this, even for the 1930? And his formal title, as he reports to these police, is "picture reporter", not photographer.
He has the equivalent of a congressional hearing and it is highly cooperative on all sides. No one there seems to have hidden agendas. Odd, but I like it.
Gnut is encased in "glasstex" and Cliff watches this night from a tree outside that looks in a window. This is pretty hokey: no remote cameras inside and no ladder/platform for him outside? Very inconsistent technology and people use. At this point it's getting surprising as to why this story became so memorable and was considered so good.
Oh man, so classic! There is one weakness and it is exploited. <sigh> In this case Gnut melts his way out of the plastic prison. In my opinion he should have teleported out, walked around, then telported back in again, but that wouldn't have been as fun writing about. Then in action sequences that surely inspired Ed Wood, the robot first and foremost displays his invulnerability to Army weapons. Finally he takes Cliff as hostage and heads off into the distance. Once again, this is impressive only if it is first.
Finally back to some neat stuff again, stuff that I remember from the first reading. Klattu and the others are being reconstructed from the sound recordings of them. And Cliff figures out that getting the orginal recording instrument would let Gnut figure out the imperfections that were killing them within minutes of creation. It turns out Gnut had been standing motionless for three months simply thinking about what to do next. I'll give that a pass as part of alien thinking processes.
And then the memorable neat twist at the end, "I am the master."
The twist makes it. Other than that, the inconsistencies of the story keep dragging from memorable to ho-hum for me. I find it fascinating that the editors gave it such praise in the forward. I guess that's the difference between average SF reader thinking and my current thinking. And I guess that difference also has to do with why this became the basis for such a memorable movie.