I often read science fiction and came across many authors but I wasn’t aware at all of David Gerrold before reading this book as part of a collection. A pity since he stands out among his peers in the way he’s approaching writing science fiction. While science fiction usually is about plot and world-building, Gerrold is giving us ideas.
Harlie is one of the early cognizant AI’s. 2001’s HAL was already around but Harlie can stand on his own. In fact, I would wager that Douglas Adams read this book before creating Deep Thought. Harlie designed the computer that follows him a decade before Adams‘ Deep Thought. But Harlie isn’t about humour. Harlie conducts long winding conversations with his project lead David Auberson, a psychologist. They revolve around love and religion as essential human traits separating man from machine.
By focusing on philosophical issues, Gerrold avoids the trap of obsolescence which so many SF stories from the past fall into. It shows that he put a lot of thoughts he was turning over in his head into this book. Some of them are out of place like his thoughts on his own homosexuality which are a long stretch in the context of the interaction between man and machine but for the early 70’s these thoughts are extraordinary nonetheless. SF certainly gave more freedom than other forms of writing. Delany’s Dhalgren comes to mind.
Where Gerrold fails the same way as is common in SF is in developing his characters. The interactions lack cohesiveness and the crucial relationship between the main human protagonist and his love interest is described weakly. Nonetheless, When Harlie was One is a recommended read for anybody who likes SF because of ideas and not of plot. Speaking of ideas, this novel is probably the first book in history that mentioned computer viruses.