The Second Experiment
(From the book "Solar Wind Vol.1")
By :
Deborah Susan Jones :
Editor
Published by Panther Books in 1975,
but created by the artist a year before (because the publishing process
took a year to evolve from artwork to printing to publication through
to distribution and appearance in shops/stores) the US psychoanalyst
and author, married to Isaac Asimov from 1973 until his death in 1992,
was primarily writing stories for children, but The Second Experiment
(1974) presented as J O Jeppson, is an adult tale, though the early
section touches upon her children’s’ writings in tone, and is concerned
with a Robot, who will upset and upheave his creators and even their
concerns about their very existence.
On the planet Roiissa, in a remote
galaxy, the Rouiis continue. yet, as these god-like aliens prepare for
a wonderful Second Experiment, a robot servant Tec, in order to
survive, expands his intelligence, which can in turn seriously affect
the history of the race that created him, and escapes from his masters,
taking with him a sole remaining physically-incarnated Roissa, R'ya, a
pubescent female dragon, and then falls into the dastardly clutches of
a world-enslaving power that is determined to conquer the Universe.
Needless to say, Tec’s actions can
lead to devastating cosmic outcomes . . . . .
When the artist created this work,
he had no idea who the author was, until the Art Director explained
that she was the wife of Isaac Asimov, all part of the wonderful, heady
era, of the young artist, evolving from art school, into the exciting
and fast-paced world of paperback publishing and learning to fit into
the link-through production process of art-to-art director-to editor,
to photographer (of the art) to the printer, to the sales force, to the
shops, and ultimately, though he had no forward conception of such a
thing at the time, becoming a much sought-after creator of paperback
art worldwide.
Deborah Susan Jones

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