SciFi Short Story Unintelligent Dog Protagonist. It Visits a College or University
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1Bargle5
Another one of my Unsolveds from another forum. I thought I had tried it here, but I see not.
Member Bryan has left the group, but I'm still curious about this one. Here's Bryan's description.
Hi, just wondering if somebody can identify this story that I read about 3 decades ago...
It was part of an anthology or collection, and I think it was a pretty major author (Asimov, or Clarke) but not sure.
Anyways, the stories each had brief introductions, and the author said that this story's origin came from an argument that they had with another SF writer (or SF editor - perhaps John Campbell).
Anyways, the argument was that you couldn't write a story unless the protagonist was intelligent. So the author wrote a story about a dog to try to prove him wrong. He did admit in the introduction that it was very hard to make the story interesting.
All I remember about the story is that the dog does mundane things - there's no humans at all. I think the dog lays around a while, then goes looking for things, and then lays around again. But my memory is not so clear after all this time.
Anybody remember a story about a dog with no humans?
To clarify: This was a stand-alone story, not part of a fix-up, and not something the author ever came back to again.
If it helps, I think the dog was hanging around a university in an abandoned city. It laid around waiting for routine things to happen, then it got up and ran around, and then it came back again.
Not much to go on, but that's all I can remember after 3 decades. Actually, the only reason I remember it at all is due to the foreword, in which the author explained how this was written as an exercise (or perhaps as a dare) to do something that had been discussed as "impossible" among his writing friends.
Already eliminated:
City
Isaac Asimov
Harlan Ellison
Theodore Sturgeon
Philip K. Dick
"Friend's Best Man" by Jonathan Carroll has been suggested and eliminated.
Member Bryan has left the group, but I'm still curious about this one. Here's Bryan's description.
Hi, just wondering if somebody can identify this story that I read about 3 decades ago...
It was part of an anthology or collection, and I think it was a pretty major author (Asimov, or Clarke) but not sure.
Anyways, the stories each had brief introductions, and the author said that this story's origin came from an argument that they had with another SF writer (or SF editor - perhaps John Campbell).
Anyways, the argument was that you couldn't write a story unless the protagonist was intelligent. So the author wrote a story about a dog to try to prove him wrong. He did admit in the introduction that it was very hard to make the story interesting.
All I remember about the story is that the dog does mundane things - there's no humans at all. I think the dog lays around a while, then goes looking for things, and then lays around again. But my memory is not so clear after all this time.
Anybody remember a story about a dog with no humans?
To clarify: This was a stand-alone story, not part of a fix-up, and not something the author ever came back to again.
If it helps, I think the dog was hanging around a university in an abandoned city. It laid around waiting for routine things to happen, then it got up and ran around, and then it came back again.
Not much to go on, but that's all I can remember after 3 decades. Actually, the only reason I remember it at all is due to the foreword, in which the author explained how this was written as an exercise (or perhaps as a dare) to do something that had been discussed as "impossible" among his writing friends.
Already eliminated:
City
Isaac Asimov
Harlan Ellison
Theodore Sturgeon
Philip K. Dick
"Friend's Best Man" by Jonathan Carroll has been suggested and eliminated.
2Bargle5
Also eliminated:
"Hound Dunnit"
"Pelt" by Carol Emshwiller
"Roog" by Philip K. Dick
"After I Was Thrown Into the River and Before I Drowned" by Dave Eggers.
"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury
"Stay!: Keeper's Story" by Lois Lowry
"Jones and the Stray" by Martha Soukup
"Investigations of a Dog" by Kafka
"Hound Dunnit"
"Pelt" by Carol Emshwiller
"Roog" by Philip K. Dick
"After I Was Thrown Into the River and Before I Drowned" by Dave Eggers.
"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury
"Stay!: Keeper's Story" by Lois Lowry
"Jones and the Stray" by Martha Soukup
"Investigations of a Dog" by Kafka
