
In a near‑future world where a government‑run Domestic Center tries to balance a surplus of women with a shortage of men, society has turned marriage into a managed commodity. Joe, a brilliant roboticist, is fed up with the imperfections of his own wife, Vera, and begins to dream of engineering a partner who meets his exact standards—no flaws, no emotional baggage, just the ideal companion he craves. His old friend Sam, now the Center’s director, represents the bureaucratic push for order, but the conversation on the train reveals a deeper clash between human psychology and cold precision.
As the two men part ways at a sleek, chrome‑lined station, Joe’s resolve hardens. He sees a path that blends cutting‑edge cybernetics with personal desire, daring to design a “perfect” being that could redefine intimacy itself. Listeners are drawn into the ethical and emotional stakes of a society that tries to quantify love, while a single man wrestles with the consequences of playing god in the realm of the heart.
Language
en
Duration
~40 minutes (39K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2016-02-12
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1910–1995
A prolific pulp-era storyteller, this American writer moved easily from crime fiction to sports novels for younger readers. His books helped shape hard-boiled private-eye fiction while keeping a strong feel for everyday life and competition.
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