
In a glittering 23rd‑century New York, operatic android Isolde steps off the production line with flawless voice tapes of Kirsten Flagstad and a perfect Wagnerian build. After a triumphant debut at the Metropolitanette, she is quietly deactivated and stored alongside the other characters from the great opera, awaiting a future that seems set in stone.
Beneath the sleek façade of the city, a shadowy black market thrives, where a smooth‑talking hustler named Hans Becker and a night watchman plot to steal the prized android. They arrange for a covert “conversion,” stripping Isolde of her stage costume and repurposing her for domestic chores—yet leaving her priceless voice untouched. As the illicit scheme unfolds, listeners are drawn into a neon‑lit world where art, technology, and greed collide, and an elegant machine begins an unexpected journey far from the opera house.
Language
en
Duration
~34 minutes (33K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
United States: Great American Publications, Inc., 1960.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2023-03-06
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1915–1986
Best remembered for lyrical science fiction with a warm, human touch, this American writer published stories and novels from the 1950s into the 1980s. His work often mixed space-age ideas with nostalgia, humor, and a deep sympathy for ordinary people.
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