Review of “Crabs on the Island” (1958)
Anatoly Dnieprov (writer).
Read in 2020.
Read in The Molecular Café (1968).
A mad scientist creates fully autonomous, parthenogenetic, naturally mutating robots on a remote island. A worker who hates the inventor watches the results.
It’s well executed, but the author’s understanding of natural selection is too superficial for the premises—and hence the symbolism—to make sense.