Robots Have No Tails is a short story collection by Henry Kuttner. The collection was first published in 1952. The five stories in the collection were originally published in Astounding Stories between 1943 and 1948 under the byline "Lewis Padgett".note
The stories are comic science fantasy and feature an inventor named Galloway Gallegher, who reaches unimaginable heights of genius while drunk, which invariably causes trouble when he wakes up the day after with a hangover and no idea what his latest creation is supposed to do or how to operate it.
The supporting cast includes Joe the robot, one of Gallegher's inventions, who possesses many amazing capabilities that are entirely irrelevant to his primary function, and is also a self-centered jerk who refuses to obey any instructions other than the one he was built to perform.
The stories are: "The Proud Robot", "Gallegher Plus", "The World Is Mine", "Ex Machina", and "Time Locker".
These stories contain examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Gallegher has a severe and probably hereditary drinking problem, which the stories play for comedy.
- Death by Irony: Vanning in "Time Locker"
- Drunken Master: Gallegher's genius is activated only when drunk.
- Exact Words: Exploited by Joe from time to time as a form of rebellion. An example is his description of the "small brown creature" that only he can see in "Ex Machina", which is accurate as far as it goes but leaves out several important details such as the fact that it's Gallegher's grandfather.
- Future Society, Present Values: The distant future that Gallegher inhabits is distinctly similar to 1940s urban America.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Gallegher in "Time Locker", when he realizes that Vanning had reached into the future and crushed himself.
- Laser-Guided Karma: In "Time Locker", Amoral Attorney Vanning sees a small person attempting to take illict bonds he's hiding in the Applied Phlebotinum for a client, and squashes the person. Turns out that all things are contracting faster than Galloway/Gallegher realizes and Vanning sent himself to the Malebolge.
- Orwellian Retcon: In the original magazine publication, the inventor's name was 'Galloway' in the first story and 'Gallegher' in the second, because Kuttner had moved house and mislaid his notes and forgotten what he'd named the character. He stuck to 'Gallegher' for subsequent stories, and reprints of the first story, including in Robots Have No Tails also use 'Gallegher'.
- Physical God: Horrifyingly, one of the main characters in "Ex Machina" is revealed to be a de facto god.
- Robotic Psychopath: Although he's frequently likened to Narcissus and is definitely autosexual (in the sense of being sexually attracted to oneself), Gallegher's robot Joe also seems to legitimately have narcissistic personality disorder. The extent of his autocracy extends far beyond "Second Law" My Ass!.
- "Second Law" My Ass!: On his first introduction in "The Proud Robot", Joe is entirely disobedient, refusing to obey any order until Gallegher demonstrates that he remembers the purpose for which Joe was constructed. Even afterward, Joe is rude and unhelpful, and frequently avoids obeying instructions.
- Single-Task Robot: Gallegher's robot, Joe, was created after Gallegher set out to create a simple device for a single purpose, went overboard and ended up with a Do-Anything Robot with all kinds of extra abilities — which refuses to obey any order not relating to the original single purpose.
- Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Gallegher's robot Joe possesses a wide variety of amazing functions that are all completely incidental to the robot's primary function. Played for laughs.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: The driving force of the Gallegher stories.
