Synopsis

Two men and a woman invent a process for duplicating anything exactly. After becoming millionaires, the woman marries one of the men, but the other man is also in love with her, so he wants to duplicate her.

History

First publication: Amazing November 1939

Later expanded into the novel of the same title and the basis for a motion picture.

Review

This story has some really excellent ideas. These ideas though, bring up complicated relationships among the four characters. This is where the story shows it’s age. Many of the genre writers in the 1930s did not have the writing skill to bring off characters really well. That is evident here. The story cries out for deeper exploration of the realtionships, but they just aren’t developed very far or very dramatically. Temple sis expand this into a novel in 1949. I have a copy and will have to read it to see if the ten years of experience allowed him to make this a stronger story. But it is enjoyable for the twists in the story.