Dying To Live

[a:Edwin Charles Tubb 14053911 Edwin Charles Tubb https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] (15 October 1919 – 10 September 2010) was a British writer of science fiction, fantasy and western novels. The author of over 140 novels and 230 short stories and novellas, Tubb is best known for The Dumarest Saga (US collective title: Dumarest of Terra), an epic science-fiction saga set in the far future. [a:Michael Moorcock 16939 Michael Moorcock https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1424079041p2/16939.jpg] wrote, “His reputation for fast-moving and colourful SF writing is unmatched by anyone in Britain.” Much of Tubb's work was written under pseudonyms including Gregory Kern, Carl Maddox, Alan Guthrie, Eric Storm and George Holt. He used 58 pen names over five decades of writing, although some of these were publishers' house names also used by other writers: Volsted Gridban (along with John Russell Fearn), Gill Hunt (with John Brunner and Dennis Hughes), King Lang (with George Hay and John W Jennison), Roy Sheldon (with H. J. Campbell) and Brian Shaw. Tubb's Charles Grey alias was solely his own and acquired a big following in the early 1950s.In this short story we see two actors, wife and husband, desperate for work. Set in the near future the most popular form of entertainment is 'mannequin theatre'. The minds of actors are used to inhabit these 'mannequins', which are sophisticated robots. These robots are then placed into violent stories. At the moment of death, the actor re-inhabits their bodies. The twist in the story is that the both wife and husband end up in the same play. Battling robots, where only one person lives.A fairly inventive tale which highlights what Tubb is good at. Packing a thought provoking story into a brief, half an hour read.You can grab a copy here.