Thing of Beauty (short story)

"Thing of Beauty" is a science fiction short story by American writer Damon Knight. It first appeared in the September 1958 issue of Galaxy magazine and has been reprinted three times, in Far Out (1961), The Sixth Galaxy Reader (1962), and The Best of Damon Knight (1976).[1]

"Thing of Beauty"
AuthorDamon Knight
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre(s)Science fiction
Published inGalaxy Science Fiction
Publication typePeriodical
PublisherGalaxy Publishing Corporation
Media typePrint (Magazine, Hardback & Paperback)
Publication dateSeptember 1958

Synopsis

One morning, a group of men in tight purple clothing make a delivery to the house of Gordon Fish in Southern California. It is a machine, the controls of which are labeled in an unknown language. By trial and error, Fish discovers that the machine produces high-quality drawings of people and things. Fish enters one of the drawings in an artistic competition, claiming that it was drawn by a nephew. It wins, but to receive the full prize money, the artist is required to paint the image on a wall. Fish convinces a friend to carry out the task. Fish continues to try to find ways to make money from the machine; he poses as an art teacher and takes on a young woman as a student. As time goes on, he notices that the variety of the images being produced by the machine becomes smaller and smaller. An operating manual came with the machine; he sends it to be translated, and learns that the language is Swedish. He discovers that he has systematically been removing images from storage in the machine each time he produces a picture.

gollark: I can retask an orbital scanning satellite or 86 if you want.
gollark: You haven't heard of Karl Gruen?
gollark: This would only be better if workers would be allowed to decide between themselves to work, and by means of political means they would have a higher power. The chief representative and classical type of this tendency is Mr Karl Gruen. In particular, it may be seen that at work it is not possible to produce more workers and more people, if this is the case. Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression when, and only when, it becomes a mere figureof speech. It is an attitude which allows the individual to express his own mind without any kind of form of communication, but can be regarded as a mere expression of the mind.
gollark: If I post a large wall of text, it is *generally* copied off the internet.
gollark: Heav.

References
  1. Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections
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