Mechanopolis

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Unamuno, Miguel de. (Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo). Mecanópolis (vt. Mechanopolis). First published in the newspaper literary supplement Los Lunes de El Imparcial (Madrid, Spain), August 11, 1913.[1] In Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction From Latin America & Spain. Translated and edited by Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilán (et al.). Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003: pp. 47-51 with editors'/translator's introduction. Translated for Cosmos Latinos by Patricia Hart. For other translations and reprints, see the Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase.[2]

From Jeff Somers, "B&N "Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog" 15 July 2016: Mechanopolis as "one of the earliest examples of Spanish-language SF [...]":

You might be under the impression that the “machines take over after humanity dies off” trope is a relatively new one, but this 1913 story proves otherwise. Unamuno [...] tells a simple story of a man who, while near death in a strange desert, stumbles upon an empty city of machines where he learns [...] that he is one of the few humans left alive, and is regarded as a subject of pity by the artificial lifeforms. From this simple setup, Unamuno mines effective terror and horror; the story demonstrates that many of our most powerful science-fictional concepts have been with us much longer than we realize.[3]

Cf. and contrast city of machines in The City and the Stars/The Lion of Comarre & Against the Fall of Night and John W. Campbell's "Twilight, and, to some extent, Brian Aldiss's "Who Can Replace a Man?." Mechanopolis specifically mentions, with strong locational stress, "The Book of Machines" in Samuel Butler's Erewhon. Among other central machines note

• A completely automated train that reaches such high velocity that the protagonist "could not even make out the sort of landscape though which I sped."
• A truly auto automobile: a self-driving car.
• An automated quality restaurant, serving fine food (cf. and contrast real-world "automats": "a fast food restaurant where simple foods and drinks are served by vending machines. The world's first automat was [...] opened in Berlin, Germany in 1895)."[4]
• Sound movies ("talkies" in an old formulation) as "a cinematic film accompanied by a phonograph but so well combined that the illusion of reality was complete."

RDE, Initial compiler, 4Aug20, 3-6Sep20