Last month, after checking out Bates' original "Farewell to the Master" upon which "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is based, I went on to read the other stories in the collection, namely "Alas, All Thinking," and "A Matter of Size." The latter is a fun story, kinda A.E. Van Vogt-y, and one I would have enjoyed far more had I been twelve again.

However, the "Alas, All Thinking" story was very disturbing.  Perhaps it was intended to be provocative, and if so, it sure succeeded!  But in short shrift, a scientist traveling to the future finds a race of advanced, cerebral beings, supposedly the final outcome of the future of human evolution, and is so disgusted by them that he murders them all (there being but a half-dozen or so left).  Also, it is a  "love story" that is pure anti-matter to our Valentines Day shortly coming up.  I suppose the effort was to evoke horror, but I wound up with a moral like:  "How terrible it would be in the future if we lost our uncontrollable blood-lust and could no longer kill?"  Maybe I missed the point.  Anybody know?