Project Gutenberg 2016-01-01 Public domain in the USA. 151 Harmon, Jim 1933 2010 Harmon, James Judson West How to Make Friends Produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1962 Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "How to Make Friends" by Jim Harmon is a science fiction short story written in the early 1960s. The narrative centers on William Manet, an overseer on Mars who grapples with profound loneliness in his isolated job at an Atmosphere Seeder Station. The story explores themes of companionship, desire, and the underlying absurdity of human connections in the face of existential solitude. As the plot unfolds, Manet's solitude drives him into a psychological struggle, and he eventually encounters a character named Trader Tom who offers him a "Socialization Kit" designed to create friends. Inside the kit, Manet finds various components and a manual titled "The Making of Friends and Others." In his humorous yet tragic attempts to create meaningful relationships, he constructs Ronald, a mundane companion, and Veronica, a less-than-astute female figure. However, when he tries to build Victor, who becomes his adversary, the story culminates in a poignant realization about companionship and the nature of friendship. Ultimately, Manet finds that challenges and conflicts can be more engaging than the shallow, vacuous connections he initially sought. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 77.2 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. en Science fiction Short stories Mars (Planet) -- Fiction Loneliness -- Fiction PS Text Science Fiction Category: Short Stories Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy 58617 2025-07-20T11:16:27.554287 text/html 34944 2024-10-22T23:40:36 text/html 365695 2025-07-20T11:16:29.398284 application/epub+zip 364526 2025-07-20T11:16:27.942313 application/epub+zip 82683 2025-07-20T11:16:27.727288 application/epub+zip 402890 2025-07-20T11:16:30.628288 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 395300 2025-07-20T11:16:29.189251 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 114017 2022-09-23T06:10:31.382031 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 50905 2025-07-20T11:16:27.408282 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 31153 2024-10-22T23:40:36 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 17882 2025-07-20T11:16:30.751250 application/rdf+xml 31361 2025-07-20T11:16:27.797285 image/jpeg 4816 2025-07-20T11:16:27.761286 image/jpeg 327448 2025-07-20T11:16:27.571256 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia