Plot summary

It's sometime in the near future. Delos is an amusement park for the wealthy, where guests, for $1,000 a day, can live out their wildest fantasies in one of three resorts: Medieval World (recreating thirteenth century Europe), Roman World (recreating the height of the Roman Empire) or Westworld (recreating the 1880s Wild West). While the guests take on whatever role he or she wants, the resort-supplied "actors" filling in that world are all robots designed to be realistic to the actual beings, they programmed to fulfill the pleasures of the guest, whether that be as a friend, very good friend, or foe, with guests guaranteed that "nothing can go wrong" in that no harm can come to themselves, anyone else or the robots, on which routine servicing is conducted to rise again to fulfill the same or different role. Escaping the realities of a divorce, Peter Martin is a first time guest at Westworld with his friend, John Blane, a second time visitor who tries to reassure novice Peter. Slow to embrace the game and role playing aspect of the park, Peter eventually receives the rush he so desired when he "kills" a dark clad adversary at a saloon, that dark clad figure who he discovers is assigned his enemy in encountering him again. During Peter and John's stay, the technicians find that some robot malfunctions are occurring, the effects to the guests minor in nature, with John the victim of one of the more serious offenses. However, those minor incidents turn into major ones where the robots begin to malfunction to the point of taking control, with the dark clad gunslinger, equipped with some of the more high tech sensory mechanisms, after Peter to duel to the death.—Huggo