Page 100 - Robot Builders Source Book - Gordon McComb

books-technical
An excellent but irregularly published magazine on amateur robotics. Subscription is for
six issues, but there's no guarantee when the issues will come out. Perhaps it's best to
buy back issues, and the current issue at the regular cover price, as it comes available. 81
Robot Fiction
Many robot builders are also interested in fictional tales about robots. As judging fiction is
far more subjective than nonfiction, and because some of the best works of robot fiction
are old and/or out of print, I won't presume to list specific books here for adult fiction.
Instead, I'll just summarize some of the more relevant works and authors.
• Isaac Asimov. The stories in I, Robot ushered in a new era of robotics storytelling.
Asimov's famous "Three Laws of Robotics" were first introduced in these stories (the
book is a compilation of shorts published in magazines such as Astounding). The bulk
of robot fiction before this time painted robots as evil, a manifestation of the out-of-
control mechanized world people were living in during the first half of the twentieth cen-
tury. Asimov wrote extensively about robots; see The Rest of the Robots, The
Bicentennial Man, The Robots of Dawn, The Complete Robot, and many others.
• Brian Aldiss. One of my personal favorites, Aldiss forces a darker look at robotics and
our relationship with them. A seminal work is But Who Can Replace a Man, a collection
of shorts published in 1958.
• Philip K. Dick. Where Asimov was optimistic about robotics, Philip K. Dick was pes-
simistic (he arguably might have more realistic, as well). The movie Bladerunner was
inspired by a Philip K. Dick story, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, a tale about
"replicants"—engineered biological creatures who look just like humans, but aren't
allowed rights. While replicants aren't robots per se, the story deals with many of the
same ethical questions being raised today about sentient machines: Do they have the
same rights as humans, even though they aren't "real"? Dick also wrote about robots
in Second Variety, Imposter, Martian Time Slip, Autofac, and several other novels and
short stories.
• Jack Williamson. In a career than spanned many years, Williamson wrote two of the
most influential fictional works on robots: The Humanoids (1949) and With Folded
Hands (1947). Both were about a benign race of androids that take over the work, and
spirit, of their human subjects.
• Stanislaw Lem. Lem's 1974 collection of robot short stories, The Cyberiad: Fables for
the Cybernetic Age, is part fiction, part satire. Nothing is sacred, not even Asimov's
Three Laws of Robotics.
• Clifford D. Simak. Of particular interest, look for City (1952), where the Earth is inhabited
by old robotic cats, dogs, and other machines, and Time and Again (1951), an allegori-
cal tale of robot slaves seeking to free themselves.
• Ron Goulart. Robots that don't work right. Goulart's books on faltering contraptions are
hilarious, but I also understand they are an acquired taste. Try one out to see if you like
it.
• Ray Bradbury. One of the best-known science fiction authors of all time, Bradbury has
written a number of short stories and novels about robots, often taking a look at their
dark side. A number of thought-provoking robot stories can be found in I Sing the Body
Electric! (1969); more can be found in The Illustrated Man and Long After Midnight story
collections.
• David Gerrold. A gifted novelist and television writer (he penned the Trouble with
Tribbles episode for the original Star Trek TV series), David's work has spanned a wide
gamut of topics. His novel When Harlie Was One (also noted with variations, such as
When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One) is about a self-learning machine, growing and maturing