(i) In a Dan Dare story called "Reign Of The Robots," robots did not reign but the Mekon and his Treens from Venus conquered Earth with an army of robots as, later the Daleks from Skaro conquered Earth with an army of "robomen," roboticized men. Dare's experience gave me the idea that robots were bad.
(ii) Despite this, other fictional spacemen used robots for "good"
purposes.
(iv) There was a prose paperback on sale called I, Robot.
(v) Asimov made a robot a character in a novel.
(vi) Now I must tick that I am not a robot to comment on my own blog.
Thus, the use of robots in Poul Anderson's Satan's World evokes a long tradition in our experience of reading sf.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I have to admit, critical tho I often am about Asimov's SF, his robot stories are among his better works, esp. I, ROBOT and THE CAVES OF STEEL.
Anderson did not go into writing robot stories as often as Asimov did, but he could write good ones when he chose. Two examples being "Quixote And The Windmill" and "Critique of Impure Reason (the latter also being quite funny!).
Sean
Paul:
There's a webcomic, Gunnerkrigg Court, in which some of the characters speculate for a time that an enigmatic other character, Jones, may be a robot. The comic's creator followed this up by pretending to design a t-shirt marked with a childish sketch of Jones and the words, "JONES ... not a robot." I think of this and snicker whenever I have to hit the "prove you're not a robot" button.
(Jones ISN'T a robot. She's something far more astonishing.)
Kaor, DAVID!
I'm sure you noticed my latest article, which Paul kindly "published" here. Have you ever thought of writing some thing of your own, at length? Such as an essay about H. Beam Piper, who seems to be your favorite SF writer. Some of your comments, along with those of Stirling, are very interesting!
Sean
Seconded.
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