Robot Fiction

"Io, Robot" is a short story from the collection Tides from the New Worlds. Caribbean-born novelist Tobias Buckell established himself as a gifted new voice in science fiction with his stunning first novel, Crystal Rain. Now, in his first collection, Buckell demonstrates his strengths in the short form, offering readers a collection of stories that are compelling, smart, wonderfully imagined, and entertaining.

If his inventions go wrong, Wendel just throws them away and starts again. So when Clunk, his robot assistant, fills the sock drawer with cups and saucers and makes tea in a Wellington boot, Wendel throws him on the scrap heap and makes himself a new assistant: the Wendelbot. But he gets more than he bargained for, and soon Wendel finds himself on the scrap heap. Can he win back his workshop from the mighty Wendelbot? Let the robot battle commence!

Ted Hall is worried. He's been sleepwalking, and his somnambulant travels appear to coincide with murders by the notorious Hang Wire Killer. Meanwhile, the circus has come to town, but the Celtic dancers are taking their pagan act a little too seriously, the manager of the Olde Worlde Funfair has started talking to his vintage machines, and the new acrobat's frequent absences are causing tension among the performers. Out in the city there are other new arrivals - immortals searching for an ancient power - a primal evil which, if unopposed, could destroy the world!

When the lucky survivors of the world’s most infamous maritime disaster were plucked out of the freezing ocean by the passenger steamship Carpathia, they thought their problems were over. But something is sleeping in the darkest recesses of their rescue ship. Something old. Something hungry.

Marius dos Hellespont and his apprentice, Gerd, are professional looters of battlefields. When they stumble upon the corpse of the King of Scorby and Gerd is killed, Marius is mistaken for the monarch by one of the dead soldiers and is transported down to the Kingdom of the Dead. Just like the living citizens, the dead need a king - after all, the king is God’s representative, and someone needs to remind God where they are. And so it comes to pass that Marius is banished to the surface with one message: If he wants to recover his life he must find the dead king.

Elizabethan spy Mal Catlyn has everything he ever wanted - his twin brother Sandy restored to health, his family estate reclaimed and a son to inherit it - and while his work is far from over, Mal still has a slim chance of eliminating his enemies whilst they are at their weakest. With Sandy's help, Mal learns to harness his own magic in the fight against the guisers, but it may be too late to save England. Schemes set in motion decades ago are at last coming to fruition, and the barrier between the dreamlands and the waking world is wearing thin…

On the vacuum surface of the moon, life for Ai-dan and a cohort of moon-dwelling androids is anything but a lunar wasteland of boredom. They spend their days maintaining lunar data centers with a quaint blue-green, and sometimes whitish, orb hanging in the sky. Between playing games and spirited debates on the meaning of the shimmering orb, the robots' existence is near idyllic. But when a malfunctioning system leads Ai-dan to stumble upon a mysterious box and then a soft-bodied android—total lunar oddities—the harmony of their world gets tossed into disarray.

The colony planet of Eighty-Six looks as dull as all its fellow new worlds to veteran journalist Lex Falk. But when a local squabble starts to turn violent, and the media start getting the runaround from the military high command, his interest is seriously piqued. Forbidden from approaching the battlezone, he gets himself chipped inside the head of a combat veteran - and uncovers the story of a lifetime. When the soldier is killed, however, Falk must use all his resourcefulness to get safely back home again…and blow the lid off the whole damn thing.

Meet Easie Damasco: rogue, thieving swine and total charmer. Even the wicked can’t rest when a vicious warlord and the force of enslaved giants he commands invade their homeland. Damasco might get away in one piece, but he’s going to need help. Big time.

Six years ago, an alien spacecraft crashed into the remote Nevada desert, releasing a virus that killed one-fifth of the Earth's population. Molly McManus, whose parents died in the plague, can't forgive the aliens just because they give humanity a few new toys. For Wells Marsden, a computer hacker desperate to atone for his past, the aliens might offer the fresh start he needs.

The unending war with the anarchist rebellion has spread to the planet of Thrada III. A planet the Union cannot let fall into the hands of the enemy. Takashi Hiraku is part of conscripted civilian militia tasked with reinforcing the besieged city of Harmine. But when they arrive, they find the enemy is already in control and waiting for them. It is a deadly trap, and one that will change Takashi’s life forever. It will take all his wits and fighting ability if he is to survive the terrifying battle.

What could be better than a party with your friends in New York City? In the year 2035? The future is bright. In fact the future is already here! But this future, unfortunately, is filled with kidnappings and killings, described herein with dark humor and satire. Demon humor. Demon satire.

Robots help us understand our weather and climate. Some fly into storms to measure wind. Others dive into the ocean to learn about weather patterns. And some drive across frigid polar regions to gather climate data. How are robots helping us plan for the weather of the future? Listen to this audiobook to find out!

She had been nervous about starting fifth grade after spending all summer with her little brother and baby cousins. So when her fifth-grade teacher announces a district-wide robotics competition, she jumps at the opportunity to be the class’s leader. Being in charge is better and cooler than playing make-believe, right? Many people doubt her, especially the boys in her class, but with the support of her friends and Girl Scout troop, Maven is determined to prove them wrong.

Ich bin Andro, KI-Androide 3.0-m, ein Roboter. Es ist exakt drei Tage her, dass meine Erbauer – korrigiere, meine Eltern – mich aktiviert haben. Mein Auftrag: Undercover in die Schule gehen und nicht auffallen! Du lieber Mensch! Kopfrechnen, Hausaufgaben, Freundschaften schließen! Hochgradig kompliziert bei diesen seltsamen Wesen, für die es keine Bedienungsanleitung gibt. Zumal meine Eltern veraltete Technik in mir verbaut haben. Nicht nur Lehrer Lembke, auch das weibliche Wesen Lilli kommt mir langsam auf die Schliche.

Akku voll und los! Meine Undercover-Mission bei der komplizierten Spezies namens "Mensch" geht weiter: die Konrad-Zuse-Schule besuchen, Informationen sammeln und Freundschaften schließen. Doch eine Eigenart dieser Menschen bleibt mir ein Rätsel: ihre unlogischen Gefühle. Ein heimlich eingebautes Emotionsmodul muss her. Kabelbruch und Stromausfall – mich erreichen kribbelige Stromschläge. Mein Modul funktioniert! Es funktioniert sogar sehr gut – Piep! – zu gut! Ich empfange zahlreiche Signale, meine Programmierung gerät völlig durcheinander.

It used to be the most WONDERFUL time of the year, but for years Christmas has been taken over by Winterzone. All the things that made Christmas special are gone. Instead, Christmas is run by robots, while 3D holograms of Santa Claus called Santavatars check if you’ve been naughty or nice—and on Christmas Eve, all of the presents are delivered by ZoneDrones instead of Santa’s reindeer! But when they stumble on a curious clue, eleven-year-old Etta and her friend Monty find themselves thrown into a fight to bring back Christmas.

Mina’s dream has come true. Mina and her best friend, Vanessa, set out for the ultimate summer adventure, but Count Dracula is worried that the evil robot SILVIA is still on the loose and looking for revenge! At camp, Mina and Vanessa discover that something is horribly wrong with the animals at the zoo. Will Mina’s dream vacation become a nightmare?

Part-inventor, part-dentist, robot builder, and scientist, nine-year-old Matty Bratty just might be a misunderstood genius. Matty Bratty Robots is the hilarious, clever tale of a boy who flunked third grade but is confident enough to think that he can be a scientist. After all, Albert Einstein is his pen pal, although Albert never writes back to Matty. When Matty builds some robots in his bedroom closet science lab, chaos happens.

Far, far away in the Snickers Galaxy there is the planet Ironica, where all the people are robots. When one little robot was born, his parents couldn't decide what to name him, so his birth certificate just said, "Baby Robotics." But as he grew up, everyone called him "Tic-Tic." One day Tic-Tic came across a rocketship that was being built, hidden behind a mountain. Tic-Tic snuck aboard the rocketship and flew to Earth. That was the start of his amazing adventure!