Robot Fiction

No sooner has Sally May finished planting her vegetable garden when some kind of unearthly being decides to burrow in the neatly planted rows of tomatoes and peppers. It looks like a job for the Head of Ranch Security, so Hank sets straight to work trying to dig the space monster robot out of its hole.

When Unit Four - a biological soft robot built and stored high above the Jovian atmosphere - is activated for the first time, it’s in crisis mode. Aliens are attacking the Helium-3 mine it was created to oversee, and now its sole purpose is to defend Earth’s largest energy resource from the invaders in ship-to-ship combat. But something’s wrong. Unit Four doesn’t feel quite right. There are files in its databanks it can’t account for, unusual chemical combinations roaring through its pipes, and the primers it possesses on the aliens are suspiciously sparse.

What exactly is a robot? How do they talk and move? And what does it take to build one? Ada Twist, Scientist: The Why Files is the perfect nonfiction resource for all these questions and more. Based on the bestselling Questioneers series and the Ada Twist, Scientist Netflix show, this nonfiction series is perfect for the youngest scientists of tomorrow as they learn along with Ada.

Summer camp is in full swing and Rebekah is on the lookout daily for a mystery that needs solving. Currently, she's obsessed with staking out the lake and the rumored monster that may live there. When she spots a lone canoe with something strange within it, her thoughts grow wild with ideas about what this could mean and how it is that the canoe keeps disappearing.

Jax, a rogue Clakker, has wreaked havoc upon the Clockmakers' Guild by destroying the Grand Forge. Reborn in the flames, he must begin his life as a free Clakker, but liberation proves its own burden. Berenice, formerly the legendary spymaster of New France, mastermind behind her nation's attempts to undermine the Dutch Hegemony, has been banished from her homeland and captured by the Clockmakers Guild's draconian secret police force.

This anthology, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg, offers a sweeping survey of robots as depicted throughout literature. Since the Iliad—in which we are shown golden statues built by Hephaestus “with minds and wisdoms”—humans have been fascinated by the idea of artificial life. From the Argonautica to the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem and Ambrose Bierce’s tale of a chess-playing robot, the idea of what robots are—and who creates them—can be drastically different.

He knows the three laws, but they're really more what you'd call "guidelines." Two and a half million terras worth of contraband won't do Carl Ramsey any good unless he can find a buyer. But when dealing with that kind of money, any deal is liable to turn sour when it's time to make the exchange. So when things go smoothly, Carl knows his luck can't be that good. When the double-cross is revealed, the Mobius crew sets out on a chase to track down their stolen merchandise.

Wormhole technology has revealed that our sun will die in 5,000,000 years. A race of superbeings, the fabulous Xeelee, owners of the universe, are thought to be responsible. The bizarre and wealthy cult, the Superet, funds two projects aimed at combatting the force that will murder the sun.

Henry and Jessie have signed up to be in a robotics competition with a team from school. But someone from another team isn’t playing by the rules. Can the Aldens use their sleuthing skills and what they’ve learned about technology to find the culprit and save the day?

When out-of-shape IT technician Roen wakes up and starts hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumes he’s losing it. He isn’t. As of last night, he has a passenger in his brain - an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Over the millennia his people have trained human heroes to be great leaders, to advance our species at a rate far beyond what it would have achieved on its own. Split into two opposing factions - the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix - the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries.

Daniel Rhyse, nineteen, the youngest professor on campus, teaches ethics at the prestigious Cambridge Institute of Science, CIS (affectionately know as “Kiss”). But after he is ordered to give undeserved A's to the school's crack robotics team members, he realizes that he’s nothing more than a glorified rubber stamp. Rhyse has two choices: quit in protest, or accept being a doormat.

Ricky and his Mighty Robot have made a mess. They've been mean to Cousin Lucy, and now they must make it up to her. But their surprise present for Lucy turns into a trap when President Penguin from Pluto plots to take over Earth. President Penguin is peeved because Pluto is no longer considered a real planet. Now he plans to make things very unpleasant for anyone who stands in his way. Can Ricky, Lucy, and their friends defeat this tiny terror and keep Squeakyville safe?

George's best friend, Annie, needs help. Her scientist father, Eric, is working on a space project -- and it's all going wrong. A robot has landed on Mars but is behaving very oddly. And now Annie has discovered something weird on her dad's supercomputer.

The new season is starting and the Master of Ceremonies is missing. Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is assigned with the task of finding him - with no one to help but a dislocated soul and a mad sorcerer. There is a witness, but his memories have been bound by magical chains only the enemy can break. A rebellious woman trying to escape her family may prove to be the ally Max needs. But can she be trusted? And why does she want to give up eternal youth and the life of privilege she’s been born into?

Ever since Stanley Lambchop was flattened by a bulletin board, each day brings new adventures! Stanley likes to follow the rules, but he can get carried away sometimes when listening to his best friend, Marco. And the last thing Stanley wants to do is get in trouble…again. When Ms. Root introduces Classroom 2E to movable robots called Zoombots, Stanley tries to follow her coding directions exactly. But when Marco just wants to have the fastest robot in class, trouble may be ahead! Can Stanley and Marco win a robot race while following the rules, and will Stanley learn to speak up for himself?

Ricky and his mighty robot have built the coolest fort Squeakyville has ever seen, and they can't wait for the fun to begin! But then Cousin Lucy arrives with her pets and plans to turn it into a princess castle - what a party pooper! Things completely fall apart when Nimrod Nightcrawler, a wicked worm from the planet Neptune, digs a tunnel under Ricky's fort, trapping the mighty robot. Now it's up to Ricky and Lucy to put a stop to this nightmare - and save their friend!

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) is a science-fiction drama that was first presented in Czech in 1921. It introduced the term "robot", which is derived from a Czech word meaning "worker," to international vocabulary. The action opens in a factory that has successfully produced thousands of robots, who are essentially mindless drones. An idealistic humanitarian activist launches a plan to imbue some of the robots with human traits. The robots which have been humanized then assume leadership over the other robots and seek to organize them in a revolution to take over the world.

Jimmy Roberts' favourite sport to watch is Robot Races, where drivers and their high-tech robot vehicles compete. When the races' founder announces a special version of the competition just for children, Jimmy would be the first to sign up - if only he could afford his own robot. However, his grandpa's shed holds a few surprises! Soon Jimmy is off on the adventure of a lifetime.

For the past five years, she has been grown slowly as part of a mixed organic/synthetic family. She knows very little about her android mother’s past, so when her grandmother arrives and attacks them, young Amy wastes no time: she eats her alive. Now she’s on the run, carrying her malfunctioning granny as a partition on her memory drive. She’s growing quickly, and learning too. Like the fact that in her, and her alone, the failsafe that stops all robots from harming humans has stopped working….

Robots build cars in factories, perform surgeries in hospitals, and take pictures while flying overhead. Find out just what these awesome machines can do.