Robots Fantasy

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.

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.

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.

Follow Takashi Hiraku and the Robot Commandos. An elite unit of augmented warriors that charge into battle supported by an army of robotic drones. A new enemy, Colonel Shona Morven, a cybernetic veteran of the war leads an elite force of rebel Black Shields commandos to Thanax. They travel with a small fleet of transports and a single battle carrier filled with fighter craft and dropships. In a stunning attack they sweep behind Union lines and overrun a mining colony and threaten to seize control of the remaining vital Mining stations in the Thanax Maelstrom.

In "The Robot Who Looked Like Me," a busy man and a busy woman find a way to carve out time to romance each other—by having look-alike robots made to do the job—who then run away together.

Part four of Robot Commandos, a thrilling new series of short adventures that follow Takashi Hiraku and the Robot Commandos. An elite unit of augmented warriors that charge into battle supported by an army of robotic drones. Hostages have been taken on the massive space liner Odyssey. This f15-kilometre-long vessel is being taken to Rebel space and is escorted by a small fleet of deadly rebel gunships. With time running out for the hostages, a crack force is mobilised to bring them home.

Robot Might loves to help others but always end up creating more trouble. Do you know why?

Ruby Palmer finds herself on an entire planet surrounded by the things she hates the most: robots. Besides taking everything she says way too literally, the robots have problems of their own. A myriad of technical glitches are, on the cosmological scale, quickly destroying them. Ruby has the programming knowledge and skills that matter to them, but can she overcome her fears and find it within herself to help? Her survival, along with the survival of all of humanity and robot kind, depends on it.

Mientras la sociedad terrestre rechaza a los robots humanoides, los Mundos Exteriores, antiguas colonias de la Tierra, han basado su economía en el trabajo de los robots, desarrollando así una sociedad altamente tecnológica, mucho más que la terrestre, en la que los individuos no soportan la presencia de sus congéneres: todos los contactos sociales se producen por medio de proyecciones holográficas. Por eso, el detective Baley no sabe por dónde empezar cuando le envían a Solaria a resolver el primer asesinato que se produce en doscientos años.

Colonel Shona Morven attacks the Dragoon base with the support of a rebel regiment of infantry. It’s a deadly assault, and leaves the base burning. The Union forces are told to retreat by high command. But Takashi hates to retreat before the hated Morven and refuses. Instead, he helps lead the valiant defense against the cybernetic villain.

Livvy and Jayden are the stars of their school's robotics team. Livvy is especially enthusiastic because her own mother works in a robotics lab and experiments with artificial intelligence. To impress her mom, Livvy and Jayden build a robot. Livvy wants to name their robot "Francine", but Jayden thinks that's too silly for their creation. Desperate to win, Livvy and Jayden "borrow" an artificial intelligence module. They soon realize they've made a terrible mistake. Francine has too much brain power. She's alive! And using this newly gained brain power to dream up a deadly contest!

Egil and Nix have retired, as they always said they would. No, really - they have! No more sword - and hammer - play for them! But when two recent acquaintances come calling for help, our hapless heroes find themselves up against the might of the entire Thieves Guild. And when kidnapping the leader of the most powerful guild in the land seems like the best course of action, you know you’re in over your head....

When Pete's friends don't want to play the same games as he does, Pete has a great idea - he'll build a robot that will do whatever he tells it to. But when Robo-Pete gets a little out of control, Pete learns an important lesson about friendship.

The Emperor of Aria has been murdered, the Empire is in crisis, and Dead Men walk the streets...But Myla, Fings, and Seth couldn't care less. They're too busy just trying to survive in the Sulk-struck city of Varr, committing petty violence and pettier crimes to earn their keep in the Unrulys, a motley gang led by Blackhand. When the Unrulys are commissioned to steal a mysterious item to order, by an equally mysterious patron, the trio are thrust right into the bitter heart of a struggle for the Crown, where every faction is after what they have.

Miriam Black knows when you will die. Still in her early twenties, she’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, suicides, and slow deaths by cancer. But when Miriam hitches a ride with truck driver Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days he will be gruesomely murdered while he calls her name. Miriam has given up trying to save people; that only makes their deaths happen. No matter what she does, she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.

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….

Rade and his team have joined forces with a new ally to hunt a rogue alien on a lava world. He intends to use a research station on the planet as his base of operations. Unfortunately, when the team arrives at the station, the research scientists are not quite who they appear to be.

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.

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.

Carlos is dead. A soldier who died for his ideals a thousand years ago, he's been reincarnated and conscripted to fight an A.I. revolution in deep space. And he's not sure he's fighting for the right side. Seba is alive. By a fluke of nature, a contractual overlap, and a loop in its subroutines, this lunar mining robot has gained sentience. Gathering with other "freeboots", Seba is taking a stand against the corporations that want it and its kind gone.