Robots Fantasy

He was trained to kill synths. Now his life depends on one. A mission gone wrong dumps ace pilot Raiden Stryker on a savage, uncharted planet crawling with dinosaurs, alien tech, and worse. His only ally is Exay, a deadly synth leader—one of the humanoid AI he’s spent years fighting. But stranded and hunted, their uneasy alliance starts to spark with something unexpected. She’s smart. She’s beautiful. And beneath her cold programming lies a surprisingly warm core. Fortunately for Raiden, synths don’t fly solo. With Exay, he might survive. With her team, he could change the war.

Eve looks like an ordinary 12-year-old girl, but there’s nothing ordinary about her. She has no last name. No parents or guardian. She’s on the run from a dangerous and secretive organization that will stop at nothing to track her down. And most astonishing of all: she’s a robot, a product of Eden Laboratories. When Eve discovers the truth, she realizes everything she thought she knew about herself is a lie. Eve manages to escape, fleeing the lab, the only home she’s ever known.

From the writer whose name is synonymous with the science of robotics comes five decades of robot visions - 36 landmark stories and essays, plus three rare tales - gathered together in one volume.

A robopsychologist must outwit a machine determined to stay hidden in "Little Lost Robot"; a woman’s talent for "Light Verse" overshadows her true accomplishments with her robot servants; "The Last Question" presented to computer after computer over a hundred billion years may remain forever unanswered … and seventeen more future visions from the grand master of science fiction.

It's competition time at Hyperspace High as the students build robots to compete in the annual Robot Warriors contest. John and Kaal are in with a chance of winning, but will competition get in the way of friendship?

Three hundred years ago, a liaison-robot-turned-warrior sided with humans in the Great A.I. War. He's one of few hi-level sentients allowed to live. But all this doesn't matter now because he's on the run. Armed with emotion-chip-fueled determination and his beloved weapons, the general flees to a nearby planet where he must unravel a tangled conspiracy to prove his innocence. But that's easier said than done.

After interstellar con man Rex Nihilo hijacks a cargo freighter on a whim, he decides that he, and his long-suffering robot sidekick Sasha, have found their calling as space pirates. But when the ship's cargo turns out to be a cryogenically frozen religious fanatic who holds the secret to a vast galactic conspiracy, Rex and Sasha find themselves on the run from real pirates - as well as agents of the oppressive Malarchy, crazy space cultists, and the Ursa Minor mafia. If Rex is going to get out of this jam alive, he might just have to save the galaxy - again.

Long before Casmir Dabrowski and Kim Sato leave their world for the epic adventures of the Star Kingdom series, long before they outwit terrorists and mercenaries and do battle on a galactic scale, long before they become best friends and roommates...they have to meet for the first time. This is that story.

Arto has a problem. For one, he's a robot. He’s awoken with no memory of who he is, with nothing but a mysterious letter, in a world bereft of those fleshy, talky things that made him. So why is he alone, and where have all the people gone? He stumbles upon a lost, cheeky kitten and selects it as his best friend for the adventure of a lifetime, trying to make sense of all this existence stuff. Just as Arto begins to fear he's the only sentient thing left on the whole planet, a cantankerous robot falls from the sky. She says she's his sister.

Is BER-66 a human or a machine? As he navigates the corridors and locked rooms of a strange bunker, he must solve the mysteries of murderous doppelgangers, a slow-motion city on the verge of destruction and, ultimately, the all-powerful Mechanism itself.

It’s been a few months now since XR_935 met Emma, a human girl who wasn’t supposed to exist. Robots thought they’d eliminated the humans, but some have survived all these years. Now, robots and humans live side by side, and the world is much better for it. They’ve formed a new society, living together as equals.

Robots are entering the mainstream. Technologies have advanced to the point of mass commercialization - Roomba, for example - and adoption by governments - most notably, their use of drones. Meanwhile, these devices are being received by a public whose main sources of information about robots are the fantasies of popular culture. We know a lot about C-3PO and Robocop, but not much about Atlas, Motoman, Kiva, or Beam - real-life robots that are reinventing warfare, the industrial workplace, and collaboration.

When George’s father died, he left his son a watchmaker’s shop - and a whole lot more. But George has little talent for watches and other infernal devices. When someone tries to steal an old device from the premises, George finds himself embroiled in a mystery of time travel, wild music, and sexual intrigue.

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 and his robot, Cabbie, were thrilled to qualify. After finishing second in the first race, they're out to win the next challenge, in the Amazon rainforest - but Jimmy's enemy Horace has other ideas.

Theorem, Argo, Hockney and Rush are designed to be the perfect Robot Rescue Team. But when their beloved creator goes missing, they must work together better than ever to save him, and the world that will change for the worse if they fail.

The robotic Mach and the human Bane are the only contact between the technological world of Photon and the fantastical world of Phaze. So the Adverse Adepts devise a scheme to control the duo by kidnapping their lovers.

I was created by beings who couldn’t touch this world...only watch it crumble. Every twenty years, a new tribe...a new hope...a new failure. I was told, “Do not interfere.” But watching them die...again...again... I wasn’t meant to change history...only guide it. Silently. Humanity had a second chance…I was left to make sure they didn’t waste it. But I broke Directive Three. Can they survive a second collapse...can I?

'Look, Brigadier! It's growing!' screamed Sarah. The Brigadier stared in amazement as the Robot began to grow... and grow... swelling to the size of a giant! Slowly the metal colossus, casting its enormous shadow upon the surrounding trees and buildings, began to stride towards the Brigadier. A...

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.

Humans beware. As the robotic revolution continues to creep into our lives, it brings with it an impending sense of doom. What horrifying scenarios might unfold if our technology were to go awry? From self-aware robotic toys to intelligent machines violently malfunctioning, this anthology brings to life the half-formed questions and fears we all have about the increasing presence of robots in our lives.