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A visionary work of science fiction that introduced the word "robot" Written in 1920, premiered in Prague in 1921, and first performed in New York in 1922--garnered worldwide acclaim for its author and popularized the word robot. Mass-produced as efficient laborers to serve man, Capek's Robots are an android product--they remember everything but think of nothing new. But the Utopian life they provide ultimately lacks meaning, and the humans they serve stop reproducing. When the Robots revolt, killing all but one of their masters, they must strain to learn the secret of self-duplication. It is not until two Robots fall in love and are christened "Adam" and "Eve" by the last surviving human that Nature emerges triumphant. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.… (more)
User reviews
An eccentric inventor, Rossum, has
Interesting to see all this worked out from a 1920s perspective, long before the age of computers and all the rest, and it’s obviously meant as another warning about the dehumanising effects of 20th century industrial society, in the same spirit as Metropolis and Modern Times, but it’s executed as rather dull science fiction with human characters who are almost as predictable and mechanical in the author’s hands as their robot counterparts. I think it can safely rest on the shelf as the answer to that quiz question.
Since it is a play a lot of the the action of the revolt and attack of the robots happens off stage.
The way all the men fall in love with Helena is so over the top I see it as played for laughs.
You see the origin of a lot of the troupes of
All in all, from a historical perspective, this is a stellar piece of writing, and I look forward to reading more by Capek.