"Robot AL-76 Goes Astray" is a humorous

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by American writer Isaac Asimov, originally published in the February 1942 issue of ''

Amazing Stories ''Amazing Stories'' is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearances ...

'' and included in the collections ''

The Rest of the Robots ''The Rest of the Robots'' is a collection of eight short stories and two full-length novels by American writer Isaac Asimov, published in 1964. The stories, centred on positronic robots, are all part of the ''Robot'' series, most of which t ...

'' (1964) and ''

The Complete Robot ''The Complete Robot'' (1982) is a collection of 31 of the 37 science fiction short stories about robots by American writer Isaac Asimov, written between 1939 and 1977.Introduction, ''The Complete Robot'', Isaac Asimov Most of the stories had be ...

'' (1982). Asimov selected the story for inclusion in the 1949 anthology ''

My Best Science Fiction Story ''My Best Science Fiction Story'' is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Leo Margulies and Oscar J. Friend. It was first published in hardcover by Merlin Press in November 1949, and reprinted in August 1950. An abridged paperba ...

''."Why I Selected- Robot AL 76 Goes Astray", ''My Best Science Fiction Story'', Merlin Press, 1949, p.3

Plot summary

AL-76 (also known as Al) is a robot designed for mining work on the Moon, but as a result of an accident after leaving the factory of

US Robots and Mechanical Men The ''Robot'' series is a series of 37 science fiction short stories and six novels by American writer Isaac Asimov, featuring positronic robots. Later, Asimov would merge the ''Robot'' series with his ''Foundation'' series. Robot novels and ...

, it gets lost and finds itself in rural

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. It cannot comprehend the unfamiliar environment and the people it meets are scared of it. When it comes across a shed full of spare parts and junk, it is moved to reprogram itself and builds a powerful mining tool of the kind it was designed to use on the Moon - but since it does not have the proper parts, it improvises and produces a better model, requiring less power. He then proceeds to disintegrate half of a mountainside with it, in no time at all: much to the alarm of a country "antique dealer" who had hoped to use the lost robot in his business. When angrily told to destroy the "Disinto" and forget all about it, AL-76 obeys, and the secret of the reprogramming and the improved tool is lost.

References

External links

* Robot series short stories by Isaac Asimov 1942 short stories Fictional robots Works originally published in Amazing Stories Virginia in fiction {{1940s-sf-story-stub