''Faithful Robot'' ( pl, Wierny robot) is a 1961

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

mystery Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters *Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange'' Films * ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film * ''Mystery'' ( ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

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 ...

TV play A television play is a television programming genre which is a drama performance broadcast from a multiple-camera setup, multi-camera television studio, usually live in the early days of television but later recorded to tape. This is in contra ...

by Polish writer

Stanisław Lem Stanisław Herman Lem (; 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fiction stories are of satirical ...

.''WIERNY ROBOT''
/ref> Its first print was in 1963, in the short story collection ''Noc księżycowa''. In this story turns a common science fiction trope upside down: rather than a human creates a perfect robot, a robot creates a perfect human. At the same time it is a story of a robot which breaks away from human control.

Plot

The story is set in year of 2000. A detective writer Tom Clempner receives a humanoid robot, named Graumer, in mail. The sender claims they sent nothing, but eventually Graumer convinces Clempner to use the servant he got for free. Graumer becomes increasingly annoying in his efforts to serve the master. At a party a police inspector tells a story of a runaway robot obsessed with the idea to create a perfect human. The robot skips from owner to owner by boxing and shipping himself, and the police inspector is in pursuit of the robot... Later the story reveals that Graumer created a copy of Clempner and was about to poison the original, but when Clempner did not give away Graumer to the police inspector, the robot changes his mind. One day during a lunch Clempner sees another person and after a while notices the stranger wears his clothes. In the following quarrel the stranger claims that in fact he owns the robot, the house and all... Eventually Graumer poisons both of them and ships himself further.

Other renditions

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: ''Верный робот'', 1965, a TV play *

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

: ''Věrný robot'', 1967 *

German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **G ...

: ''Der Getreue Roboter'', 1977 **1980, a version for children **Audiobook CD, 2003, Der getreue Roboter (Stanislaw Lem)
/ref>
, a review by Michael Matzer

References

{{Stanisław Lem Works by Stanisław Lem Polish plays 1961 television plays Androids in literature Androids in television Fiction set in 2000 Fictional humanoid robots