Robots In Science Fiction

This list of fictional robots and androids is chronological, and categorised by medium. It includes all depictions of robots, androids and gynoids in literature, television, and cinema; however, robots that have appeared in more than one form of media are not necessarily listed in each of those media. This list is intended for all fictional computers which are described as existing in a humanlike or mobile form. It shows how the concept has developed in the human imagination through history.

Robots and androids have frequently been depicted or described in works of fiction. The word "robot" itself comes from a work of fiction, Karel Čapek's play, ''R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)'', written in 1920 and first performed in 1921.

Theatre

* ''Coppélia'', a life-size dancing doll in the ballet of the same name, choreographed by Marius Petipa with music by Léo Delibes (1870)
* The word ''robot'' comes from Karel Čapek's play, ''R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)'', written in 1920 in Czech and first performed in 1921. Performed in New York 1922 and an English edition published in 1923. In the play, the word refers to artificially created life forms. Named robots in the play are Marius, Sulla, Radius, Primus, Helena, and Damon. The play introduced and popularized the term "robot". Čapek's robots are biological machines that are assembled, as opposed to grown or born.

Literature

19th century and earlier

* The woman forged out of gold in Finnish myth ''The Kalevala'' (prehistoric folklore)
* From 600 BC onward, legends of talking bronze and clay statues coming to life have been a regular occurrence in the works of classical authors such as Homer, Plato, Pindar, Tacitus, and Pliny. In Book 18 of the ''Iliad'', Hephaestus the god of all mechanical arts, was assisted by two moving female statues made from gold – "living young damsels, filled with minds and wisdoms". Another legend has Hephaestus being commanded by Zeus to create the first woman, Pandora, out of clay. The myth of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus, tells of a lonely man who sculpted his ideal woman, Galatea, from ivory, and promptly fell in love with her after the goddess Aphrodite brought her to life.
* The 5th-century BCE Chinese text, the Liezi, contains a description of a humanoid machine which can sing and dance like a human. The automaton is presented to King Mu of Zhou by its inventor, but it offends the king by winking at court ladies and trying to flirt with them, so the inventor disassembles it to show the court that it is a machine. The king sees that it has artificial analogues of human organs, which are made of leather, wood, glue, and paint, and each fulfill necessary functions for its operation.
* Talos, bronze giant Talos in Apollonius of Rhodes' ''Argonautica'', 3rd century BC
* Brazen heads, attributed to numerous scholars involved in the introduction of Arabian science to medieval Europe, particularly Roger Bacon (13th century)
* Golem – The legend of the Golem, an animated man of clay, is mentioned in the Talmud. (16th century)
* Talus, "iron man" who mechanically helps Arthegall dispense justice in ''The Faerie Queene'', the epic poem by Edmund Spenser, published in 1590
* Olimpia, automaton who captivates the hero Nathanael so much he wishes to marry her in E. T. A. Hoffmann's ''Der Sandmann'' (1814)
* Artificial human-like being created by Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818)
* ''The Steam Man of the Prairies'', Edward S. Ellis' mechanical man powered by steam (1868).
* Olympia in Act I of Jacques Offenbach's ''The Tales of Hoffmann'', based on the Hoffmann story (1881)
* A mechanical man run by electricity in Luis Senarens' '' Frank Reade and his Electric Man'' (1885)
* Hadaly, a mechanical woman run by electricity, in Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's ''The Future Eve'' (1886) – the novel credited with popularizing the word "android"
* "The Brazen Android" by William Douglas O'Connor. First appeared in ''The Atlantic Monthly'', April 1891
* ''The Dancing Partner'' by Jerome K. Jerome of ''Three Men in a Boat'' fame (1893)
* The ''mecha''-like tripods that the Martians use to conquer the Earth in ''The War of the Worlds'' by H. G. Wells (1897)
* "The New Frankenstein" by Ernest Edward Kellett (1899), in which an inventor creates an "anti-phonograph" that according to the narrator "can give the appropriate answer to every question I put", and installs in it a robotic female body that "will guide herself, answer questions, talk and eat like a rational being, in fact, perform the part of a society lady." The android proves convincing enough to fool two suitors who wish to marry her.
* A robot chess-player in '' Moxon's Master'' by Ambrose Bierce (first published in the ''San Francisco Examiner'' on 16 Aug. 1899)

Early 1900s

* The "Metal Men" automata designed by a Thomas Edison-like scientist in Gustave Le Rouge's ''La Conspiration des Milliardaires'' and two sequels (1899–1903).
* Tik-Tok and Iron giant from L. Frank Baum's ''Ozma of Oz'' (1907). The movie ''Return to Oz'' was largely based on ''Ozma of Oz''.

1920s

* ''R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)'' (1921), by Karel Čapek – credited with coining the term "robot". In its original Czech, "robota" means forced labour, and is derived from "rab", meaning "slave." ''R.U.R.'' depicts the first elaborate depiction of a machine take-over. Čapek's robots can also be seen as the first androids: they are in fact organic.
* Gaston Leroux's 1923 ''La Poupée Sanglante'' (''The Bloody Doll'') and ''La Machine à Assassiner'' (''The Murdering Machine''). The lead character, Bénédict Masson, is wrongly accused of murder and guillotined. His brain is later attached to an automaton created by scientist Jacques Cotentin, and Masson goes on to track and punish those who caused his death.
* ''Le Singe'' (The Monkey) (1925), by Maurice Renard and Albert Jean, imagined the creation of artificial lifeforms through the process of "radiogenesis", a sort of human electrocopying or cloning process.
* ''The Metal Giants'' (1926), by Edmond Hamilton, in which a computer brain who runs on atomic power creates an army of 300-foot-tall robots.
* ''Metropolis'' (1927), by Thea von Harbou, adapted by Fritz Lang on film, featuring character Maria and her robot double.
* ''Automata'' (1929), by S. Fowler Wright, about machines doing the humans' jobs before wiping them out.

1930s

* The "Professor Jameson" series by Neil R. Jones (early 1930s) featured human and alien minds preserved in robot bodies. It was reprinted in five Ace paperbacks in the late 1960s: ''The Planet of the Double Sun'', ''The Sunless World'', ''Space War'', ''Twin Worlds'' and ''Doomsday on Ajiat''.
* Zat the Martian robot, protagonist of John Wyndham's short story "The Lost Machine" (1932)
* Human cyborgs in ''Revolt of the Pedestrians'' by David H. Keller (1932)
* Robot surgeon in "Rex" by Harl Vincent (1934)
* "Helen O'Loy" from the story of the same title by Lester del Rey (1938)
* Adam Link of ''I, Robot'' by Eando Binder (1938)
* Robots discover their "roots" in ''Robots Return'' by Robert Moore Williams (1938).
* Robot as murder witness in '' True Confession'' by F. Orlin Tremaine (1939)

1940s

* Gnut in "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates (1940), later made into the classic 1951 science fiction film ''The Day the Earth Stood Still''
* Unnamed "living plastic" robot in "Vault of the Beast" (1940), short story by A. E. van Vogt
* Jay Score ("J20"), emergency pilot of the Earth-to-Venus freighter ''Upskadaska City'' (colloquially called "Upsydaisy") in "Jay Score", a short story by Eric Frank Russell in the May 1941 issue of ''Astounding Science Fiction'' (1941)
* Jenkins in ''City'' by Clifford D. Simak (1944)
* Alojzy Kukuryk in '' Akademia pana Kleksa'' by Jan Brzechwa:
** Robbie, Speedy, Cutie, and others, from the stories in ''I, Robot'' (1940–1950) (not to be confused with the Binder short story of the same title)
** L-76, Z-1, Z-2, Z-3, Emma-2, Brackenridge, Tony, Lenny, Ez-27 and others, from the stories in ''The Rest of the Robots'' (1964)
** R. Daneel Olivaw from ''The Caves of Steel'' (1954) and subsequent novels
** R. Giskard Reventlov from ''The Robots of Dawn'' (1983) and subsequent novels
** Andrew Martin from ''The Bicentennial Man'' (1976) (later made into a film) and '' The Positronic Man'' (a novel), co-written by Asimov and Robert Silverberg
** Norby in a series of books for children and adolescents, co-written with Janet Asimov
*The Humanoids from a novelette (1947) and two novels (1949 and 1980) by Jack Williamson

1950s and 1960s

* ''Astro Boy'', series by Osamu Tezuka (published in Japan but available in English), an atomic-powered robot of 100,000 horsepower built to resemble a little boy, most specifically Tobio, the deceased son of Dr. Tenma. When not in school, Astro Boy spent his time dealing with robots and aliens. (1952)
* The Gallegher series of stories by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore) collected in '' Robots Have No Tails'' (1952)
* The Mechanical Hound from ''Fahrenheit 451'' by Ray Bradbury (1953)
* Bors, an old government integration robot pivotal to Philip K. Dick's novelette ''The Last of the Masters'' (1954)
* The Fury, a large steel robot that acts as jailer and executioner, in Henry Kuttner's "Two-Handed Engine" (1955)
* Zane Gort, a robot novelist in the short story "The Silver Eggheads" by Fritz Leiber (1959)
* SHROUD (Synthetic Human, Radiation OUtput Determined) and SHOCK (Synthetic Human Object, Casualty Kinematics), the sentient test dummies in the novel '' V.'' by Thomas Pynchon (1963)
* Frost, the Beta-Machine, Mordel, and the Ancient Ore Crusher in Roger Zelazny's short story " For a Breath I Tarry" (1966)
* Trurl and Klapaucius, the robot geniuses of ''The Cyberiad'' (Cyberiada, 1967; translated by Michael Kandel 1974) – collection of humorous stories about the exploits of Trurl and Klapaucius, "constructors" among robots
* The Iron Man in the novel '' The Iron Man: A Children's Story in Five Nights'' by Ted Hughes, illustrated by Andrew Davidson (1968), later changed to The Iron Giant to avoid confusion with its predecessor, the comic superhero of the same name
* Roy Batty, Pris, Rachael and several other Nexus-6 model androids. "Androids, fully organic in nature – the products of genetic engineering – and so human-like that they can only be distinguished by psychological tests; some of them don't even know that they're not human." – ''Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'' by Philip K. Dick (1968)
* "The Electric Grandmother" in the short story of the same name, from ''I Sing the Body Electric'' by Ray Bradbury (1969), based on a 1962 '' Twilight Zone'' episode of the same name
* Mech Eagles from the novel ''Logan's Run'' (1967), robotic eagles designed to track and kill people who refuse to die at age 21
* Richard Daniel, an intensely loyal, old, un-remodeled robot, belonging to one family for generations, i
"All the Traps of Earth" by Clifford Simak
When the last of his entire extended family of owners died, after 200 years, he is required by law to be disassembled; humans who made the law are still threatened by robots who are superior to them in functionality. He is sentient enough to take exception to that policy.
* Jenkins, the robot who served generations of the Webster family for nearly a thousand years, then the dogs modified by one of the Websters, dogs capable of reading and speech, who inherited the earth when humans left it by various methods, through all of the stories contained in the collectio
"City" by Clifford Simak
Humans entered "the sleep", or had their bodies converted to Jovian lifeforms to live on Jupiter.

1970s

* Personoids, in Stanisław Lem's book ''Próżnia Doskonała'' (1971). This is a collection of book reviews of nonexistent books, and was translated into English by Michael Kandel as ''A Perfect Vacuum'' (1983). "Personoids do not need any human-like physical body; they are rather an abstraction of functions of human mind, they live in computers."
* ''The Stepford Wives'' (1972) by Ira Levin – "The masculine plot to replace women with perfect looking, obedient robot replicas"
* Setaur, Aniel and Terminus in ''Tales of Pirx the Pilot'' by Stanisław Lem (1973)
* The Hangman in '' Home Is the Hangman'' by Roger Zelazny (1975), winner of that year's Nebula Award for Best Novella
* Andrew Martin from ''The Bicentennial Man'' (1976) by Isaac Asimov, and '' The Positronic Man'' (1992) by Asimov and Robert Silverberg
* Numerous droids from the ''Star Wars'' franchise novels (since 1977 for the main canon, 1976 for the Expanded Universe)
* Marvin the Paranoid Android in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (1979) by Douglas Adams and subsequent novels based on the original radio series

1980s

* Chip, the robot teenager in the '' Not Quite Human'' series (1985–1986) by Seth McEvoy. Disney later made the book into three movies.
* ''Roderick'' (1980) and '' Tik-Tok'' (1983) by John Sladek, two extreme examples of robot morality, one perfectly innocent and one perfectly criminal
* The Boppers, a race of Moon-based robots that achieve independence from humanity, in the series of books The ''Ware Tetralogy'' by Rudy Rucker
* R. Giskard Reventlov from ''The Robots of Dawn'' (1983) and subsequent novels by Isaac Asimov
* Elio, a character from '' A Tale of Time City'' (1987) by Diana Wynne Jones
* Manders in '' The Type One Super Robot'' (1987), a children's book by Alison Prince
* Solo from Robert Mason's novels ''Weapon'' (1989) and ''Solo'' (1993) (Note, the 1996 film titled ''Solo'' is based solely on the first novel, ''Weapon''.)
* Sheen, a female android mysteriously programmed to guard and love Stile, a serf on the planet Proton, in the sci-fi/fantasy series ''Apprentice Adept'' (1980–82) by Piers Anthony.
* Spofforth, the dean of New York University in ''Mockingbird'' by Walter Tevis.

1990s

* Yod in Marge Piercy's ''He, She and It'' (1991)
* The One Who Waits in Charles Sheffield's ''Divergence'' (1991)
* Caliban in a trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen, set in the robots universe of Isaac Asimov (1993)
* Solo and Nimrod in Robert Mason's novel ''Solo'' (1993)
* Jay-Dub and Dee Model in Ken MacLeod's ''The Stone Canal'' (1996)
* Dorfl, and other Discworld golems deliberately described in terms reminiscent of an Asimovian robot, in Terry Pratchett's ''Feet of Clay'' (1996) and subsequent ''Discworld'' novels

2000s

* Cassandra Kresnov, in a series by Joel Shepherd (2001)
* Clunk, in a series by Simon Haynes (2004)
* Moravecs, sentient descendants of probes sent by humans to the Jovian belt, in Dan Simmons' '' Ilium'' (2003)
* Canti, one of the robots built by Medical Mechanica in ''FLCL'' (2003)
* Nimue Alban/Merlin Athrawes, in the '' Safehold series'' by David Weber (2007)
* Otis, the robot dog from Tanith Lee's ''Indigara'' (2007)
* Freya, in Charles Stross' '' Saturn's Children'' (2008)
* HCR-328 and Tom in ''Automatic Lover'' and ''Automatic Lover – Ten Years On'' by Ariadne Tampion (2008)
* Boilerplate, a Victorian-era robot in the illustrated coffee-table book ''Boilerplate: History's Mechanical Marvel'', published by Abrams (2009)

2010s

* Adam, one of the first commercially available androids in Ian McEwan's ''Machines Like Me'' (2019)
* The Calculators, an ancient, ongoing family of androids in Paul Levinson's ''Robinson Calculator'' novelette (2019)
*Murderbot, a newly independent security robot in ''The Murderbot Diaries'' series by Martha Wells (2017-)

2020s

* Automata in ''The Automation,'' made by the Greco-Roman god Vulcan.
* Klara, the “Artificial Friend” narrator of ''Klara and the Sun'' (2021)
* Neotnia, the co-protagonist of ''Beautiful Shining People'' (2023)
* Crimson, a robot butler hunting the main characters and is the main antagonist in ''The Mystery at Crimson Mansion'' (2023)

Radio

* Marvin the Paranoid Android in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' BBC radio series (1978–1980)
* Tidy, George, Fagor, Surgeon General Kraken and miscellaneous other androids from James Follett's '' Earthsearch'' BBC radio series (1980–1981)
* Fetchers, accident prone and apologetic gopher robots from the BBC radio series '' Nineteen Ninety-Four'' (1985)

Music

* "Max Mainspring, the Mechanical Man", a former grandfather clock brought to life in a 1950 children's record by Ray Bolger.
* " Robot Man", subject of a 1960 single by Connie Francis
* " Automatic Lover", robot featured in a 1978 disco track and music video by Dee D. Jackson, covered later that year by Sylvia.
* The Martian tripodal Killing Machines with heat rays in ''Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of the War of the Worlds'' (1978).
* Marvin, the Paranoid Android, released two singles in 1981, voiced by Stephen Moore from the BBC radio and TV productions of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''.
* " Automatic Man", titular character of the 1983 song by Michael Sembello.
* "Mr. Roboto", the prison robot in the eponymous song from the rock opera ''Kilroy Was Here'' by Styx (1983).
* Topo, robot mascot of Topo & Roby, an Italo disco act, which charted in Europe in 1984 with "Under the Ice".
* "Electric Barbarella", a sexbot appearing in the music video for the 1997 track by Duran Duran.
* Pink Robots battled in The Flaming Lips' ''Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots'' and its title single (2002).
* "Rapbot", a robot built for rapping, but with various other functions, including a toaster, from '' Fake Songs'' by Liam Lynch (2003).
* " Half Man Half Machine" from Goldie Lookin' Chain's 2004 single.
* Cindi Mayweather, the protagonist from the "Metropolis" concept series by Janelle Monáe (2007).
* Cyborg Noodle, the cyborg clone of Noodle from the virtual band Gorillaz who was created for the storyline of their album ''Plastic Beach'' (2010).
* " Selfmachine", titular character from the opening track of I Blame Coco's 2010 album ''The Constant''.
* Rovix, K-pop group VIXX's robotic mascot (2012).

Film

Pre-1950

* The Mechanical Dummy, played by Ben Turpin in '' A Clever Dummy'', a Sennett silent short dating from 1917 when the term "robot" did not yet exist. The dummy does not operate independently but performs limited movements when wired to a control box.
* The Automaton, a weaponized robot in '' The Master Mystery'', a 1918 theatrical serial film starring Harry Houdini, featuring a fully realized mechanical man (implemented as a costumed actor)
* ''The Mechanical Man'', one of two robots from the Italian silent film of the same name, directed by André Deed (1921)
* ''The Mechanical Horse'', from a now-lost 1922 animated '' Aesop's Fable''
* Maria/Futura, the Maschinenmensch, a robotic gynoid, played by German actress Brigitte Helm in both her robotic-appearing and human-appearing forms in ''Metropolis'', the silent science fiction film by famed Austrian-German director Fritz Lang (1927)
* '' The Mechanical Cow'' (1927), cartoon companion of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
* ''The Iron Man'' (1930), a robot man delivered to Farmer Al Falfa