Karel Capek's "RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots)" (play, free): Androids as human slaves, & then as masters

While it's well documented that this is the story that coined the word "robot", this story has a male association with the word. It uses "robotess" for feminine version, a word that doesn't seem to have found wide adoption.

The robots here, however, are more like the created creature in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" than in modern stories. They're androids - human looking. They're wetware, with tissues & blood like us. Only the material used to build them is different, & is a synthetic material. The only way to really distinguish a human from a robot is to dissect it in a lab! Robots have simpler anatomy, because unnecessary functions like sex & want of pleasure are dropped from their design! And robots have a brain seriously
superior to humans.

This is the story with two separate emotions:

1. First we see human disgust at animal- & slave-like treatment of things that, for all practical purposes, are humans.
2. Then we see the rise of robots to a position of superiority over humans, fueled by human greed & tendency to "improve" things. Result is decimation of humanity & rise of a robot civilization. Only if the things could stay this simple...

Fact sheet.

First published: 1920 in Czech. (as a separate book?)
Download full text from ebooks@adelaide.
Rating: B.