Arcadia Public Library

"26 years ago: A girl in South Dakota falls through the earth, then wakes up dozens of feet below ground on the palm of what seems to be a giant metal hand. 9 years ago: She is a top-level physicist leading a team of people to understand exactly what that hand is, where it came from, and what it portends for humanity. Today: with the remainder of the giant robot found and assembled, every question answered about the mysterious contraption raises two...

"17 years ago: A girl in South Dakota falls through the earth, then wakes up dozens of feet below ground on the palm of what seems to be a giant metal hand. Today: She is a top-level physicist leading a team of people to understand exactly what that hand is, where it came from, and what it portends for humanity. A swift and spellbinding tale told almost exclusively through transcriptions of interviews conducted by a mysterious and unnamed character,...

The three laws of Robotics: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm 2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. With these three, simple directives, Isaac Asimov changed our perception of robots forever when...

"When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is - but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a fierce storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island's unwelcoming animal inhabitants. As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island...

Two decades into the future humans are battling for their very survival when a powerful AI computer goes rogue, and all the machines on earth rebel against their human controllers.

Discusses the history of robots and the uses of robots. Includes some information about robots seen in popular culture.

A ship of escaped refugees uses genetic technology to revive talented figures from the world's past in order to safeguard their survival, including Paul Maud'Dib and Lady Jessica.

Discusses the history of robotics, describes the jobs that robots have been designed to do, and explores how robots are and have been depicted in literature, on film, and on television.

"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous...

Humankind thought it had triumphed over the machines... but Archos has survived. Spread across the far reaches of the world, the machine code has fragmented into millions of pieces, hiding and regrouping. As survivors, robotic and human, fight to build a new world in the wake of a devastating war, they find one another, form into groups, and react to a drastically different (and deadly) technological landscape. All the while, the remnants of Archos's...