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We, Robots: Artificial Intelligence in 100 Stories
From 1837 through to the present day, from Charles Dickens to Cory Doctorow, Simon Ings presents a hundred of the best short stories on artificial intelligence from around the world.
These stories demonstrate humanity's enduring fascination with artificial creation. Crafted in our image, androids mirror our greatest hopes and darkest fears: we want our children to do better and be better than us, but we also place ourselves in jeopardy by creating beings that may eventually out-think us.
This compelling SF figure has persisted across decades and subgenres, so the anthology is organised into six thematic sections: Making Robots, Dealing with Robots, Served by Robots, Changing Places with Robots, Being Robots, and, finally, Supplanted by Robots.
We, Robots collects the finest android short stories the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the exciting rising stars
These stories demonstrate humanity's enduring fascination with artificial creation. Crafted in our image, androids mirror our greatest hopes and darkest fears: we want our children to do better and be better than us, but we also place ourselves in jeopardy by creating beings that may eventually out-think us.
This compelling SF figure has persisted across decades and subgenres, so the anthology is organised into six thematic sections: Making Robots, Dealing with Robots, Served by Robots, Changing Places with Robots, Being Robots, and, finally, Supplanted by Robots.
We, Robots collects the finest android short stories the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the exciting rising stars
1000 pages, Hardcover
First published December 10, 2020
30 people are currently reading
225 people want to read
About the author
Simon Ings
42 books146 followersI began by writing science fiction stories, novels and films, before disappearing down various rabbit-holes: perception (The Eye: A Natural History), 20th-century radical politics (The Weight of Numbers), the shipping system (Dead Water) and augmented reality (Wolves). I co-founded and edited Arc magazine, a digital publication about the future, before joining New Scientist magazine as its arts editor. Now I eke out a freelance living in possibly the coldest flat in London, writing arts reviews for the newspapers. My latest non-fiction is Stalin and the Scientists, a history of Soviet science. My latest novel is The Smoke.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 5, 2020
As the nights here draw closer and darker, it’s become a bit of a tradition to tackle a big anthology at this time of year. This year’s effort from Head of Zeus is definitely that – a 1000+ page tome of 100 stories, all about Robots.
From the publisher:
From 1837 through to the present day, from Charles Dickens to Cory Doctorow, this collection contains the most diverse collection of robots ever assembled. Anthropomorphic robots, invertebrate AIs, thuggish metal lumps and wisps of manufactured intelligence so delicate if you blinked you might miss them. The literature of robots and artificial intelligence is so wildly diverse, in both tone and intent, that our stories form six thematic collections.
It's Alive! is about inventors and their creations.
Following the Money drops robots into the day-to-day business of living.
Owners and Servants considers the human potentials and pitfalls of owning and maintaining robots.
Changing Places looks at what happens at the blurred interface between human and machine minds.
All Hail the New Flesh waves goodbye to the physical boundaries that once separated machines from their human creators.
Succession considers the future of human and machine consciousnesses - in so far as we might have one.
With 100 stories spanning an order of magnitude more pages, Simon Ings's We, Robots is the new overlord of all robot literary compendiums.
At over 1000 pages of fairly small print, this is a book to delve into, to spend time with and eventually reread. I have spent the last three weeks reading this. (However, for those less willing to lift this mammoth book, an e-copy is available.) There are stories you will want to rush through and others that you will want to savour. I am sure that you will find something in here you will enjoy. Whether rereading classics or discovering new authors, there are stories here that you will like, some that you might love, some from authors you never have heard of before, others written by the blazing new talents of the genre and that show the cutting edge of modern SF. There are stories that are comforting to read, some that will make you think, some that amused me, others that made me surprisingly emotional.
This is a glorious delve into the many guises of robots and artificial intelligences. There is a wealth and a range in the stories that have clearly been chosen with some thought – and, dare I say it – intelligence. There’s a nicely succinct introduction by author and editor Simon Ings at the beginning of each story and the date of publication at the end, which helped me gain context.
The effect of the accumulation of this prose is that it becomes more than just a mere “Robot” book – it covers mobile and immobile forms (some even almost without form), upgrades and uplifts, the strange and the comforting. I found it wonderful to reread classics such as E. M. Forster’s The Machine Stops (1909), which was one of the first Robot stories I remember reading, Moxon’s Master (1899) by Ambrose Bierce, H. G. Wells’ The Iron Ironclads (1903), (Harlan Ellison’s gloriously New Wave story “Repent Harlequin! Said the Ticktock Man” (1965) and Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt (1950)). Even Charles Dickens makes an appearance, with his wonderfully-titled Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfrog Association for the Advancement of Everything Section B – Display of Models and Mechanical Science (1837-1838), which takes theme parks to a humorous new level for me. No author is given more than one story.
Even with this range, though, there are two surprising omissions. Personally, I would’ve liked at least one Isaac Asimov story, as he is probably THE science fiction author most know of when concerned with robotics and one of my first introductions to the genre. Editor Ings explains his reason not for including one here in his entertaining and knowledgeable Introduction, basically that: a) you probably know them already and b), that he was determined to bring to light stories as good but that have received less attention than the Good Doctor’s. He also points out that there are no Philip K. Dick stories here for the same reason (although those aware of my own personal choices will not be surprised to hear that I am less upset about that omission.)
As recompense, I was pleased by the inclusion of Jack Williamson’s With Folded Hands (1947), Lester Del Rey’s Helen O’Loy (1938), Theodore Sturgeon’s Microcosmic God (1941) and Cordwainer Smith’s Scanners Live in Vain (1950). Nevertheless, it creates a hole that I think could easily have been filled, even if just to show what an inspiration Asimov has been (and even how much stories have evolved in style.)
Of the modern writers, I rather expected Cory Doctorow (represented by “I, Row-Boat” (2006)), William Gibson at the start of cyberspace (The Winter Market (1985)), and more up to date, Chris Beckett (The Turing Test, (2002)). All are very good. I was also very pleased with Arundhati Hazra’s story The Toymaker’s Daughter from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 2017 and Becky Hagenston’s “Hi Ho Cherry -O” (2018), both indicators of how the genre is still evolving. Interestingly, when I first read Vina Je-Min Prasad’s Fandom for Robots (2017), as a Hugo-nominee, I was less impressed, but upon re-reading it here, and in this context, I was pleased to find that I enjoyed it more. It is very much a story for now.
The presentation of the book is up to the usual standard of the Head of Zeus publications – my hardback edition has a sewn-in ribbon bookmark, for example. There’s a useful Bibliography at the back, too.
In short, I had high hopes for this book, but I am pleased to say that it has surpassed my expectations. If I needed a summary in one book of this important aspect of science fiction, this would be it (although perhaps with a copy of Asimov’s The Complete Robot and a PKD collection alongside). However, in terms of breadth, depth and - well, weight - overall, this book is a joy and a triumph. There’s nothing artificial about this one – We, Robots shows us a book not afraid to show us the genre’s past but more importantly where it is going. Recommended most highly, and definitely one of my books of the year.
From the publisher:
From 1837 through to the present day, from Charles Dickens to Cory Doctorow, this collection contains the most diverse collection of robots ever assembled. Anthropomorphic robots, invertebrate AIs, thuggish metal lumps and wisps of manufactured intelligence so delicate if you blinked you might miss them. The literature of robots and artificial intelligence is so wildly diverse, in both tone and intent, that our stories form six thematic collections.
It's Alive! is about inventors and their creations.
Following the Money drops robots into the day-to-day business of living.
Owners and Servants considers the human potentials and pitfalls of owning and maintaining robots.
Changing Places looks at what happens at the blurred interface between human and machine minds.
All Hail the New Flesh waves goodbye to the physical boundaries that once separated machines from their human creators.
Succession considers the future of human and machine consciousnesses - in so far as we might have one.
With 100 stories spanning an order of magnitude more pages, Simon Ings's We, Robots is the new overlord of all robot literary compendiums.
At over 1000 pages of fairly small print, this is a book to delve into, to spend time with and eventually reread. I have spent the last three weeks reading this. (However, for those less willing to lift this mammoth book, an e-copy is available.) There are stories you will want to rush through and others that you will want to savour. I am sure that you will find something in here you will enjoy. Whether rereading classics or discovering new authors, there are stories here that you will like, some that you might love, some from authors you never have heard of before, others written by the blazing new talents of the genre and that show the cutting edge of modern SF. There are stories that are comforting to read, some that will make you think, some that amused me, others that made me surprisingly emotional.
This is a glorious delve into the many guises of robots and artificial intelligences. There is a wealth and a range in the stories that have clearly been chosen with some thought – and, dare I say it – intelligence. There’s a nicely succinct introduction by author and editor Simon Ings at the beginning of each story and the date of publication at the end, which helped me gain context.
The effect of the accumulation of this prose is that it becomes more than just a mere “Robot” book – it covers mobile and immobile forms (some even almost without form), upgrades and uplifts, the strange and the comforting. I found it wonderful to reread classics such as E. M. Forster’s The Machine Stops (1909), which was one of the first Robot stories I remember reading, Moxon’s Master (1899) by Ambrose Bierce, H. G. Wells’ The Iron Ironclads (1903), (Harlan Ellison’s gloriously New Wave story “Repent Harlequin! Said the Ticktock Man” (1965) and Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt (1950)). Even Charles Dickens makes an appearance, with his wonderfully-titled Full Report of the Second Meeting of the Mudfrog Association for the Advancement of Everything Section B – Display of Models and Mechanical Science (1837-1838), which takes theme parks to a humorous new level for me. No author is given more than one story.
Even with this range, though, there are two surprising omissions. Personally, I would’ve liked at least one Isaac Asimov story, as he is probably THE science fiction author most know of when concerned with robotics and one of my first introductions to the genre. Editor Ings explains his reason not for including one here in his entertaining and knowledgeable Introduction, basically that: a) you probably know them already and b), that he was determined to bring to light stories as good but that have received less attention than the Good Doctor’s. He also points out that there are no Philip K. Dick stories here for the same reason (although those aware of my own personal choices will not be surprised to hear that I am less upset about that omission.)
As recompense, I was pleased by the inclusion of Jack Williamson’s With Folded Hands (1947), Lester Del Rey’s Helen O’Loy (1938), Theodore Sturgeon’s Microcosmic God (1941) and Cordwainer Smith’s Scanners Live in Vain (1950). Nevertheless, it creates a hole that I think could easily have been filled, even if just to show what an inspiration Asimov has been (and even how much stories have evolved in style.)
Of the modern writers, I rather expected Cory Doctorow (represented by “I, Row-Boat” (2006)), William Gibson at the start of cyberspace (The Winter Market (1985)), and more up to date, Chris Beckett (The Turing Test, (2002)). All are very good. I was also very pleased with Arundhati Hazra’s story The Toymaker’s Daughter from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 2017 and Becky Hagenston’s “Hi Ho Cherry -O” (2018), both indicators of how the genre is still evolving. Interestingly, when I first read Vina Je-Min Prasad’s Fandom for Robots (2017), as a Hugo-nominee, I was less impressed, but upon re-reading it here, and in this context, I was pleased to find that I enjoyed it more. It is very much a story for now.
The presentation of the book is up to the usual standard of the Head of Zeus publications – my hardback edition has a sewn-in ribbon bookmark, for example. There’s a useful Bibliography at the back, too.
In short, I had high hopes for this book, but I am pleased to say that it has surpassed my expectations. If I needed a summary in one book of this important aspect of science fiction, this would be it (although perhaps with a copy of Asimov’s The Complete Robot and a PKD collection alongside). However, in terms of breadth, depth and - well, weight - overall, this book is a joy and a triumph. There’s nothing artificial about this one – We, Robots shows us a book not afraid to show us the genre’s past but more importantly where it is going. Recommended most highly, and definitely one of my books of the year.
did-not-finish
February 22, 2021DNF at page 372 (25%)
Rating: NA
There are some really good stories in here so far, and I've barely cracked the surface. Perhaps I will come back to this someday, (and because it is an anthology I will just pick up where I left off) but as of now, this is an official DNF.
Rating: NA
There are some really good stories in here so far, and I've barely cracked the surface. Perhaps I will come back to this someday, (and because it is an anthology I will just pick up where I left off) but as of now, this is an official DNF.
December 20, 2020
An interesting collection of short stories spanning a wide range of topics. The collection of various authors was great and there a story for everyone.
Thank you to net galley for the ARC in return for my honest review.
Thank you to net galley for the ARC in return for my honest review.
December 6, 2020
I flew through reading this fantastic collection of short stories. The tales in "We, Robots" cover a huge range of time in terms of when they were written, and it was fascinating to see how changing technology has changed (or not!) authors' thinking with regard to robots, androids, AI. There is a broad range of writing styles, which I especially enjoyed. Each story is a miniature treasure.
My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.
My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.
August 24, 2025
Read this giant collection on the backburner for close to two years I see, it's a great collection with some absolute classics in it including "The Machine Stops", "Microcosmic God", "A Logic Named Joe" , "I, Row-Boat", "No Woman Born", "The Winter Market" and "The Narrow Road". Overall better than most collection so it gets 4 stars from me, eventhough there were some in it that I felt were duds to me including "'Repent Harlequin', Said the Tick-tock Man" and "Suicide Coast".
December 29, 2020
Brace yourself for one hundred of the most tedious tales about robots and artificial intelligence. Honestly, I had to poke myself with a sharp stick to keep going. They are themed, but the sections are introduced in the most turgid manner, I couldn't decide whether I was reading an introduction, a biography of the contributor or yet another tedious tale.
There are a few real gems which stand out like stars in the nebula, but my, you have to work for them (hence 2 stars and not the one I was originally awarding). Some of the tales date back in history, so feel incredibly dated. Others are obviously included to shoe-horn some reputable authors onto the list - such as HG Wells, who's tale is not about robots but concerns the first appearance of tanks on the battlefield of the First World War.
I began to have doubts about the book when I read in the introduction that Isaac Asimov, who wrote the seminal work 'I, Robot' in the 1950s, was to be ignored, along with Philip K Dick, 'because you've read them many times already'. Although the compiler clearly had no compunctions in plagiarising Asimov's work for this book's title. The only other Asimov appearance is a predictive text story which takes an excerpt from Asimov's 'The Liar' as its starting point, and sadly it does not finish there.
Overall a dull and turgid collection; if the compiler had chosen the 20 best stories about robots he might have had a good book, but sadly this falls way short.
Thank you to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for a (very) honest review.
There are a few real gems which stand out like stars in the nebula, but my, you have to work for them (hence 2 stars and not the one I was originally awarding). Some of the tales date back in history, so feel incredibly dated. Others are obviously included to shoe-horn some reputable authors onto the list - such as HG Wells, who's tale is not about robots but concerns the first appearance of tanks on the battlefield of the First World War.
I began to have doubts about the book when I read in the introduction that Isaac Asimov, who wrote the seminal work 'I, Robot' in the 1950s, was to be ignored, along with Philip K Dick, 'because you've read them many times already'. Although the compiler clearly had no compunctions in plagiarising Asimov's work for this book's title. The only other Asimov appearance is a predictive text story which takes an excerpt from Asimov's 'The Liar' as its starting point, and sadly it does not finish there.
Overall a dull and turgid collection; if the compiler had chosen the 20 best stories about robots he might have had a good book, but sadly this falls way short.
Thank you to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for a (very) honest review.
March 28, 2022
The first 600 pages of this anthology were the best. The last 400 pages were really hit and miss.
The stories are contained in themed sections related to robots and androids.
The variety of authors is huge ranging from the 1850's to 2010's.
If you like the robot theme in science fiction this is a must read.
Recommended as I'm sure different readers have different ideas of what they like in the robot universe
The stories are contained in themed sections related to robots and androids.
The variety of authors is huge ranging from the 1850's to 2010's.
If you like the robot theme in science fiction this is a must read.
Recommended as I'm sure different readers have different ideas of what they like in the robot universe
May 13, 2022
Really big book with lot of big names and, unfortunately, lot of stories which I didn't like. Fortunately there are some which are fantastic like Helena Bell's "Robot" or Liz Jensen's "Good To Go". I believe that everybody will find something worth reading so time and effort spend going through 1000+ pages will be eventually well rewarded. In spite of this I am not forgiving Editor for omitting Asimov! Editor's explanation for that is just not good enough!!!
April 9, 2024
Best of the bunch:
Adam Robots
Malak
A Bad Day For Sales
Mika Model
The Next Scene
Virtuoso
There Will Be School Tomorrow
I Am Crying All Inside
That Laugh
Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance
"Repent, Harlequin" said the ticktockman
Good to Go
Memories and Wire
Learning to Be Me
No Woman Born
Big Dave's in Love
The Next Move
Like you, I Am A System
The Narrow Road.
Scanners Live in Vain
20 great 60 good 20 meh.
Solid collection.
Adam Robots
Malak
A Bad Day For Sales
Mika Model
The Next Scene
Virtuoso
There Will Be School Tomorrow
I Am Crying All Inside
That Laugh
Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance
"Repent, Harlequin" said the ticktockman
Good to Go
Memories and Wire
Learning to Be Me
No Woman Born
Big Dave's in Love
The Next Move
Like you, I Am A System
The Narrow Road.
Scanners Live in Vain
20 great 60 good 20 meh.
Solid collection.
October 16, 2022
This is a huge collection of short stories with robot themes. The stories go back to what many consider the beginning of modern science fiction, the late Victorian era. We start with H.G. Wells and move forward from there. This is literally hundreds of hours of reading in one convenient book.
October 17, 2021
Mike Resnick
Walter M. Miller JR
John Sladek
Robert Bloch
Murray Leinster
Paolo Bacigalupi
Nick Wolven
Tobias S. Buckell
Bruce Sterling
Tendai Huchu
T. D. Edge
Cory Doctorow
Walter M. Miller JR
John Sladek
Robert Bloch
Murray Leinster
Paolo Bacigalupi
Nick Wolven
Tobias S. Buckell
Bruce Sterling
Tendai Huchu
T. D. Edge
Cory Doctorow
February 3, 2025
Something for everyone although not all were to my liking. Got some nice glimpses of sf author's work.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews