Sympathetic robot characters were not the norm in the 1930s. Robots were either the tools of mad scientists or out-of-control monsters. Isaac Asimov’s fame as an SF writer rests partly on his tales of likeable robots. He created the famous “Three Laws of Robotics,” logically deduced rules that robots would have to follow to be used safely in society. Asimov wrote entire novels around possible issues with the Three Laws and how robots would be accepted or not by humans.
But this was in the 1940s. Asimov’s first story, “Robbie,” was written in 1939 and did not see print until September 1940. Authors who predated Asimov include Neil R Jones with his stories of the Zoromes and John Wyndham (under his real name of John Beynon Harris) with “The Lost Machine,” but most influential was Eando Binder (Earl and Otto Binder, a brother team). They created Adam Link, a robot who is judged by humanity, but not found wanting. The stories of Adam Link appeared in Amazing Stories between January 1939 and April 1942. The first of ten stories was entitled “I, Robot,” because the narrator of the piece is the robot itself. This was revolutionary. Nobody had ever told the story from the robot’s point-of-view before. When the stories were collected in book form the title I, Robot (1965) was selected. This was also the name of Asimov’s first robot collection (1950), with the Binders’ permission.
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