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"I wrote many novels which … contained the element of the projected collective unconscious, which made them simply incomprehensible to anyone who read them, because they required the reader to accept my premise that each of us lives in a unique world."
- Philip K. Dick
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| Robot Farm | ||
| A farm staffed and run entirely by robots. |
This is the first instance of this phrase in science fiction.
| From thousands of noiseless, nervewrackingly unreal factories weapons and equipment poured forth. Silently triphibian-sections swung together, interwove, were flawlessly joined. In an unending slow-paced stream the completed transports slid stealthily into the air, bound on test runs outside the atmosphere and in the depths of the ocean on whose restless surface their final destiny would be worked out.
From robot farm and mine streams of grain and metal flowed to dumps near ports of embarkation. There too went the barges that would carry the materials on the last leg of their journey. People gazed in awe at these gargantuan stockpiles. |
| Technovelgy from Let Freedom Ring,
by Fritz Leiber. Published by Amazing Stories in 1950 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the automatic cultivators from Piracy Preferred (1930) by John W. Campbell, the conscious farm machines from The Hidden Colony (1935) by Otfrid von Hanstein, the field minder from Who Can Replace A Man (1963) by Brian Aldiss, the Robomule from Bill the Galactic Hero (1965) by Harry Harrison, the self-guided tractor from At the Bottom of a Hole (1966) by Larry Niven, the robot crab from Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson and the agricultural robot pest controller from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Let Freedom Ring
More Ideas
and Technology by Fritz Leiber
Tech news articles related to Let Freedom Ring
Tech news articles related to works by Fritz Leiber
| Proof Of Robothood - Not A Person |
| Dancing Robots Taught Dance Moves |
| Factory Humanoid Robots Built By Humanoid Robots |
| Mornine Sales Robot |
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Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
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'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
