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"None of us, no matter what continent or island or ice cap, asked to be born in the first place, and that even somebody as old as I am, which is 80, only just got here."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| R. Daneel Olivaw | ||
| A human-like robot, skilled in police work. |
In this future Earth, a New York City detective must meet and work with an off-world robotic partner.
| Baley approached woodenly and said in a monotone, "I am Plainclothes Man Elijah Baley, Police Department, City of New York, Rating C-5." He showed his credentials and went on, "I have been instructed to meet R. Daneel Olivaw at Spacetown Approachway." He looked at his watch. "I am a little early. May I request the announcement of my presence?" He felt more than a little cold inside. He was used, after a fashion, to the Earth-model robots. The Spacer models would be different. He had never met one, but there was nothing more common on Earth than the horrid whispered stories about the tremendous and formidable robots that worked in superhuman fashion on the far-off, glittering Outer Worlds. He found himself gritting his teeth... The Spacer said, "I shall introduce myself. I am R. Daneel Olivaw... I am a robot. Were you not told?" The robot's hand closed on his with a smoothly increasing pressure that reached a comfortably friendly peak, then declined. "Yet I seem to detect disturbance. May I ask that you be frank with me? It is best to have as many relevant facts as possible in a relationship such as ours. And it is customary on my world for partners to call one another by the familiar name. I trust that that is not counter to your own customs." |
| Technovelgy from Caves of Steel,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Galaxy in 1953 Additional resources -
|
The pair must work together to solve the murder of a prominent Spacer on the over-populated Earth.
The "R" in his partner's name stands, of course, for "Robot."
The oldest direct reference to the phrase "robot cop" is probably from Modern Mechanix in 1935:
RUTHLESS speeders, driving with one eye on the rear vision mirror for signs of a trailing traffic officer, now have a new enemy to watch out for, a robot speed meter which instantly gauges the speed of a car on the highway.
The speed meter is small, and can easily be moved from one place to another. On one side of the road is an apparatus which directs two parallel beams of light, invisible to the driver, upon a mechanism on the opposite side of the road. The length of time taken by a car to intercept both beams of light is shown in terms of miles per hour on the meter.
The speed trap is the invention of Dr. Harry Silva, head of the psychology laboratory at the Massachusetts State College, and already attracting the attention of police and traffic officials all over the country. Tests prove it operates with negligible error.
Compare to the undercover detective robot from The Velvet Glove (1956) by Harry Harrison, the precogs from The Minority Report (1956) by Philip K. Dick, the Pry-Vie robotic detective from Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) by Philip K. Dick and Sven, the artificially intelligent detective from The Turing Option (1992) by Harry Harrison.
(Speeders are timed by Robot Cop)
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
