Love, Death + Robots: The Official Anthology: Volume 4

Love, Death + Robots #3

by Tim Miller (Producer), Geoff Brown (Editor), Amanda J. Spedding (Editor)

The nine narrative episodes of Volume Four of the Emmy® award-winning Netflix Original series Love, Death & Robots. Featuring best-selling authors and screenwriters from all over the globe, curated by filmmakers Tim Miller and David Fincher, and Supervising Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Introduction by John Scalzi, with stories by John Scalzi, Stant Litore, Siobhan Carroll, Bruce Sterling, John McNichol, Dave Hutchinson, Marc Laidlaw, Robert Bisi & Andy Lyon.

Genres: Science Fiction, Anthologies

162 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 15, 2025

Reviews

[Liubov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bruce Sterling "Spider Rose"

[Luigi Benetton · Rating 4 out of 5]

More good short sci-fi/dystopian stories here, worthwhile series overall.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scifi short story collection; full range from deep religious to appliances complaining about humans.Love it!

[Amy Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this was not nearly as good as volumes 1-3, unfortunately. Wouldn't bother reading it.

#1: The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur 4* - beautiful
#2: For He Can Creep 4* - typical cat story but well done
#3 Spider Rose 3* - good writing but just creepy! Had read this with Schismatrix. Enjoyed his other one Swarm much better (in volume 1 I think)
#4: How Zeke Got Religion at 20,000 Feet 3*
#5: Golgotha 2* - good bones but too short/needed more buildup
#6: 400 Boys 1* - no idea what was going on (might be a reader problem)
#7: The Other Large Thing 2* - bit _too_ typical cat story
#8: Close Encounters of the Mini-Kind 1* - just not my kind of humour
#9: Your Smart Appliances Talk About You Behind Your Back 4* - pretty funny with the voice actors! (would have been 3* on paper, my imagination isn't good enough to insert the voice inflections that make it so funny to listen to)

[Rhys Causon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable collection of short stories though I will say it starts with the worst (at least in my opinion) but maybe it works better as an episode of the series. Yet I still haven’t seen that series so I can’t say for certain.

As always the Scalzi stories are my favourite but I did enjoy the Alien invasion story because of how utterly bonkers it’s seemed to be.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable but this is definitely the weakest of the series.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A list of those "8 Stories + 1 Screenplay" had been shown in the description of the associated Amazon entry, but was later removed. I managed to find all those eight stories and read them. They can be easily mapped into various screens in the trailer unveiled the other day, so I figure the list is credible:

#1: The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur (2017), by Stant Litore
#2: For He Can Creep (2019), by Siobhan Carroll
#3: Spider Rose (1982), by Bruce Sterling (also S3E6 Swarm)
#4: How Zeke Got Religion at 20,000 Feet (2018), by John McNichol
#5: Golgotha (2018), by Dave Hutchinson
#6: 400 Boys (1983), by Marc Laidlaw
#7: The Other Large Thing (2016), by John Scalzi
#8: Your Smart Appliances Talk About You Behind Your Back (2016), by John Scalzi (also contributing to 5 episodes in previous seasons)
#9: Close Encounters of the Mini-Kind (Screenplay), by Robert Bisi & Andy Lyon (also: S3E4 Night of the Mini Dead)

Some pieces are older than I'd expected. Nonetheyless they are all enjoyable reads, especially #1 and #3.