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Robot Universe: Legendary Automatons and Androids from the Ancient World to the Distant Future
Explore the Robot Universe, and discover the hundred most epic androids and automatons from myth, through popular culture, to modern-day machines. Robot aficionado Ana Matronic—vocalist with world-famous band Scissor Sisters—explores their creation, design, purpose, and how they have comforted, fascinated, or terrified us across the ages and galaxies, profiling key sidekicks, servants, saviors, murder machines, cyborgs, and others in every genre. In-depth features cover special focus topics, such as robots in art and fashion, video games and comics, and music. This richly illustrated collection deftly shows how we have defined and redefined robots, why they capture our imagination, and why they’re here to stay, ending with a look at real-life robots from early prototypes to what lies in our robotic future.
- GenresNonfiction
224 pages, Hardcover
First published September 3, 2015
3 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 27, 2019
A must read for robot lovers. This book present a lot of robots from various movie or TV show. All is well presented with good picture. It's really just that, but if you like robots like I do you will probably enjoy seeing how it all evolve through time and different kind of robots and all. Of course you will know a lot of them already, but it will just be a good reminder of them.
January 13, 2016
ROBOT UNIVERSE is exactly what it sounds like: a big, awesome book about robots. Pretty enough for your coffee table, its two-page spreads with great pictures and informative topic blurbs is perfect for perusing. Ana Matronic (yes, that’s her stage name) covers everything from pop culture, to robots in literature, how they influence fashion, and even present-day technology. Until I flipped through this book I hadn’t understood how much and how long robots have permeated our culture (one entry is Master Yan Shi’s Mechanical Man from 400 BCE). Ana’s commentary is informative, amusing, and surprisingly unfluffy.
September 26, 2018
Truly the robo-book for robo-nerds! Reading this book is like listening to someone's excited babbling about why they're so interested in these specific robots and why these robots are super cool. You can't help but feel a bit of excitement along with the author!
That's sadly also a reason why I'm deducting a star. For the first half of the book, we're introduced to all sorts of robots in fiction and why the author loves them- but being a robo-newbie myself, it's hard to really grasp what she's saying about them. The pages about the real robots provide a little history and what they're supposed to do, but the pages about the fictional robots feel like a lot of information that you'll have to watch the movie or read the book to really understand what she's saying. "Remember in this episode when this guy does the thing?" I'm afraid not...
Another star is deducted for me simply because of the way the book is set up. There's big, glossy images that are really nice to look at for each page, but the pages themselves are also different colors and patterns. Black text on a deep red background is hard to read, not to mention absolutely miserable for the eyes! Then the very next page is a bright yellow... I understand the desire for some aesthetic, but sadly there's no robo-eye that I can afford to replace mine with after you fry them out of my skull!
All in all, I'd say give a few robotic-themed media a shot before reading the first half of the book, the second half is rather interesting for anyone curious about the history and future of robotics. Be sure to be a robot fan and be sure to give your eyes a rest after some of the pages in this book!
That's sadly also a reason why I'm deducting a star. For the first half of the book, we're introduced to all sorts of robots in fiction and why the author loves them- but being a robo-newbie myself, it's hard to really grasp what she's saying about them. The pages about the real robots provide a little history and what they're supposed to do, but the pages about the fictional robots feel like a lot of information that you'll have to watch the movie or read the book to really understand what she's saying. "Remember in this episode when this guy does the thing?" I'm afraid not...
Another star is deducted for me simply because of the way the book is set up. There's big, glossy images that are really nice to look at for each page, but the pages themselves are also different colors and patterns. Black text on a deep red background is hard to read, not to mention absolutely miserable for the eyes! Then the very next page is a bright yellow... I understand the desire for some aesthetic, but sadly there's no robo-eye that I can afford to replace mine with after you fry them out of my skull!
All in all, I'd say give a few robotic-themed media a shot before reading the first half of the book, the second half is rather interesting for anyone curious about the history and future of robotics. Be sure to be a robot fan and be sure to give your eyes a rest after some of the pages in this book!
November 13, 2024
Robot Takeover by Ana Matronic was a big surprise in just how good a book it is. For once the great cover does indicate that this is a great book.
It covers in good detail 100 of the best known, best imagined robots from the screen, both big and small and books.
Ana Matronic is a false name obviously but the people who compiled this book and actually wrote the descriptions and facts show their love of the subject through their writing.
All the old favourites are included R2 D2 and C3PO along with Robby and Robbie the Robots (the difference between each is lovingly depicted) One from the Shakespeare inspired Forbidden Planet the other the TV series Lost in Space,
The latter details how the robot 'developed as a character' by series three to become a star over the series run.
The authors also cheat by including non robots which seem to be added because the characters are just so good.
So we Have Dr Octopus from Spider Man and Ironman himself included.
Both are very welcome additions.
Literature is well represented.
I was not only pleased to see Isaac Asimov ' R Daneel Olivaw but also R.U.R by Karel Capek.
The robots are too numerous to mention but if I add that a few of my own personal favourites like Marvin from the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Huey Dewey and Louie from Silent Running and Kryten from Red Dwarf it lets you know just how comprehensive this book is.
The illustrations and pictures are wonderful the text matches the wonderful drawings perfectly to make this a great book to read right through or just to dip into.
Totally Recommended.
No Robots were hurt during this review but my spellchecker seemed to question every name.
It covers in good detail 100 of the best known, best imagined robots from the screen, both big and small and books.
Ana Matronic is a false name obviously but the people who compiled this book and actually wrote the descriptions and facts show their love of the subject through their writing.
All the old favourites are included R2 D2 and C3PO along with Robby and Robbie the Robots (the difference between each is lovingly depicted) One from the Shakespeare inspired Forbidden Planet the other the TV series Lost in Space,
The latter details how the robot 'developed as a character' by series three to become a star over the series run.
The authors also cheat by including non robots which seem to be added because the characters are just so good.
So we Have Dr Octopus from Spider Man and Ironman himself included.
Both are very welcome additions.
Literature is well represented.
I was not only pleased to see Isaac Asimov ' R Daneel Olivaw but also R.U.R by Karel Capek.
The robots are too numerous to mention but if I add that a few of my own personal favourites like Marvin from the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Huey Dewey and Louie from Silent Running and Kryten from Red Dwarf it lets you know just how comprehensive this book is.
The illustrations and pictures are wonderful the text matches the wonderful drawings perfectly to make this a great book to read right through or just to dip into.
Totally Recommended.
No Robots were hurt during this review but my spellchecker seemed to question every name.
December 31, 2019
This was a great overview of some of the most famous robots in our culture, both real and imagined. Even though I consider myself a fan of robots, I learned so much about famous robots that the world has come to love.
February 13, 2018
Very solid book - quite broad in its coverage, from the classics like C3PO and the daleks from film and TV, to the robots of sci-fi books, to those of mythology and folk tales, to real-life robots both early and current. Robots in music videos. And the little data box tidbits were pretty informative too.
December 27, 2015
It doesn't delve deeply into human and robot issues, but it does a general cover of all of them along with the effect of robots on pop culture items like clothing and music. The page layout was nice and it was well paced in going from category to category.
January 1, 2017
While interesting I felt that I couldn't rate this book any higher because of the personal discussion of the robots by the author rather than on popular opinion
July 11, 2019
Really neat compilation, with plenty of factoids and stuff for an android enthusiast like myself.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews