Tim Hornyak
Man’s Best Friend Reimagined
The New Breed: How to Think About Robots
By Kate Darling
Allen Lane 336pp £20
One hundred years ago, Karel Capek’s play R U R: Rossum’s Universal Robots debuted in Czechoslovakia. It went on to become an international sensation, with runs everywhere from Austria to Japan to the United States, where the New York Times called it ‘a Czecho-Slovak Frankenstein’. R U R is a tale of how artificial factory workers rise up against their creators and eventually annihilate every last human on the planet but one. The play left a powerful legacy. Not only did it give the world a revolutionary neologism, ‘robot’ (from the Czech robota, meaning ‘forced labour’), but it also indelibly associated robots with social upheaval and human displacement.
Today robots and robotic technologies are reshaping our world. Vacuum cleaner robots are hoovering our floors. Robotic animals are comforting dementia patients in nursing homes. Industrial robots are getting faster and smarter at manipulating and manufacturing goods. Autonomous drones are waging war and watching us from the skies. Self-driving cars
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm