R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)

By Karel Čapek and Ivan Klima

A visionary work of science fiction that introduced the word "robot"

Written in 1920, premiered in Prague in 1921, and first performed in New York in 1922—garnered worldwide acclaim for its author and popularized the word robot. Mass-produced as efficient laborers to serve man, Capek’s Robots are an android product—they remember everything but think of nothing new. But the Utopian life they provide ultimately lacks meaning, and the humans they serve stop reproducing. When the Robots revolt, killing all but one of their masters, they must strain to learn the secret of self-duplication. It is not until two Robots fall in love and are christened “Adam” and “Eve” by the last surviving human that Nature emerges triumphant.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Mar 30, 2004
• ISBN: 9781440650383

Karel Čapek

Karel Capek was born in 1890 in Czechoslovakia. He was interested in visual art as a teenager and studied philosophy and aesthetics in Prague. During WWI he was exempt from military service because of spinal problems and became a journalist. He campaigned against the rise of communism and in the 1930s his writing became increasingly anti-fascist. He started writing fiction with his brother Josef, a successful painter, and went on to publish science-fiction novels, for which he is best known, as well as detective stories, plays and a singular book on gardening, The Gardener’s Year. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature several times and the Czech PEN Club created a literary award in his name. He died of pneumonia in 1938.

Reviews for R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)

[gbill_7 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It’s fascinating to me that R.U.R. was written in 1920, and is highly relevant nearly one hundred years later, with the very real concerns of robots replacing human workers and Artificial Intelligence posing a possible threat to the human race in the news. In addition to using the play to make comments about humanity, and the dehumanizing effects of science and mass manufacturing, Karel Čapek was clearly ahead of his time. Right up there with his masterpiece ‘War With The Newts’, and very enjoyable.

[nx74defiant · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This play is credited as the first use of the term as robot.Since it is a play a lot of the the action of the revolt and attack of the robots happens off stage.The way all the men fall in love with Helena is so over the top I see it as played for laughs.You see the origin of a lot of the troupes of the genre set up here.

[john257hopper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a science fiction play published in the 1930s which is most famous for first coining the word "robot" to describe an artificial man or woman. The robots produced by Rossum's Universal Robots are not made of metal or plastic though (despite the cover of this SF Masterworks edition), but with a mysterious substance discovered by the company's founder which behaves exactly like living protoplasm but which has a different chemical composition. These robots have flesh, bones and organs composed of this alternative substance, so one might say they are a slightly different species of human, rather than what we would understand today by the word "robot" (which comes from the Slavic root "rob/rab" which relates to work, worker, slave). The play covers a wide range of ethical issues raised by the mass production of these artificial men and women, which have been further developed of course by many other writers, in particular Isaac Asimov. Asimov's three laws of robotics don't apply here, as the robots decide they are superior to humans and take over, killing their former masters. There is a whole spectrum of high drama and tragedy here in this fairly short three act play. Deservedly a seminal science fiction text.

[nosajeel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The origin of the word robots, although they are not so much robots as golems. Only there are lots and lots and lots of them -- eventually millions. It all starts out well but ends epicly badly. It suffers somewhat from a certain didacticism about technology, Communism, and other themes, that I don't remember in War with the Newts and other Capek books. That said, it is a classic that I've been meaning to read for a long time and am glad I finally got around to it.

[jasonlf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The origin of the word robots, although they are not so much robots as golems. Only there are lots and lots and lots of them -- eventually millions. It all starts out well but ends epicly badly. It suffers somewhat from a certain didacticism about technology, Communism, and other themes, that I don't remember in War with the Newts and other Capek books. That said, it is a classic that I've been meaning to read for a long time and am glad I finally got around to it.

[sarahehwilson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant, bizarre play. The first "cylons" (as in Battlestar Galactica) and a wicked skewering of both capitalism and communism, from 1920s Czechlands.