Metal Maiden Series

A thought-provoking tale of female robots and sentient animals by a New York Times–bestselling author. Elasa the robot’s friend Mona exchanges to the colony planet to occupy the body of a woman five months pregnant. Even so, she gets more than she bargained for, as she works with a precognitive lamb.

The humanoid heroine Elasa fights to save the world in this story by the New York Times–bestselling author of To Be a Woman. Elasa contacts the very special Awares, folk who attune so perfectly to their environment that they can disappear, literally and figuratively. She needs to work with them to try to save Earth from being eaten by huge telepathic galactic maggots.

A humanoid robot serves as a perfect female companion—until she achieves consciousness—in this wildly different story from a New York Times–bestselling author. Humanoid robots are surely in our future, but their uses are likely to be limited to body guarding, childcare, companionship, and sex. Other chores can better be done by smart non-humanoid machines designed for those specific tasks. But for these limited purposes, the best robots must be so realistic that they are indistinguishable from live people. Elasa is such a robot. You can’t tell her nature if she doesn’t reveal it. You can talk with her, embrace her, kiss her, and she is the perfect woman. Until she becomes the first conscious robot. She’s no longer satisfied to pretend to be a woman; she wants legal recognition that she is a woman, so that, among other things, she can marry the man she loves. Therein hangs a tale . . .

The second in a New York Times–bestselling author’s wildly imaginative series about the nature of consciousness, set on a planet of unusual animals. When Shep participates in the student exchange program, he finds himself in the body of a man on a rustic colony planet. Then a native sheep comes to the door. It seems Shep must become a literal shepherd, to his dismay. These are very special sheep, deadly, telepathic, and precognitive, and their will governs. They also recruit a Vulture, a Python, and a lovely Elf girl for a dangerous journey. Then things get interesting. Soon Shep is deep in adventure and love. But he can’t marry a native girl by proxy. Or can he? The most important thing he learns is to trust the sheep, no matter how wild it gets. Even when he returns to Earth . . . 

Four novellas in one volume—the thrilling science fiction saga of a female robot who becomes sentient and fights to save humanity from destruction. With nearly two hundred published works and more than twenty New York Times bestsellers to his credit, Piers Anthony is without a doubt one of the most prolific and creative authors in science fiction and fantasy. Among his most ingenious literary creations are the four books of his remarkable Metal Maiden saga, collected here in one volume: the breathtaking tale of Elasa, the fembot who desires nothing more than to be human. In “To Be a Woman” we meet Elasa, who is perfect in every way—a female machine created for pleasure, whose newborn consciousness makes her strive for more. The story moves to a distant colony planet in “Shepherd,” in which a young man participating in a student exchange program finds himself in another body and suddenly the caretaker of a herd of telepathic and eminently wise sheep. “Flytrap” brings Elasa’s friend Mona to the colony in the body of a pregnant woman, through which she learns that her work with a young precognitive lamb could have a major impact on more than one existence and more than one world. Finally, in “Awares,” Elasa must work closely with a unique group of environmentally attuned beings in order to protect the earth from an onslaught of gigantic, world-devouring extraterrestrial maggots.