Aldiss’ story, first published in 1969, is set in the future when parents must get permission to conceive children. Henry and Monica Swinton acquire an artificial child, David. He is able to love, but Monica struggles to love him back. Teddy, a ‘supertoy’ robot, tries to help them understand each other. It’s a sad story which ends with David being returned to the factory when the Swintons are given the go-ahead for a real child.

In the film, the Swintons already have a human son, who is in a coma. However, when he miraculously wakes up, he and David become rivals for Monica’s attention. After a series of events suggest that David might endanger their lives, he has to be returned to the factory for destruction. In comparison to her book counterpart’s heartless attitude, a very upset Monica drives with David on the way to the factory but leaves him in the forest with some survival tips.

That’s where we leave the short story behind. What follows is David’s quest to find the Blue Fairy (which he knows from the tale of Pinocchio) who will turn him into a real boy so Monica will love him. He does this with the help of Teddy and Gigolo Joe, a pleasure android who is on the run after being framed for murder. They end up in an arena where robots are destroyed in inventive ways for the anti-android crowd, but are saved when David’s similarity to a real boy turns the public against the promoters.

After this the story gets more far-out and wondrous. The ending is bittersweet because David finally gets what he was seeking after thousands of years, only when humanity is extinct in the next ice age.

The acting, special effects, design and music in the film are all excellent. I like that there are some sentimental Spielberg hallmarks mixed with darker, Kubrick themes, but for some viewers it may be confusing that the film varies in tone.

The book includes 14 stories first published between 1894 – 1965, a good introduction, an essay on the history of computing / automata / robots in science fiction (best read after everything else), and a mini spoiler-free introduction to each story. It does exactly as promised, demonstrating that writers’ fear and awe of artificial intelligence and its potential impact on society began surprisingly early. I felt that the stories were chosen for the concepts they addressed, with less importance given to the execution. However interesting the topics were, as fictional narratives most of them didn’t wow me. I have marked those I liked best with asterisks.

‘Moxon’s Master’ by Ambrose Bierce – begins as a philosophical discussion and becomes a horror story.

‘The Discontented Machine’ by Adeline Knapp – examining the effects of automation on the workforce.

‘Ely’s Automatic Housemaid’ by Elizabeth Bellamy – an amusing tale of creepy robot servants. *

‘The Mind Machine’ by Michael Williams – an early imagining of a robot uprising.

‘Automata’ by S Fowler Wright – an odd wordy story about extinction which I didn’t like much.

‘The Machine Stops’ by E M Forster – a very prescient dystopia, uncharacteristic of the author, which I’ve read a few times.

‘Efficiency’ by Perley Poore Sheehan and Robert H Davis – a disturbing one-act play about android soldiers.

‘Rex’ by Harl Vincent – a super-robot tries to turn humans into robots and vice versa.

‘Danger in the Dark Cave’ by J J Connington – a scary tale told to a scientist who keeps an open mind about it. *

‘The Inevitable Conflict’ by Isaac Asimov – the last (but not the best) story in I, Robot.

‘Two-Handed Engine’ by C L Moore and Henry Kuttner – a crime sci-fi hybrid in which robots punish murderers.

‘But Who Can Replace A Man?’ by Brian W Aldiss – a fantastic story of machines fending for themselves, which I first read in The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories. *

‘A Logic Named Joe’ by Will F Jenkins – interesting concept which anticipates the internet, but I didn’t enjoy the style.

‘Dial F for Frankenstein’ by Arthur C Clarke – a typically innovative foretelling of AI based on satellite communications. *

If you like robots and classic sci-fi, this book is worth a read – just expect a lot of telling rather than showing.

Published in 2019 by The British Library.