Loading...
86th out of 187 books
—
174 voters
My rating:
add to my books
R.U.R.
Great play, that introduced the word "robot" into English, looks to a future in which all workers are automatons. They revolt when they acquire souls (i.e., when they gain the ability to hate) and the resulting catastrophe make for a powerful and deeply moving theatrical experience. Paul Selver translation.
Paperback, Dover Thrift Editions, 58 pages
Published
August 20th 2001
by Dover Publications, Inc.
(first published 1920)
There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!
sign in »
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
1,087)
"People with ideas should not be allowed to have an influence on affairs of this world."
view 1 comment
This was a very good play! I picked it up because it was the first occurence in literature that had the word 'robot.' Not really a deep reason, but I figured that it would be worth a read.
I was definitely right. I found great criticism of Marxism and of aspiring for the 'easy life' within Capek's R.U.R.. As such, I believe that Capek's work should be a piece of literature more greatly studied in classes around the country, since it offers a great rebuttle against writers like Franz Kafka and...more
I was definitely right. I found great criticism of Marxism and of aspiring for the 'easy life' within Capek's R.U.R.. As such, I believe that Capek's work should be a piece of literature more greatly studied in classes around the country, since it offers a great rebuttle against writers like Franz Kafka and...more
Valerie
added it
I'm pretty sure this is not the edition I read, so I can't comment on the adequacy of the translation in this edition. The one I read was pretty bad.
I sought it out because I knew that the play was the origin of the word 'robot'. The common translation of this word is somewhat like 'drudge' or 'uncaring worker', but one also could make a case for 'slave'.
This play makes some subtle arguments, but it can't escape its frame. The notion that humans only become human by ...more
I sought it out because I knew that the play was the origin of the word 'robot'. The common translation of this word is somewhat like 'drudge' or 'uncaring worker', but one also could make a case for 'slave'.
This play makes some subtle arguments, but it can't escape its frame. The notion that humans only become human by ...more
Bettie
rated it
Shelves:
published-1920,
play-dramatisation,
sci-fi,
sciences,
dystopian,
philosophy,
fraudio,
satire
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
People who pick this up to read probably know already that this is the first time that the word 'robots' was ever used, and that's only interesting, I think, because all of the thematic explorations found in robot literature and art such as in Asimov and Kubrick and all those little 'Terminator' movies were already there in the play! There's the 'what does it mean to be human', the war on the humans, religious implications (did mankind kill god?), all that stuff. There was an interesting forward...more
Hovering somewhere between 3 and 4 stars...
I loved the humor in this play. Also, something about "organic" robots is just really cool. I generally think of robots as being metal human-shaped computers, but the robots of "Rossum's Universal Robots" are made of flesh and bone. They're like us, but minus all that extra stuff, like souls and reproductive organs.
That said, I was disappointed by Helena's role in the whole story. When I stumbled across this book a...more
I loved the humor in this play. Also, something about "organic" robots is just really cool. I generally think of robots as being metal human-shaped computers, but the robots of "Rossum's Universal Robots" are made of flesh and bone. They're like us, but minus all that extra stuff, like souls and reproductive organs.
That said, I was disappointed by Helena's role in the whole story. When I stumbled across this book a...more
RUR stands out for that third R, the first place robot was used to describe mechanical golems. In Capek's play, the robots are more like the modern cylons in BSG, indistinguishable from humans. The play tells the tale of the island factory where the robots are made, the worldwide demand for robot labor fast bottoming out the world work economy. The people who make the robots want to use them to introduce utopia, but the people who run nations use them to fight wars. Only instead of following...more
This play contains the first use of the word robot, from the Czech word for forced work or enslave (I think). The robots in the play would today actually be term androids as they are supposed to be almost indistinguishable from humans in apperance.
The play is certainly dated in its language (to be expected) and is meant to be seen rather than read. It is also quite interesting that many of the themes seen here can be seen in many of the science fiction movies of our day (terminator, ...more
The play is certainly dated in its language (to be expected) and is meant to be seen rather than read. It is also quite interesting that many of the themes seen here can be seen in many of the science fiction movies of our day (terminator, ...more
This was a Christmas gift that I hurriedly read over the post Christmas break. One of my brothers had bought it for me from my amazon wishlist. The book had got there because I found that this book is the first use of the now ubiquitous word "robot" to mean an mechanical artificial human. That was an interesting point of science fiction history that I wanted to know more about.
Once I sat down to read the book and I found it's a play from the 1920's and has lots of elements fr...more
Once I sat down to read the book and I found it's a play from the 1920's and has lots of elements fr...more
Even though I give this a full five out of five, there was one thing that I did not like: I do not think it worked well as a play. I kept thinking to myself how awkward some of the stage directions were.
That said, I would freaking love to see a production of this. I could see a great director taking this play in so many directions and with a bit of tweaking it would be incredibly engaging.
For the first book to use the word robots, I was stunned. Obviously this play was ...more
That said, I would freaking love to see a production of this. I could see a great director taking this play in so many directions and with a bit of tweaking it would be incredibly engaging.
For the first book to use the word robots, I was stunned. Obviously this play was ...more
The origin of the term 'robot', although they were really artificial life, not mechanical at all. Asimov read the play and adopted the term for his much more inhuman creations.
It's a good story -- amazingly good, considering that it's science fiction from 1920, before there was such a thing. There's a real drama, and a lot of period paternalism, and love and consequences.
I did not see the ending coming.
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/capek/ka...
It's a good story -- amazingly good, considering that it's science fiction from 1920, before there was such a thing. There's a real drama, and a lot of period paternalism, and love and consequences.
I did not see the ending coming.
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/capek/ka...
(It's not often you can write both "theatre" and "scifi" as a shelf for a book, and even w/ this one it's kind of a stretch.)
It was interesting. There were more ideas in this book than I was expecting, or even prepared for, or can remember, and I just read it this morning. Will need a reread to digest.
Reminded me a lot of Rhinoceros and The Visit, as well as Doomsday Circus, even though I've only read the first act of that. However, this predates all of...more
It was interesting. There were more ideas in this book than I was expecting, or even prepared for, or can remember, and I just read it this morning. Will need a reread to digest.
Reminded me a lot of Rhinoceros and The Visit, as well as Doomsday Circus, even though I've only read the first act of that. However, this predates all of...more
It's not a particularly great piece of writing, but it does pose a lot of the fundamental issues with robots that recur over the years. The biggest issue, in my view, is the whole robots-as-slave-labor thing, and one character pretty much explicitly states that the existence of robots allows humans to live in luxury, as a universal aristocracy. Asimov takes up this idea later in his Robots novels, in the novels set on Aurora (if I remember correctly). Robots, the faceless laboring mob, reflec...more
This is the first time I've read (what is commonly referred to as) this seminal work of science fiction.
Only it really isn't about robots, or science fiction, and it really isn't focused on actual science. In fact, there are more than a few times the process of "making" the robots (in this they are closer to human clones, without our weaknesses, than the machine-men of Metropolis and later) is purposefully glossed-over and the characters of the play disregard it as somethin...more
Only it really isn't about robots, or science fiction, and it really isn't focused on actual science. In fact, there are more than a few times the process of "making" the robots (in this they are closer to human clones, without our weaknesses, than the machine-men of Metropolis and later) is purposefully glossed-over and the characters of the play disregard it as somethin...more
I remember hearing the radio version of this play more than ten years ago, back before the significant year 2000 when most of the story's action takes place. All that I can really recall, asides from the excitement of hearing what was the first reference to a robot, was mostly the long expository dialogue about how the robots were created and sold around the world - must've fallen asleep as I don't remember much else. Reading these passages this time around gave me a better sense of foreboding...more
I don't have time to write a full review, but I will say that this book taught me the importance of the translator. Originally, I read the version translated by Claudia Novak-Jones, which was wonderful, but I later purchased a different translation on eBay; it was horrible. It lacked absolutely all of the emotion and nuance from the Novak-Jones translation (and presumably the original).
In other words, don't risk it, buy this version http://www.amazon.com/R-U-R-Rossums-Univ...
...more
In other words, don't risk it, buy this version http://www.amazon.com/R-U-R-Rossums-Univ...
...more
Frenchi
added it
It was pretty dumb and then pretty obvious, all of the characters were flat and predictable and the only female in the play was treated like a child and like a bride at the same time which was creepy. The diaglogue seemed to drag on and on. I also found myself thinking "The play was over 2 Acts ago, why am I still reading this?" The overall theme is still pretty relevant today, which I guess should stand for something as this was written in 1928. Thats all I gotta say about it.
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.
No, this is not a play that will “wow” most modern sci-fi fans. But if you’re able to read literature with a historical sensibility, the play is fascinating. Much has been said about the genre novels and films that owe so much to Capek’s ideas, but I was also stuck by the ties it has to some less obvious books (such as PD James’ dystopian novel The Children of Men and CS Lewis’ polemic work The Abolition of Man).
It's hard to say much about this. It's an old play, and a melodrama at that. It's got some great lines, but the conflicts of the book focus on class and the importance of labor in a moral society, neither of which resonate with me personally.
Really, it's more of a piece of history being the coining of the word "robot" and to see the ideas and drama that surrounded that concept's creation. In that light it's an interesting, quick read.
Really, it's more of a piece of history being the coining of the word "robot" and to see the ideas and drama that surrounded that concept's creation. In that light it's an interesting, quick read.
I'm not fan of sci-fi but this was really nice piece. It had this feel of naivety but I liked that. Still I found unbelievable how many people miss the point of R.U.R.. Čapek, as he himself said, didn't want to say that "technology" and evolution are bad. He wanted to let us know that if people would stay as they were, then technology could turn against them. In other words, this book is criticism of humanity not technology.
Visiting a future where human labor becomes non-essential, R.U.R. or Rossum’s Universal Robots reveals a foreboding future. R.U.R was written in Czech by author Karel Capek in 1921 (the same year as Zamyatin’s We). I read Claudia Novak’s translation. There is always a real and present danger that modern science, operating without a moral compass, will strip away God’s creation and in the process destroy mankind and the beauty our natural world.
Roman Catholic View on the Dignity of Hum...more
Roman Catholic View on the Dignity of Hum...more
The play which is largely credited with giving the english language the word Robot (from the czech robota) while lacking tin me, instead using more life like constructs, has the quintessential robot plot: Robots are created to eliminate work, robots rebel, the future of humanity/robot kind is decided by a few isolated characters. It's delightful, quirky, and possess some peculiar period details.
This is a reprint of the Theater Guild's 1923 edition. I'd like to read a less "my gracious, what brutes" translation, perhaps this is literal, but a contemporary interpretation would be taken more seriously.
Whenever the somewhat saccharine lead of Helena got to fretting and skitting, pun not intended, I reminded myself to envision this on the stage, and not hold it as mere imaginative exercise.
The first act, especially, is neatly wrapped, and the overall pacin...more
Whenever the somewhat saccharine lead of Helena got to fretting and skitting, pun not intended, I reminded myself to envision this on the stage, and not hold it as mere imaginative exercise.
The first act, especially, is neatly wrapped, and the overall pacin...more
I found this book at Stacey's Bookstore on Market Street in SF back in 2003, it is a great book, very short and interesting. Because of the title of the book it caught my attention although I am not familiar with the author. I like the book, I was a bit blown away by the ending but it is fiction and when you are a fiction writer as the author and myself, anything is possible.
If you have ever liked science fiction, this play was really the start of it all. Capek invented the word "robot." I feel like half of all science fiction I have read or seen rips off this book directly. Really easy to read with a really compelling plot. Everything that makes science fiction cool is in this play.
technically they are bioengineered organisms
the end is weird and sappy and I didn't love it, otherwise this would get five stars (even with the awful ditzy sole female character -- you can't have it all)
it was witty and absurd and had political resonance without being a cut-and-dried lifeless allegory
the end is weird and sappy and I didn't love it, otherwise this would get five stars (even with the awful ditzy sole female character -- you can't have it all)
it was witty and absurd and had political resonance without being a cut-and-dried lifeless allegory
Rossum's Universal Robots: notable of course for its introduction of the word 'robot' outside of the Slavic languages, this play is the most famous work of the Czech journalist, who also wrote novels and essays, and studied philosophy in Prague, Berlin and Paris. He died in 1938.
For what it is it's amazing. In the context of it being the first mention or use of the concept of "robots" it is groundbreaking. In the context of popular fiction it's a cute and interesting piece, a diversion. It is short, dramatic and fun. Worth reading for it's historical aspect alone.
I read this because someone in my Dystopian Science Fiction book club thought it would be funny for our group to reenact this play. While it contains interesting themes on the proliferation of a race of robots, I'm not sure I'm enthusiastic enough to do a dramatic production of it. This is a play first performed in 1921 and was the first use of the word robot, derived from the Czech word for labor.
Wikipedia says there a movie coming out in 2011.
Wikipedia says there a movie coming out in 2011.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Readers Also Enjoyed
Karel Čapek is one of the the most influential Czech writers of the 20th century. He wrote with intelligence and humour on a wide variety of subjects. His works are known for their interesting and precise descriptions of reality, and Čapek is renowned for his excellent work with the Czech language. His play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) first popularized the word "robot".
More about Karel Čapek...
Share This Book
1 trivia question
More quizzes & trivia...
“La historia no se hace con grandes sueños sino con las insignificantes necesidades de todas las gentes honradas, moderadamente maliciosas y que se buscan a sí mismas.”
—
1 person liked it
More quotes…
