Great Robots of History

by Tim Major

Long before the development of AI, humans created automatons in their own image.

These sixteen weird tales explore magical and mechanical representations of humankind drawn from history and myth - from Odin carving humans from wood to Pygmalion's living statue Galatea, from Julius Caesar's animated wax effigy to the chess-playing Mechanical Turk, from the first humanoid robot on the International Space Station to online deepfakes.

Includes 'The Brazen Head of Westinghouse', winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction, 2024.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Science Fiction

212 pages, Paperback

First published March 27, 2025

About the author

Tim Major is a British Fantasy Award-winning writer and freelance editor from York, UK.

His books include Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives and a sequel, Jekyll & Hyde: Winter Retreat, plus Snakeskins, Hope Island, three Sherlock Holmes novels and short story collections And the House Lights Dim and Great Robots of History.

Tim’s short stories have been selected for Best of British Science Fiction, Best of British Fantasy and The Best Horror of the Year, and his story ‘The Brazen Head of Westinghouse’ won the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction in 2024.

Find out more at www.timjmajor.com

Reviews

[Kayleigh Dobbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're looking for a collection that keeps you permanently unsettled as it weaves numerous tales of machinery, AI, and people/beings questioning their existence and reality, this is for you.

It's really good.

[Happy Goat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The word "Robots" in the title might lead you to think that this whole collection is just about robots, but nay, fellow readers. The stories explore all different types of technology (real or sci-fi) but not only that. It also perverts things we know, that we would never even think could tie into this theme. Very unsettling throughout, and a great read.

[Ben Unsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a soft spot for the silent film era, best of them all in my opinion being either Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS (1927) or Paul Wegener & Carl Boese’s THE GOLEM: HOW HE CAME INTO THE WORLD (1920). Anything that captures their style is likely a win with me. It’s fortunate then that Tim Major has sweeped in with ‘Great Robots of History’, his ongoing series about the automata of history, and discovered the strange hellscape between those two silent films which I didn’t know could exist. ‘Great Robots of History’ contains surprisingly few robots then, but if you’re wondering whether adrenaline and cortisol can be fatal, this collection makes one of the stronger arguments for it. Whether fairytale, sci-fi, or Dennis Potter-shaded drama, there’s a lot of innovation here and the one overriding quality to Major’s prose is surely that it’s far from… robotic (ha!).

[Runalong · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great selection of stories exploring robots old and new, in different forms and has takes to amuse, unsettle and make you think - highly recommended

Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...