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Robbie is a science fiction short story by the American writer Isaac Asimov. It was his very first robot story, written in 1939 and published in 1940 in the “Super Science Stories�� magazine. At that time it had a different title: “Strange Playfellow��, given to it by the magazine’s then editor, Frederik Pohl. Isaac Asimov disliked the title, but it does indicate a little about the story content. A revised version of Robbie was reprinted under Isaac Asimov’s original title in the collection “I, Robot��, published in 1950, and that is the version reviewed here.

Although Isaac Asimov had not yet created his three laws of robotics when the story was first published, Robbie does behave according to the first law. So when the story was republished in 1950, Isaac Asimov inserted the specific reference: that a robot shall not harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm.

Set in the 1998 of the future, the story is about a little girl Gloria whose parents have bought one of the latest series of robots to act as her nanny. Gloria calls him “Robbie��, and the story tells of all the games they play, and how Robbie looks after little Gloria. Robbie cannot talk except to give “rather dull�� answers to mathematical questions, but he displays human reactions and behaviour, and appears to Gloria to have the same feelings as she does. Gloria becomes devoted to Robbie, and this worries her mother, because Gloria is far more interested in playing with Robbie than with any other children. Mrs. Weston argues with her husband that Gloria might not learn proper social skills. (view spoiler)[Two years after purchasing Robbie, Mr. Weston gives in to his wife’s badgering and returns Robbie to the factory.

One day her mother tells Gloria that Robbie has simply run away, but Gloria is mortified to have lost her best friend. She stops smiling and laughing, and no longer enjoys life. Even though her parents buy her a dog as a substitute for Robbie, she refuses to accept it, and just grows more and more unhappy. Mrs. Weston decides that it is impossible for Gloria to forget Robbie, when she is constantly surrounded by places where they used to play, and convinces her husband to take them to New York City, where he works. The plan backfires because Gloria assumes that they are going in search of Robbie.

Once in New York the family visit the Museum of Science and Industry. But Gloria is only interested in finding Robbie, and she slips away to follow a sign: “This Way to See the Talking Robot��. This is a large computer which takes up the whole room, and can answer any questions put to it by visitors, as long as there is a person there to supervise. But when Gloria goes in, there is no adult around to veto any unsuitable questions. Gloria asks the machine if it knows where Robbie is, thinking that this machine should know, because Robbie is “a robot �� just like you��. But the computer is unable to cope with the information that there may be another entity like it, and breaks down.

The Westons take their daughter to every tourist attraction they can think of, but Gloria only wants to find Robbie. Mr. Weston suggests to his wife that Gloria cannot forget Robbie because she thinks of Robbie as a person. He says that if they take her on a tour of a robot construction factory, Gloria will soon realise that Robbie had been nothing more than metal and electricity. Mrs. Weston agrees that this might work, and they go on a guided tour of “U.S. Robots��. Part way through the tour, they visit a room where robots construct other robots. Incredibly enough Gloria sees that her Robbie is one of the robot assemblers. In her desperation to see her friend, Gloria runs in front of a moving vehicle, but Robbie rescues her in the nick of time.

Mrs. Weston has become increasingly suspicious of their visit, as Robbie was not the type of robot who would work on an assembly line. She accuses her husband of having arranged it all. But Robbie, by saving Gloria’s life makes Mrs. Weston feel differently about robots. (hide spoiler)]

With this story Isaac Asimov invented the idea of a “positronic brain��, which functions as a central processing unit (CPU) for robots, which in some unspecified way, provides them with a form of consciousness recognisable to humans. The idea of a child perceiving a robot as a living creature with feelings is irresistible. It has been replayed since, by different authors, but Robbie was the very first of Isaac Asimov’s positronic robot stories to be published. It was only his fourteenth story, and the ninth to be published.

In Robbie we witness the technophobia that surrounds robots. We are told that people were growing to fear robots, and to trying to ban them from the cities. Watching Robbie with Gloria, we see how such fear is misplaced. Isaac Asimov demonstrates his first law of robotics, that a robot shall not harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm.

I too grew to see Robbie through Gloria’s eyes, although I found it difficult to match Isaac Asimov’s description of him as a parallelepiped. What I had in my mind’s eye throughout, was “Robby the robot�� from the television series “Lost in Space��, and also from the classic Science Fiction film “Forbidden Planet�� (which was loosely based on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest��). Apparently I had not been far wrong.

Robby the Robot did indeed make his first appearance in “Forbidden Planet��, in 1956. He then made a number of subsequent appearances in science fiction films and television programmes. This included as “Robot B-9�� in “Lost in Space�� between 1965 and 1968. “Robby�� was known in the business as “the hardest working robot in Hollywood��. And Robby’s direct ancestor had been Isaac Asimov’s creation of the lovable, sympathetic robot Robbie in this story. Most of Isaac Asimov’s subsequent robot stories are to do with how robots can help humanity, and how humans should have no fear of robots. He coined the term “Frankenstein complex�� to describe this misplaced fear of mechanical men.

I found Robbie to be a very moving story; a Science Fiction story with a lot of heart. The best Science Fiction stories, for me, are the speculative ones. They may be classed as “soft�� science fiction by some, and certainly the adventures in space, or routine space operas don’t hold so much appeal for me. It’s all about the ideas: the “what if”s. And this story has them in abundance.

In 2016 Robbie won a retrospective 1941 Hugo Award for the best Science Fiction short story. It was, in my opinion, long overdue.