Joshua Glenn says:
My latest io9 post takes a look at the coolest robots, androids, and cyborgs of Pre-Golden-Age SF. These include: Tiktok the Mechanical Man of Oz. The biological “robots” (an original coinage) who rebel against their human masters in Karel Čapek’s 1921 play, “R.U.R.” Futura, the evil fembot star of Thea von Harbou’s “Metropolis”; and Sola, a female android who refuses to kowtow to her lustful inventor. The Nyctalope, the first cyborg superhero, star of a series of French pulp novels from the 1910s-20s. And Professor Jameson, whose brain is transferred into a mechanical body 40 million years after his death, in a story that inspired Isaac Asimov’s benevolent robots. PLUS: A complete list of 19th and early 20th-century fictional robots.
Cool robots, androids, and cyborgs of Pre-Golden-Age SF
1. Introduction to Science Fiction’s Pre-Golden Age (1904-33)
2. The 10 Best Apocalypse Novels of Pre-Golden Age SF
3. The Most Amazing Book Covers from Pre-Golden Age SF