The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus

Harrison, Harry. The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus. New York: Tor-Tom Doherty Associates, 1999.

A comic science-fictional caper novel (with some satire) relevant here for a villain competent with robots in a galaxy where robots are generally under Asimovian Laws of Robotics and "cannot harm man, lie, steal, commit sexual or immoral acts …". For a robbery, the villain informs us, he does not use "intelligent robots" but "brainless machines that have been carefully programmed": "Robbery robots, specially designed for this single purpose" (138; ch. 13). Protecting the villain's home is an intelligent robot; the villain got around the Laws of Robotics by instructing the robot "that all the humans on this planet are imposters. Aliens in disguise"—and the "Stainless Steel Rat" and son must work out mind-games to use the robot's programming to get around it, finally getting the robot to blow "a fuse or something," possibly a logic circuit (239-41; ch. 24). Cf. Asimov's I, Robot stories and the classic Star Trek episode "I, Mudd." (RDE 12/05/02)