One of the most popular mysteries of 18th-century Europe was the Chess-playing Turk, a robot-like automaton that won all of its games, left its opponents baffled and occasioned much early talk of artificial intelligence, its pleasures and perils.
The mystery was solved with the discovery of a talented youth closely confined within the machine itself. Extracted from these narrow precincts he was execrated and dismissed, yet a further mystery remains. Why is it that robots inspire such contrary emotions: admiration, execration, love, hate.
That is the question faced in Timothy Hornyak's richly detailed, beautifully researched and highly interesting account of robotry in Japan, a country where it has long proliferated.