I hope this won’t “steal the thunder” too much, but I’ve been inspired by the Robot partners and sidekicks thread to ask a question of my own, on a related topic.
That is to say, how many Robot or Android characters in fiction have been a love interest for another character? Bonus points if the story has a “happy ending,” and I suppose robot/robot couples could count, too.
Ranchoth
(I suppose “fictional android love interests” is a little redundant, isn’t it?)
Hmm, there’re quite a few in various anime/manga.
El Hazard / Ifurita
Chobits / Chi
Most of the cast of Saber Marionette J
And so on …
Bicentennial Man obviously.
There were at least two ‘synthetics’ as love interets in the Aliens book series.
Both ‘The Vision’ and the original ‘Human Torch’ in the Marvel comics universe sre androids and have had human love interests.
Piers Anthony’s Apprentice Adept series has the mani character involved with a Robot. There is an eventual happy ending but i wouldn’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read them. This series is one of Anthony’s best along with Incarnations.
Blade Runner
For the sake of completeness I should probably mention Data and Tasha Yar.
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
Someone in the other thread mentioned Tanith Lee’s The Silver Metal Lover. I really recommend this book.
It has a really sad ending though
Wasn’t there a movie called Heartbeeps about a robot couple? I didn’t see it though.
There are many low budget sci-fi style porn movies with sexbots of some kind.
Maria and Freder out of Metropolis
sort of (if you can understand the plot of this film, well done)
SF worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
In Saturn 5, Farrah Fawcett got an unwelcome admirer…
The movie about the robot couple was Heartbeeps with Andy Kauffman and Bernadette Peters.
There also was the orgasmatron in Sleeper.
Isaac Asimov implied in “The Robots of Dawn” that sexual relations between humans and robots was occurring (the male robots were fully equipped for it), but I don’t believe he showed anything happening.
And, of course, there’s always Lester del Ray’s, “Helen O’Loy,” one of the first uses of the concept.
Joe Haldeman’s “More Than the Sum of His Parts” has cyborg sex (and doesn’t end well), but the cyborg is mostly human*.
There was an SF anthology awhile back called (IIRC) “The Ultimate,” where authors were asked to write the ultimate story of the type of story they were famous for (e.g., Asimov writing a robot story). There were two about robotic sex, one by Harlan Ellison.
*The story is jokingly referred to as "Tom Swift and his Electric Penis.
Naomi Armitage (Armitage III)
Although R. Dorothy Wayneright (Big O) is a sidekick rather than love interest, she does at least once cause Roger some discomfort by bringing up the hypothetical.
I’d take SMJ out of the contention due to how in that scenario it’s virtually imposible for it to NOT happen. (same for Sock Munkey’s examples)
Red Dwarf (book, not TV series) opened with cabdriver Lister taking Rimmer to a house of ill repute staffed by androids.
He didn’t actually write a sex scene about it, but it more than implied. Gladia said that she considered Jander her husband. There is a scene where she describes what it was like to Baley.
Louise Baltimore, the main character in John Varley’s Millenium, has an android lover named Sherman.
Sob My thread inspired another thread? (tearing up)
Clearly everyone here has forgotten about Austin Power’s Fembots. Even Vanessa Kensington turned out to be one.
Marge Piercy’s He, She, and It is about a human/android love affair.
Westworld.
I, Mudd.
Space: Above and Beyond.
Another Anime - Hand Maid May, involving the various androids (including May herself) and this forgetable college guy.
Also, I believe Mahoromatic Maid also involves a guy and a combat android turned maid (I am just about to start watching the series tomorrow.), as another example of the robot-maid fanservice anime subgenre.
Also, I hate to admit I know this, but DragonBallZ has Kirrillian (the short bald dude) and Android 18 hook up.
The very first robot, in Carel Capek’s play RUR, was a female love-bot. These were the first uses to which fictional android/robots were ever intended. Clearly, “Robot Wives” have concerned lonely men since long before Abe Simpson’s buddy, the Freezer Geezer, put the concern to words a few years ago.
