Are they animals, or are they machines? It’s genuinely hard to say, and science fiction has never been much help on the question. We like to imagine that Verdie Z. Goodsey, the fictional robologist whose field studies inspired this whole collection, started out determined to stay objective and gradually gave up, coming to see the AZR-0 robots as the lovable, playful creatures they so clearly are, far more animal than machine. Then again, that may just be our habit of seeing ourselves in everything we meet. If so, Verdie must have been quite lovable herself.