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An old story about a race of robots that had survived after humans were wiped out in a great war. The robots develop their own civilization, with their only goal to search the universe for the "enemy" that destroyed mankind, and get vengeance. They develop their own culture, art, music, philosophy, etc. On the cover was Asimovian robots of every kind living in a fantastic and beautiful city, walking past and around a giant statue of long-dead "Man", who was his creator.

user14111
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1 Answers1

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"To Avenge Man" aka "Vengeance Is Mine", a novelette by Lester del Rey, also the (unaccepted) answer to this old question; first published in Galaxy Magazine, December 1964 (illustrated on the cover), available at the Internet Archive. Here is a plot summary from the Recursive Science Fiction site:

Sam is a robot abandoned on the Moon while mankind destroys itself. However, Sam cannot believe that mankind did this and, based upon his reading of SF books, he decides that mankind was done in by alien invaders. He manages to return to Earth where he begins to built robots to avenge humanity. Over the eons the robots search the galaxy but find only bucolic civilizations and the ruins of technological ones. A long study of Earth reveals the truth but Sam suppresses it to allow the robots to still have a purpose.

Here is the cover of one collection in which that story appeared:

enter image description here

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  • Great (+1), but shouldn't the question be flagged as a duplicate? – desertnaut Nov 24 '19 at 09:50
  • @desertnaut Thanks. As for closing it as a dupe, for some reason it's policy on this site that story identification questions are not considered duplicates unless both answers have been accepted. The old answer was never accepted and probably never will be. – user14111 Nov 24 '19 at 09:57
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    Makes sense, but then why my old question here was closed as such before a proper answer could even be posted? Was it that I verified the story in the comments? – desertnaut Nov 24 '19 at 10:02
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    My previous comment was oversimplified. For the purpose of closing duplicates, acceptance-by-comment is considered as good as a green checkmark. For two reasons. (1) A lot of newbies come here with their one question, get their answer, post a comment like "That's it! Thanks a lot!!!" and disappear forever, without clicking on the checkmark. (2) It would be a lot of clutter if we had to post a full answer every time the same story came up, and could only close it after it was accepted. If there is an accepted answer, and the OP agrees that it's the same story, then we just close it. – user14111 Nov 24 '19 at 10:15
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    TL;DR Yes,it's because you verified it in the comments. – user14111 Nov 24 '19 at 10:17
  • Thanks! That's it! I remembered the cover! Very hard to find this book. I did look for a duplicate question, but didn't find it. I appreciate the group's help, and will try to do my part. Thanks again. – barok129 Nov 24 '19 at 13:39
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    @user14111 It would be nice if there was a way for Moderators to "tick" answers on long-inactive questions like that, or perhaps a "flag as correct answer" option that became available after 3-6 months... – Chronocidal Nov 24 '19 at 15:58
  • @barok129 You're welcome! – user14111 Nov 24 '19 at 21:48
  • @Chronocidal I've long since lost track of how many times it's happened that somebody posted a Story-ID question with lots of details, and I posted an answer which I was sure was correct, but I never got the green checkmark. (Heck, I think my most recently posted answer falls into that category.) Sometimes, as user14111 said, I do get a quick comment thanking me for my correct answer, but then the person leaves without clicking on the checkmark. – Lorendiac Nov 25 '19 at 01:15
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    The book, "The Best of Lester Del Rey", was published in 1978, which explains the R2-type robot in the lower right of the cover. – ThomasW Nov 25 '19 at 05:17
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    It might be my ISP is screwed up, but the link http://www.nesfa.org/Recursion/recursive_D.htm is broken for me. Though the link itself doesn't appear promising. Can that really be a valid link? – Faheem Mitha Nov 25 '19 at 07:27
  • @FaheemMitha Thanks for pointing out that broken link. Fixed now. – user14111 Nov 25 '19 at 08:44
  • @Lorendiac On the subject of correct-but-unaccepted answers, I think I gave the best answer to your prison planet question (Victor Rousseau's 1930 "Lord of Space") but you never accepted any answer. – user14111 Nov 25 '19 at 09:04