Ben Waber reviewed Gods and Robots by Adrienne Mayor
A Greek and Roman-Focused Enumeration of Technological Myths
3 stars
While it contains passing references to ancient technological myths from India and China, this book is essentially exclusively focused on reviewing Greek and Roman myths around technology. The only section where cultural exchange and myth influence is explored is in the last half of the final chapter, which is by far the highlight of the book. Mayor mixes in some more recent references but exactly if/how these ancient myths led to more modern science fiction and technological development is unexplored. Sections on recent advances in AI and robotics are particularly grating - Mayor parrots most doomer talking points uncritically and describes how these technologies work extremely poorly. I know it's not her area of expertise, but the book would be much improved if those parts of the book were left out. Overall this book is a good summary of myths in this area from a particular part of the world, …
While it contains passing references to ancient technological myths from India and China, this book is essentially exclusively focused on reviewing Greek and Roman myths around technology. The only section where cultural exchange and myth influence is explored is in the last half of the final chapter, which is by far the highlight of the book. Mayor mixes in some more recent references but exactly if/how these ancient myths led to more modern science fiction and technological development is unexplored. Sections on recent advances in AI and robotics are particularly grating - Mayor parrots most doomer talking points uncritically and describes how these technologies work extremely poorly. I know it's not her area of expertise, but the book would be much improved if those parts of the book were left out. Overall this book is a good summary of myths in this area from a particular part of the world, but if that's not of interest it's skippable