the often impenetrable walls dividing western cultural history from its eastern equivalents." Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology (2018) Mayor's sixth book analyzes classical Greek myths and other ancient cultures' tales about fabricating artificial life, automatons, self-moving devices, and Artificial Intelligence. The final chapter describes real robots, animated statues, and self-propelled machines that were actually designed and constructed in the classical and Hellenistic eras. Reception Kirkus Reviews describes the book as “a collection of wondrous tales that present ancient myths as the proto-science fiction stories they are.” Classicist Peter Thonemann calls the book "absorbing" and "accessible and engaging," but feels that the ancient quest for eternal youth should not be included as an example of "artificial life" and wishes for deeper analysis of direct lines from Aristotle to modern AI. Mayor's book is "a thought-provoking account" of "how ancient Greek, Roman, Indian, and Chinese myths expressed hopes and fears about human-made life," according to Bruce Bower in Science News while The Economist review praises the "entertaining" examination of "ancient mythology. . . chock-full of robots, androids and mechanical creatures . . . that survive in written and visual form." Books The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton University Press 2000; rev. 2011) — Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World (Overlook 2003; rev. 2022) — Fossil Legends of the First Americans (Princeton University Press 2005) — The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press 2009) The Griffin and the Dinosaur: How Adrienne Mayor Discovered a Fascinating Link between Myth and Science, with Marc Aronson (National Geographic 2014) Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology (Princeton University Press 2018) — Flying Snakes & Griffin Claws: And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities (Princeton University Press 2022) External Links http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPST/Mayor.html References 1946 births Living people American folklorists Women folklorists American women historians Stanford University faculty 20th-century American historians 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women