20 Of The Coolest Female Robots In Science Fiction

Cover of The Stepford Wives (Image via Bantam Books/Random House)

9. The Stepford Wives

Here’s another robot-focused story that deals with humor. However, author Ira Levin (who also wrote Rosemary’s Baby) really manages to creep out his readers.

The concept of a “Stepford Wife” is so ubiquitous that you likely know what I’m talking about after just a couple of words. However, you might not be aware of the story that lies beneath the image. Believe me, it gets a lot more chilling the deeper you dive into The Stepford Wives.

The novel (which was turned into two different movies) starts off with Joanna Eberhart. Joanna is a talented photographer who picks up her family (her husband and children) and moves from New York City to small town Stepford, Connecticut. She quickly picks up on the strangeness of the town, especially the docile, submissive wives of the town’s men. Things get more frightening when Joanna’s fellow newly-arrived women begin to succumb to the same blank compliance as older residents. Joanna’s husband, who’s since joined Stepford’s increasingly ominous men’s club, mocks her growing fears.

Those fears, alas, are totally substantiated. The men’s club members not-so-secretly turn all of the women into robots. They are programmed to be zombie-like obedient wives who seek only to please their husbands. Joanna succumbs to the plot of the men of Stepford. She – or her simulacra, is last seen gliding blankly through the local supermarket.