Subtitled “The Turbulent Rise of Robotic Sports”, this book takes a look at the rise of Robot Wars, Battlebots, and the several other TV shows associated with robotic warfare. It’s interesting to me as somebody who watched a lot of these things develop from afar, from being a fan of SRL to cheering my friends on at MIT’s 2.70 contest to seeing the first article about Robot Wars in Wired magazine, back in 1994, featuring a tank-like robot with a chainsaw on top. Stone does a good job of interviewing all the people associated with the rise of robotic sports, and detailing the various legal shenanigans that eventually sucked many of them in.